This is the web page for the RCHS computer club.  This is a new (as of February 2012) club at the school.  The Computer Club normally meets on Fridays during Activity Block in room 217.

Information and resources related to our current activities will be posted below.

See our previous project: HYPO – A Hypothetical Computer.

Programming Using High-Level Languages

In the HYPO project, we focused mainly on programming a computer at the machine-language level.  But most programming nowadays is done using high-level languages.  There are a great many such languages in use today.  The developers of these languages usually had a particular class of tasks in mind when creating them; the variety of languages available attests to the wide range of applications for which computers are used in modern technology.

One of the high-level languages we'll highlight in Computer Club over the next few weeks is Microsoft's SmallBasic.  This language is intended to be easy and fun for beginning programmers, but despite its simplicity, it provides a number of important features which are found in many real-life languages and applications.

SmallBasic is available on the StudentShare server in the Computer Club directory.  Just copy the entire SmallBasic directory onto your USB key.  You can also download and install SmallBasic on your computer directly from Microsoft using this link.

The SmallBasic installation includes some documentation to get you started (in the file IntroducingSmallBasic.pdf).  You might also find these documents useful:

• SmallBasic Introduction Walkthrough (slides from Computer Club presentation)
• SmallBasic Library Walkthrough, part 1 (slides from Computer Club presentation)
• The SmallBasic Library Class Reference.

In addition to the sample programs that come with SmallBasic, we have a few of our own demo programs which you can download and experiment with.

Note that for SmallBasic to work, you must have the .Net Framework 3.5 installed on your machine.  The machines in the school lab and library already have this installed, so you should be able to run SmallBasic on them from your USB key.  If you need to install it on your own computer, you can download it using this link.

We'll be looking at a few SmallBasic demo programs and suggesting some ideas for you to try at future Computer Club meetings.  Please join us and find out how much fun programming can be!

Getting Help

If you have questions or encounter difficulties, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .