[Class Report] Introduction to System Development – Week 5: “Batch Processing” with Arrays!
It’s already the fifth session of our system development class, and students are gradually gaining more foundational programming skills. This week’s topic was arrays. We learned how to group and manage multiple pieces of data together for processing.
■ Today’s Introduction: “What if One Piece of Data Isn’t Enough?”
Mr. Tanaka: “For example, if you want to display the names of everyone in the class, would you write print("Tanaka"), print("Yamada"), print("Suzuki") line by line?”
Student A: “That would be way too much (lol).”
Student B: “It’s way easier to store them all together.”
Exactly—arrays are perfect when you have lots of similar data.
■ Exercise 1: Creating and Displaying an Array
We started with basic array operations.
students = ["Tanaka", "Yamada", "Suzuki"]
print(students[0]) # → Tanaka
Mr. Tanaka: “Arrays are created using square brackets [], with data entered in order. Just remember: the numbering starts from 0.”
Student C: “Wait… it starts from 0, not 1?”
Mr. Tanaka: “Yeah, ‘counting’ and ‘indexing’ are different concepts. It’s confusing at first, but you’ll get used to it.”
■ Exercise 2: Using Arrays + Loops to Process Everyone!
Combining arrays with a for loop makes things super convenient.
students = ["Tanaka", "Yamada", "Suzuki"]
for name in students:
print(name + ", hello!")
Mr. Tanaka: “This takes each element in the array one by one and prints a greeting.”
Student D: “So efficient! Even if there are more people, I don’t need more code!”
Student E: “I could use this to send out class rosters or something.”
■ Focus Time: Create Your Own Program Using Arrays!
Today’s assignment was to “make your own array and write a program that displays something using it.” Students picked their own themes and got to coding.
💡 Student Project Examples
- A program introducing their favorite foods in order
- A weekly class timetable displayed by day
- A list of original characters and their catchphrases
Student F: “I made a character intro with lines!”
Mr. Tanaka: “Nice! Feels like a mini game!”
■ Teacher’s Comment
“Arrays are like a ‘toolbox’ for handling grouped data. Once you can manage lots of information neatly, your programs will really start to take off.”
■ Next Week’s Preview: Get the Power of “Grouping” with Functions!
Next week’s topic is functions—a way to name and group tasks that you use repeatedly. It’s a super important concept for organizing your code!
With the semester at its halfway point, our first-year students are steadily expanding what they can build. It seems the feel of programming is starting to really sink in!