Best more-than-a-textbook online classes?

September 25, 2018 5:10 PM

I'm working through Nand2Tetris (building a virtual computer from the components up) on Coursera and loving it. Instead of being textbook/lecture/quiz based, it is essentially a puzzle to solve each week, and a tangible result. Please recommend some other classes that are more like solving puzzles, or are more than just memorizing an online textbook!

A favorite robotics class? Virtual forensics? Anatomy simulators? Online science labs? I am up for ordering supplies if there's a class with kits for a kitchen lab. Any subject goes, although I think 'how to write a book' or 'how to paint' are not really what I'm looking for, but something of a more defined puzzle/project to complete.

posted by lemonade to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

Best answer: You can learn the Kotlin programming language online, using the Kotlin Koans -- a set of programming exercises that you can edit, build and run using an in-browser IDE.

If you want something more in the vein of building a computer from logic gates, you might find MHRD interesting.

In more of an "increasingly difficult puzzles in programming a (weird) microcontroller" vein, try TIS-100 or Shenzhen IO.

Another, perhaps more accessible, take on that general idea is Human Resource Machine.
posted by sourcequench at 6:06 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Project Rosalind teaches bioinformatics as a series of programming puzzles.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 8:33 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]