Teaching Tip 1: Create and display an empty 8x8 board

Challenge students with the following task:

With reference to Paragraph 1 Section 2 ask students to create and display an empty 8x8 board

# Create and display an empty 8x8 board using "." for empty spaces.

board = [

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 0 (Rank 8)

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 1 (Rank 7)

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 2 (Rank 6)

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 3 (Rank 5)

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 4 (Rank 4)

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 5 (Rank 3)

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 6 (Rank 2)

[".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."], # Index 7 (Rank 1)

]

print(board)

for row in board:

print(row)

Observe and discuss the iterative structure in the code: this will be explored in more depth later.

Teaching Tip 2: Creating Initial Positions

With reference to Paragraph 1 Section 2 ask students to write a Python script that generates the data structure representing the board at the start of a game, correctly placing the pawns and the noble pieces (represented by letters).

Applied Concepts

• Nested Lists: To create the grid.
• Strings: To represent pieces ('R' = Rook, 'N' = Knight, 'B' = Bishop, 'Q' = Queen, 'K' = King, 'P' = Pawn).
• Case Sensitivity: Uppercase for White, lowercase for Black (standard convention).

Show and discuss the solution with students: 06_CreatingInitialPositions.pdf

Teaching Tip 3: Coordinate Assignment

Challenge students with the following task:

Imagine you want to place a White Knight on square g3. Write the Python code to:

• Create a variable named square_g3.
• Assign it the correct value using single-character notation (uppercase for white).
• Print the content of the variable.

Show and discuss the solution with students:

SOLUTION
# 1. Creation and assignment 
square_g3 = "N" 
# 2. Printing the content 
print(square_g3)

Teaching Tip 4: Rank Management (List)

Challenge students with the following task:

You have a list representing an empty rank: row = ["."] * 8. Write the code to transform this row into the black pawn configuration (all lowercase "p") using the multiplication operator and print the result.

Show and discuss the solution with students:

SOLUTION
# Transforming the row into black pawns
row = ["p"] * 8
# Printing the result
print(row) 
# Expected Output: ['p', 'p', 'p', 'p', 'p', 'p', 'p', 'p']

Teaching Tip 5: Accessing the Matrix

Challenge students with the following task:

Given the following matrix representing part of a board:

Python

reduced_board = [

["r", "n", "b"], # Index 0

["p", "p", "p"], # Index 1

[".", ".", "."] # Index 2

]

Write the print command to display only the Black Knight ("n"), correctly accessing the matrix indices.

Show and discuss the solution with students:

SOLUTION
reduced_board = [
    ["r", "n", "b"], 
    ["p", "p", "p"], 
    [".", ".", "."]
]
# Access: [row_index][column_index]
print(reduced_board[0][1])

Teaching Tip 6: Modifying an Element

Challenge students with the following task:

Starting from an empty rank rank_4 = ["."] * 8, a player moves a White Pawn to the fourth column (index 3). Write the code to change the element at index 3 from "." to "P" and print the updated list.

Show and discuss the solution with students:

SOLUTION
rank_4 = ["."] * 8  # Initially empty rank
# We move the white pawn ('P') to the fourth column (index 3)
rank_4[3] = "P"
print(rank_4)
# Expected output: ['.', '.', '.', 'P', '.', '.', '.', '.']

Teaching Tip 7: Calculating Length

Challenge students with the following task:

You have created a list called noble_pieces = ["R", "N", "B", "Q", "K", "B", "N", "R"]. Write a line of code that uses a built-in Python function to print the total number of elements contained in this list.

Show and discuss the solution with students:

SOLUTION
noble_pieces = ["R", "N", "B", "Q", "K", "B", "N", "R"]
# Calculating and printing the length
length = len(noble_pieces)
print(length)
# Expected output: 8