Coding classes in Warwickshire

The learner writes a loop that moves a thrown object forward in tiny steps of time, a thousandth of a second each: at every step gravity pulls it down, air pushes back against its motion, and its position updates. When it hits the ground, the loop stops and reports the distance. Then a second loop tries every launch angle from 5 to 80 degrees and keeps the winner. Before trusting any of it, the learner runs the one case with a known answer. With no air and a launch from ground level at 40 metres a second, physics says the optimal angle is 45 degrees and the range is 163.1 metres. The simulation must say the same, and ours does.

Two separate effects push the optimal angle down. Launching from a height means the object is already falling-distance ahead, so a flatter throw that spends less time climbing wins; the exact formula gives 42.58 degrees for our 15 metres, and the simulation agrees. Air resistance hurts most when the object is moving fastest and flying longest, which again favours a lower, quicker path, and it hurts a light, bulky object far more than a heavy, compact one. Put both together with a light ball and the optimal angle falls to 38.1 degrees.

The last column holds the most useful surprise. Even when 45 degrees is wrong, it is not very wrong: for the heavy stone thrown from 15 metres it loses one metre in 159. The distance curve is flat near its peak, so small errors in angle cost little, while errors in launch speed cost a lot. Engineers exploit that constantly. A learner who can see it in their own table has understood something about optimisation that no formula states on its own.

So a Warwickshire teenager should learn to code in 2026 because someone needs to know when the famous answer does not fit the question actually being asked. The longer argument is in why teenagers should still learn to code in 2026.