We all love interesting problems. The trouble is that it's hard to find suitably interesting problems for students when they're just learning the basics. In the very beginning the problems practically dictate the solution: loop over a list and add all the elements or calculate the sum of a list of integers. Determine if number is prime Convert a word into pig-Latin It's not that there's no thought involved in solving these but the students already know the mechanics of solving these by hand so it's a direct translation into a program.