Here are the activities that each group will be working on today:
(If you are new to CoderDojo and have little or no previous experience coding you can start in the Newcomer’s group. Talk to a leader if you are not sure what group you should be in.)

Newcomers

If you are new to CoderDojo and new to computer programming this is where you start:

Go to Newcomers Activities

Scratch 1

Parallax Scrolling

In this week’s activity you will build a parallax scrolling animation and learn about the important computer science concept: local variables.

Click here for instructions for the Parallax Scrolling project

Scratch 2

Finish off Guess The Flag Quiz

Follow these instructions to complete the basic project. Note: Do not spend time drawing the flags. Just use the flag images from flagpedia.net.

After you have completed the basic project customise and improve it by:

  1. Add scoring – you decide how scoring should work
  2. Add more flags
  3. Add a condition to end the game – you can decide how long game goes on for (it could be a fixed number of questions, keep going until all flags guessed correctly, etc.)
  4. Add logic so that flags guessed correctly are not asked again but flags guessed wrong are asked again
  5. Add a Settings feature to change some parameters of the game (e.g. number of flags shown, number of questions asked, etc. – it’s up to you to decide what settings would be useful)
  6. Add sound effects
  7. Come up with your own ideas for enhancements
Already finished the ‘Guess The Flag Quiz’ project?

If you are completely finished with the ‘Guess The Flag Quiz’ project you can get started on our next project.

Web Development

Already have some experience with HTML and CSS?

If you already have some experience with HTML and CSS, let’s start by reviewing CSS with this course on Codecademy (create an account if you don’t already have one):
A Closer Look at CSS

Starting for the first time?

If you are new to web development lets start with this introductory course on Khan Academy (create an account if you don’t already have one):
Course overview and get started

Robotics

This session is run by Nathalie. An introduction to robotics using mBot robot kits and a block programming language called mBlock which is similar to Scratch.

Introduction to Robotics session information

Microcontrollers

A collaborative group exploring how computers can interact with the outside world through a range of sensors and controllers. Primarily we’ll be using the Raspberry Pi (http://raspberrypi.org) computer in conjunction with Arduinos (http://arduino.cc) and along the way we’ll learn about Python, C and C++ programming, digital and analogue electronics and about working together.

Electronics, Microcontrollers and Raspberry Pi session information