Welcome to CoderDojo 2017!

Here are the activities that each group will be working on today:

Newcomers

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

Scratch Guided – Beginner

1. Two Player Racing Game

Complete the 2 player top-down racing game that you started last week. An important concept in this one is variables. You might already know about variables but do you know the difference between making the variable ‘for all sprites’ or ‘for this sprite only‘?

Click here for this week’s activity – Racing Game

2. Customise your Two Player Racing Game

Make the race car/character slow down when it touches the yellow edge of the track and slow down even more when it touches the grass. The ‘Step on the gas’ add-on will help you with this.
Add a finish line sprite and make a lap counter variable that counts every time a player crosses a finish line. Hint: each player will need their own version of this variable so you will need to select the ‘For this sprite only’ option when you are making the variable.
Announce the winner – the first player to complete, let’s say, 3 laps is the winner.
Advanced task: Prevent cheating! A player could cheat by circling around the finish line instead of going all the way around the track. Can you make it so that this ‘cheat’ does not work?
Add your own customisations to make the game better

Here’s an example of a customised Two Player Racing Game:

3. Testing time: Have someone else play your game with you

Team up with someone else and play each others games. Are there any improvements that you can suggest to your partner’s game? Can you help each other make some quick improvements or fix any ‘bugs’?

Finished early?

If you have completed the racing game and need something else to do you can get started on next weeks project.

Scratch Guided – Intermediate

1. Continue working on the platform-style game

Click here for instructions
NOTE: Use this as the Starter project to re-mix instead of the link in the instructions:
Starter project for you to re-mix

2. Customise your platform game

Once you have finished everything in the instructions, use the ideas on card 8 or your own ideas to customise the game and make it your own.

3. Testing time: Have someone else play your game

Scratch – Freeform

Make a tutorial in Scratch

You’ve probably already used some tutorials made in Scratch to help you learn how to do something in Scratch. You can find many tutorial projects in Scratch that explain some concept or how to do something in Scratch. Your mission for the next 3 weeks is to make a tutorial to teach a Scratch concept to other kids. You can design the tutorial to teach an advanced concept to the other kids in your Scratch group or you can design a tutorial to teach a more basic concept to beginner Scratchers – it’s up to you what topic you choose to make a tutorial about.

Here are some nice examples of tutorials people have made on Scratch:

How to draw a circle using pen

How to Make a Platformer

Custom block tutorial

Learn JavaScript

Continue working through the lessons on Khan Academy to learn JavaScript, just click the link below to get started. Use the login you have already created or if this your first time, start by clicking the Sign in / Sign up link in top right corner of screen and then click the Create a new account link to create a new account for yourself to track your progress.

https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/programming

Raspberry Pi (with Microcontrollers and other cool stuff)

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

15th March 2017