Welcome to CoderDojo for Term 3!
Welcome to all the new people joining us this term and welcome back to our regular coders!
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:
Scratch 1 (Beginner)
This group is for people who want to learn Scratch but have never done it before or who have only done a little bit of Scratch.
First step is to sign up for a Scratch account. (if you already have one, just go ahead and sign in). You will need an email address, you can use a parents email if you don’t have your own email address. Ask someone for help if you get stuck.
Go to the Scratch website: scratch.mit.edu
Racing Game
Ok, now you are signed in to Scratch and ready to start your first Scratch project. Click on the link below and follow the instructions in the videos.
Scratch 2 (Intermediate & Advanced)
1. Understanding functions (The More block)
As an intermediate/advanced Scratcher you need to understand and use the More block (a.k.a. functions). It helps you to make your code more powerful, organised and re-usable. Watch the following video and try out the code to get a better understanding of the More block:
2. Make Google Chrome Dino Game
When your computer is off-line and you go on Chrome it gives you a game to play. In case you haven’t seen it:
Part 1:
(graphics here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HHHACJn-fGwXVyZXQ9mUL-_UgnE9pP3o)
Part 2: can you finish it yourself???
McGuy hasn’t done a part 2 for this yet. Can you add some scrolling cactuses for the dinosaur to jump?
If you’re stuck, here’s a ‘quick’ tutorial showing how to do it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShVggPFWavk
and these graphics might help:
You can play the game here to compare it with your own version.
Introduction to 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.
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