Newcomers

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

Go to Newcomers Activities

Beginning Scratch

We will work our way through these activities this term. Try to add your own ideas and improvements to each project!

Beginner Scratch Part 1 (first term in beginner scratch): Introduction to Scratch: sprites, scripts, and loops

• Week 1: Space Talk
• Week 2: Catch the bus
• Week 3: Find the Bug
• Week 4: Silly Eyes
• Week 5: Surprise! animation
• Week 6: I made you a book
• Week 7: Boat Race
• Week 8: Show and Tell. Pick your favourite project from this term and do some more work on it to customise it and make it even better (for example: add sound, add scoring, add more levels, add new sprites). Then we will do a show and tell in the last half hour and you can show your project to everyone.

Beginner Scratch Part 2 (second term in Beginner scratch): More Scratch: broadcast, decisions and variables

• Week 1: Broadcasting spells
• Week 2: Grow a Dragonfly
• Week 3: Drum Star
• Week 4: Next customer please
• Week 5: Don’t fall in!
• Week 6: This sprite needs you
• Week 7: Catch the Dots
• Week 8: Show and Tell. Pick your favourite project from this term and do some more work on it to customise it and make it even better (for example: add sound, add scoring, add more levels, add new sprites). Then we will do a show and tell in the last half hour and you can show your project to everyone.

Beginner Scratch Part 3 (third term in Beginner scratch): Further Scratch: clones, my blocks, and boolean logic

• Week 1: Nature Rover
• Week 2: Puzzle Room
• Week 3: Mandala
• Week 4: Swarms, schools, and flocks
• Week 5: Music Maker
• Week 6: Welcome to my world
• Week 7: Guess the Flag
• Week 8: Show and Tell. Pick your favourite project from this term and do some more work on it to customise it and make it even better (for example: add sound, add scoring, add more levels, add new sprites). Then we will do a show and tell in the last half hour and you can show your project to everyone.

Looking for more beginner projects?

If you’ve completed the above projects and are looking for more projects, try Google CS First projects, see here.

Intermediate Scratch

Intermediate Projects:

Project 1: Rock Blaster game (video tutorial)

Project 2: Shapes & Fractals

Project 3: Crazy Froggy

Project 4: Golf game (video tutorial)

Project 5: Fruit Ninja (video tutorial)

Project 6: Zombie Shooter (video tutorial) (see also part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6)

Other project ideas

If you have completed these projects and are looking for something else to do, you can have a look through these projects to find something that interests you. You can also find some great Scratch project tutorials on YouTube. One YouTuber that has lots of high quality advanced projects is Griffpatch. Another one worth a look is Code With Chris.

Advanced Scratch

This term we are going to tackle a larger project, we are going to build a classic arcade game in Scratch. A larger project will give us the opportunity to:

1. Figure out the requirements. How is the game going to work? Figure out the details of the scoring and levels, etc.
2. Plan how we are going to go about creating the game. There are always many different approaches one could take. A bit of advance planning will help do it efficiently.
3. Structure our sprites and code well to make organised, logical and easy to understand and figure out what part of the code does what task
4. Plan ahead so that it is easy to make changes (change in one location instead of multiple locations)
5. Strategies for troubleshooting and debugging

Build the Classic Arcade Game Q*Bert

Beginner coding with Python

This session is run by Hayden. You will be learning how to write computer programmes in Python.

Python Activities

Blender

New session for 2025!

Click here for Blender projects

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

Web Development

Learn how to make a basic web page with HTML and CSS. Then move on to making a full website with advanced layouts. Also learn Javascript basics and learn about content management systems which are used in building most websites.

Web Development Course Resources