Category: Uncategorized

Space – our new frontier!

Our Code Club and I are about to embark on Mission Zero from Astro-Pi. We’ll do the coding on an emulator: trinket.io/mission-zero but then I’d like them to be able to see their code run on a Sense HAT, just like they have up there, on the International Space Station.

Mission_Zero logo

Image from http://www.raspberrypi.org

Getting the Sense Hat working took a bit of time so I’m going to describe the process, and put some troubleshooting tips, in another post on  Geek Gran . Scroll down to the Sense HAT post.

We have a Mission Zero crew of eight already to begin.

Can’t wait to get started!

Screaming Jelly Babies with Bishopthorpe Code Club

This term two pupils each week had a go at some Raspberry Pi electronics. Code Club gave the group a Raspberry Pi2 so that’s what we used. They had a few jumper wires (female to female), some paper clips and a jelly baby.

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They used some pre-written Python code (thanks Cotswold Raspberry Jam) to join their paperclips inside the jelly baby to complete a circuit and make the jelly baby scream. You can see the result here: Screaming Jelly Babies on Twitter

You can find the details of the activity here: Cotswold Jam Jelly Baby

and I used an updated version from Hull Raspberry Jam GitHub site:

Hull Rasp Jam Screaming Jelly Babies

Of course, once they’d made their jelly babies scream, or in some cases burp, a lot of jelly babies got eaten!

Last Code Club of the year!

As we did our last Code Club of the year, I pondered on what we achieved this time.  I’m not sure we have done as much as we did in the previous 5-week Level 1 Scratch courses.  Considering there were only seven pupils in this group, I don’t think I helped them progress as much as we have in the past.

Maybe it’s because I wanted to put out the Raspberry Pi in most sessions, if I could, and that takes up a lot of time.  It’s been worth it in the previous three sessions, I’ve used it, because the pupils loved using Minecraft and I hope to get them hacking Minecraft with Python in the future.  In this session I corrupted the micro SD card because I didn’t realise it wasn’t clicked-in properly.  That’s something I need to deal with over the summer break.  I guess I need to reformat the SD card then reload the NOOBS software to get the Raspbian Operating System, etc. back.

Here’s some of this term’s crew, doing whatever they liked in the final session, working on pivot animator.  I didn’t know anything about this so I’d better learn over the break.  They seemed to be making some good stickman animations anyway.

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Others were working on kahootz 3; this is another piece of software that I need to learn about.

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It seems to be about making 3D worlds – so a bit like Minecraft but more versatile.

Well that’s it for this year.  Next year we’ll have BBC micro:bits to use which should make learning more practical and fun.  Just certificates to give out for 2016 and me to evaluate our activities so I can think how to improve the courses for next year.

Bye for now!

New year, new Code Club crew!

Started the new year with

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Rock Band activity starter

the Rock Band activity. All the year 4 pupils seem to be enjoying this project.

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Five of our Code Club crew working on their first Code Club Scratch program

There are 15 pupils in this new group, and they’ve only learnt a little Scratch before, so we are adopting the ‘expert’ strategy as there is only one of me!  Three or four experts have been recruited to help others with, for example, when it’s appropriate to add a sprite or when an extra costume would work better. That is going to be crucial in the Snowball project we are starting next.

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Two of our Code Club crew working on Code Club Scratch ‘Rock Band’ activity

Let’s hope we get some snow to go with it!

Happy 2nd birthday dear Bishy Code Club, happy birthday to you!

Our party for our 2nd birthday went down a storm and some great ‘paint’ designing and coding went on.

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NB Please – Not to be shared with any social media except the official Code Club blog.

Here’s some of the crew, above, showing they’re handiwork.

We’ve had 13 weeks together and I’ve never known such good attendance of 9 out of 9 every week. There have been 4 girls and 5 boys and they’ve all done such interesting work that I gave out Level 1 certificates for the first time in our two-year history. Two of the pupils used ‘lists’ in their programs too, and so were well on the way to reaching Level 2.

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NB Please – Not to be shared with any social media except the official Code Club blog.

Here’s one of the crew with his birthday design.

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NB Please – Not to be shared with any social media except the official Code Club blog.

Two more of our crew deep in concentration on their coding.

Well, that’s it for 2015. Roll on January and our new Year 4 Code Club group!

2nd birthday and Ada’s poetry- yippee!

So pleased we’ve reached this point. We usually have groups for 5 weeks and then invite them back later for another 5 once all the pupils in that year, who want to try coding, have had a chance. This group have returned for yet another 3 weeks in the run up to Christmas activities at school.

CodeClub cake

 

In the last few weeks pupils have done some great things.

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This young man became fascinated by Tim Peake going to the International Space Station.

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Ada Lovelace with her poetry generating computer

Two young women learned about lists: one with the Memory activity and another with The Ada Lovelace Poetry Generator program.

When we restart in January it will be the beginning of our 3rd year!