Over the September school holidays, we held out first Yellow Brick Code coding workshop! Twenty students, aged from 5-8 joined us on our adventure. We travelled through the fictional world of Codeland with our friendly code block characters. Using a combination of story telling, games and activities, we introduced students to the fundamental skills that they need to create their own fun video games. And, best of all, we all had a great time!

Today, we thought we’d share some of the highlights of each day.

Day 1:

On the first day, students were introduced to the four code blocks, Kieran, Christina, Chloe, and Cody, who invited them on an adventure across Codeland to retrieve 9 magic batteries. In order to find these batteries, students had to complete various challenges across the 3 days. First, students had to travel through the Forest of Bugs, and learn valuable debugging skills. Then, they had to brave Mount Persistence, where they learned the importance of not giving up when faced with difficult problems. We also learned the importance of responsible computer use, and how to avoid sharing personal information online. Then it was time for a game!

Using a fun game, we taught students how to direct a character through a maze, using simple direction blocks. Once students got the hang of it, we showed them how to they could use this skill to program a character to move around their computer screen.

Day 2:

On the second day, we used our coding skills to help an old lady find her missing diamonds. In order to do so, we had to learn how to "loop" or repeat coding commands. We then used these skills to draw images using only code! By this point, everyone was getting the hang of coding.

We then played "my robot friend," a game that required students to pretend to be robots and follow simple instructions. This was a fun way understanding the concept of "events," which are actions that cause something else to happen in a computer program. Once we all understood the concept of "events," we had a go making an animated story starring a playful puppy!

Day 3:

On day 3, the code blocks met a brave knight and a fearsome dragon. Students had to use all of their skills and cunning to program a computer game about a knight and a dragon. It was a lot of fun making a video game from scratch, but we made sure we took lots of breaks to get some fresh air and play some games outside. And surprisingly, we got to know that some of these kids were quite familiar with video games through their elder siblings or parents. One kid got so excited and involved that he started sharing how his brother got Mario Kart Bros by downloading gamecube roms! His story sure did hype his friends in programming their video game.

By the end of the 3 days, our students helped the code blocks find all of the 9 magic batteries. To celebrate their impressive efforts, each of our students received a certificate, recognising their impressive persistence and coding abilities. We were so impressed with how much progress our students made over just 3 days!

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