Last week we ran our first two Code and Make workshops at Downswood Community Centre in Maidstone.
What are Code and Make Workshops?
Code and Make Workshops provide a great way for 7 to 11 year olds to get stuck into some creative fun with computing during the school holidays. The children had lots of fun while enhancing their coding knowledge and STEM skills! You can find more about upcoming workshops on the Code and Make page. Here’s an overview of last week's workshops:
Robot Coronation Parade
Our first Code and Make workshop of the day was a robot coronation parade in which the children programmed micro:bits to control a CuteBot robot to pull along a parade float; designed and decorated in honour of our new King! They began by using MakeCode to program the LED headlights and used loops to make them change colour during the parade before adding movement.
Digital Carnival Games
Our second workshop involved making digital carnival games from cardboard and detecting when players win by flashing the attached neopixel LED strips. The children had great fun learning about electronic circuits before we began coding, they then used their foil-covered balls to complete a circuit inside the game by throwing it through the hole. They combined this with the use of selection so their program could ‘decide’ when to make the lights flash. Everyone had lots of fun and some of the children even made some extra pocket money when they took home their creations and charged grown-ups to play! To enable us to easily connect electronic components we connected our micro:bits to a ring:bit breakout board first, which also holds the batteries neatly too.
Our next Code and Make workshops are taking place on 25th August. You can find out more here.
If you’re a parent looking to learn more about using a micro:bit with your child check out the micro:bit website to get started!