June 10, 2017

Get started at http://www.coderdojokc.com/today

Welcome to CoderDojoKC! Let’s get you started!

Looking for something to do? Practice your typing skills! Typing.io is a great way to keep your fingers nimble and learn where some of those tricky keys are located.

Are you working on the debugging challenge? Remix it here!

Step One: Wifi

1. Open up your internet connection and connect to “Fiber Public WiFi

2. Can’t connect? See if you can get to the wifi sign-in at http://google.com/fiber

3. Still can’t connect? Raise your hand and a mentor will get you a hotspot to connect to.

4. We recommend using the Google Chrome browser.

Step Two: Start Learning!

If you don’t know which programming language to start learning, we recommend Scratch (if Scratch is not to your speed, check out the typing.io link in the sidebar on the right).

You will need a parent or guardian’s help to create a Scratch login:

  1. Click “Join Scratch” in the upper right-hand corner of the Scratch site.
  2. Create a username that does not include your real name.
  3. Think of a password that you can remember easily. You should have your parent or guardian write this down and save it.
  4. Click “Next” and continue following the directions. You will need a valid email address (yours or your guardian’s) to continue.

Once you have a Scratch login, use the links below to build something awesome.

Step Three: Learn to Code

1. Are you brand new to coding? Start with Codecademy (recommended for 13 years & up) or Scratch (recommended for 12 years & under).  Want to try building your own phone application? Check out App Inventor! Be sure to create an account and write down your username and password so you won’t forget!

2. Do you have a little coding under your belt? Are you ready to learn more? Check out these fun games:

3. Were you working on a project from our last session? Feel free to continue on that, and ask mentors if you need any help!

4. Get started on the new project. We can’t wait to see what you create!

Step Four: Check Out the Projects

Mastery – Feeling masterful? Check out the requirements for our mastery badges. You can earn cool pins!

Today’s theme: Father’s Day

Today’s Concept: Proximity

Let’s take a look at a concept that helps make many games interesting: proximity. Proximity tells us how far apart two things are from each other. Many games rely, in a huge part, upon proximity. For instance, in Tic Tac Toe, you must form a line of Xes or Os; we say the shapes that make up the line are in close proximity to one another.

In Scratch, we have two ways of finding proximity. We can automatically get the distance between two sprites with the distance operator:

Or we can manually calculate the distance using the X/Y position operator.

 

For today’s session, we want to see at least two things in order to be eligible for presenting to the group: The theme of Father’s Day and the use of proximity.

Example Project:


Step Five: Show Off!

Did you create something awesome based off of one of these projects? Come present it on stage! Presentations will start at 11:30 am. Let a mentor know you want to show off your work. Scratch projects that will be presented will be added the CoderDojoKC Studio by a mentor.

**Presentations may not contain any politics, violence, gore, or bad words. (And we’re counting “sucks” as a bad word!)