Scratch 2 Python

It was very noisy at the dojo today. Everyone was excited because we tried something new. It turned into a race  with some groups but they made lots of mistakes. My group took our time.

Interesting! So far, so good.

Don’t forget the end bracket.

I got it!

It is European Code Week 2018 and some of us in the dojo are going to try to move from Scratch to Python. First we had to download MU from the internet. MU is a really simple Python editor for beginner coders. The Raspberry Pi group go about things slightly different but it works the same.

Our mentor handed gave each group a cheat sheet  to make things a bit easier. The biggest delay was the MU download because everyone was doing it at the same time. Our mentor said he will have MU on a USB key for the next dojo.

Python is very tricky because if you forget to hold down the SHIFT key you get a ; instead of : and then you get an error.  My coding buddy spotted the mistake.

Typing in text for Python is very sloooooow. Scratch is fast!

Top Three Titles

Three MagPi Essentials publications on Scratch, GPIO Zero and Minecraft

MagPi Essentials Full Colour Publications

 

If you want to buy or borrow a book during the summer holidays check out any of the above titles. They cost less than a take away meal.

Alternatively, the PDF file can be downloaded free of charge at https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/ The full list of all the MagPi Magazine editions and the “Essential” publications are available at this location.

“Simple Electronics with GPIO Zero” is an easy to read step by step guide to the GPIO Zero python library. If you wan.t to go straight to the source click on the following link https://gpiozero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/recipes.html

Enjoy the rest of the holidays.

Why volunteers help at their local CoderDojo

This video was shot during Coolest Projects 2018 at the RDS Simmonscourt, Dublin 4. It gives a prospective dojo volunteer a some insights into the role of a mentor.

Click on the link for more details . . .  https://zen.coderdojo.com/dojos/ie/dublin-16/sasns-saint-attractas-sns

CoderDojo End of Term pack arrived!

The CoderDojo End of Term pack arrived this morning. The postman rung the doorbell and handed me the surprise package. Unfortunately, our school hosted dojo closed for the summer holidays last Friday so the next session will be in mid September.  Hopefully, we will kick off the year with a presentation of certificates combined with a promotion event for the dojo.

End of Year Award Ceremony 2018

The End of Year Award Ceremony is taking place on the last day of term, Friday June  29th at 11:00 am. The principal of Saint Attracta’s Senior National School, Iníon Uí Mháirtín, is delighted to include our awards in the ceremony. I have applied for official CoderDojo Certificates for the occasion. It is a special day for 3 of our ninjas as they will be moving onto post-primary and leaving our dojo.

 

Coding Badges on the way

HTML Beginner CoderDojo Badge

I visited the computer room today and downloaded all the ninja directories so the coding award badges will be emailed over the next few days. If you saved your work to your MegaDojo USB band leave a comment using your username. Do not use your real name. I will email your parent / guardian.

 

Award Badges coming soon

10 Sessions Attendance CoderDojo Badge

Award badges are coming soon. They will be awarded according to your progress and attendance record. An email will be sent to your parent / guardian with an award code and instructions on how to claim it for your profile.

One of the tasks assigned to the dojo champion is the awarding of badges. Of course, it is said the easiest award to earn is the attendance badge.  Not so! Joining a dojo is a commitment to attend as many sessions as possible, to make friends and to share ideas and know-how with your fellow ninjas. Cooperation and inclusion are the binding blocks of the dojo.

We had 27 sessions in this school year, 10 – 9 – 8 according to the length of each school term. Some of you never missed a day and will be awarded the 25 sessions badge, others joined the dojo in January and are only eligible for the 10 sessions badge and finally those of you who joined after Easter will receive the 5 sessions badge. There are no 15 or 20 sessions badges. Ninjas will get a chance to earn the the 25 sessions badge starting next September.

Dazed Gold Crest

This little fellow crashed into one of the school windows back in 2008. It is a male Gold Crest, Ireland’s smallest bird. You can tell it is a male from the orange (gold) feathers at the back of his crest. You will have to watch the video closely to catch a glimpse.

After his video debut he was placed in a shoe box in a warm dark room to relax and recover from his accident.  The club members fed him flies for the rest of the school day.

He made a full recovery and was released back into the school tree line that evening.  He immediately flew up into a tree and began to sing to let everyone know he was still around!

Here is a similar story from YouTube. (You may not be able to watch this video on the Irish School Broadband Service depending on your schools filter settings.)

THIS POST IS A VIDEO UPLOAD TEST

Open Day at SASNS

It was Open Day at Saint Attracta’s Senior National School today. All the ninjas at SASNS dojo introduced parents and future pupils of the school to the newly arrived BBC micro:bit. Scratch and Minecraft were also put through their paces. Most of our demos worked!

The Theremin wasn’t as musical as we thought but it worked first time.

The girls showed the visitors around and demonstrated various activities. Here Scratch is being shown on a Raspberry Pi 3. The boys also worked hard in the background showing off the 8 Ball and Coin Flipper on the microbit.

Raspberry Pi and microbit working side by side. What do you think of our new badges?

It was great timing! Our dojo Starter Pack arrived just in time and we put what we had learned on borrowed BBC micro:bits into practice using our new kit.

Wow! A club kit of 10 BBC micro:bits was a great surprise.

Lots of other goodies arrived including our badges but we were too busy to check it all out so that is a post for another day.

Social Media Links Missing!

A few parents have asked about the setting up of text alerts, WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook accounts for the dojo for communication and promotion purposes.

     

The dojo already has a Twitter account https://twitter.com/sasnscoderdojo and it will run in tandem with the website. The website was launched yesterday in the Computer Room in preparation for Open Day 2018. All postings to the website will be tweeted as a link.

The dojo email address is sasnscoderdojo[at]gmail.com – remove [at] and replace with @ when mailing.

In order to have a WhatsApp account or texting for that matter, the dojo would need a dedicated mobile phone number. This would be expensive to run unless a smart phone is donated and the account sponsored.

Champions and mentors are advised to communicate with parents and guardians directly and not to text the ninjas. It is the parents and guardians responsibility to pass on the message.

Eventbrite offer a free event notification service via email. Many private dojos use the service to avoid their calendar of events appearing on the CoderDojo website and thereby attracting outsiders to their closed dojo.

Facebook is open to too much abuse by third parties so the dojo will not have a Facebook account unless a specific tailored child friendly version is released and policed.