End of term Winter 2018

[coderdojo castleknock]

We hope you enjoyed your time with us.

Pretty graph time;

and mentor numbers, as this means more time  with ninjas;

We had originally aimed high for Microbit, with an agenda of;

·         Sound arpeggio with mico:bit

·         Demo of soldering, aka Ambrose using a soldering iron  as we need to finish some servos for next bit

·         The Ambrose minecraft steve/creeper micro:bit don’t wave your sword at me ! ( Patent pending)

we were time constrained, so dropped the first two elements and concentrated on  The Ambrose minecraft steve/creeper micro:bit don’t wave your sword at me !  

for a video of Steve in action and a draft 'how do', see this link. Thanks to the everyone who helped out - there was a lot packed into a short time !

While the micro:bit room did this, everyone else did a show and tell, with John being the compere.

Now for some bad news. 

Due to circumstances beyond control, John will be unable to lead the Unity class in September. I want to thank John for his invaluable contribution to date. 

Looking to the future, we either drop unity or someone can volunteer to lead the class or indeed something else. Have a think about this and let me know who you want to do.

Ambrose did some analysis of the feedback forms that were filled in, which is here. Summary, we are moving in the right direction, we think!

Note we are you pondering options for next term. We currently have an opening to lead a class. The class could  be in;

• Unity 3D
  
• 3D design with Blender for incorporation in Unity 3D
  
• python
  
• app inventor ( strikes again )
  
• web site design

or indeed something else.

The big thing is having someone to lead the class.

Thanks to everyone's time to make this happen. You are probably wondering why we are not running after Easter. From general google group;

"

We generally run 2 terms. One in Autumn and one after Christmas. We run classes from 7:30 - 9:00 at Castleknock Community College.We do not run a summer term for a number of reasons;

1. No access to school ( we want to acknowledge their help ).

2. Weather is hopefully better ( Don't look out a window ! ), so the feeling is, its nice outside - be outside.

3. With holidays for mentors and ninjas (children), its very hard to arrange a set of dates that suits all.

CoderDojo Castleknock approach is to provide tickets for a block of classes - a term. The idea is two-fold;

- classes build on each other, i.e concepts covered earlier in the term are built on;

- We have finite resources re room space and for certain courses which depend on hardware, we have a limited number of kits which translate into tickets.

We make tickets available at the start of each term and then close tickets until the next term

We will provide updates to link to book free tickets when they are available at either

• September - for Autumn term
  
• January - for post Christmas term
  

in the following locations;

• Google groups - here
• Twitter 
  
• Facebook 
• www.coderdojocastleknock.com

"

If you want to get update, see here

We will schedule a mentors only meeting in September to get our  ducks in a row for the next two terms. 

-Bob

P.s