A quick summary from the session on Monday night

[coderdojo castleknock]

Hi, a quick summary fro the session on Monday night. from each room;

• Introduction to microelectronics with Arduino
• Exploring IT with micro:bit
• Introduction to phone app development with App Inventor

Introduction to microelectronics with Arduino

We set everyone up with either mBlock or the Arduino IDE on their laptops. 

We then explained the very basics of the Arduino and the kit and then do the "Blink" project which is the traditional project to check everything is working properly and that we are set up and ready to go for the coming weeks. 

feedback from Cormac who lead the room;

To explain some background. Typically to avoid things like grammar,spelling, typing etc getting in the way of programming, we tends to start with block based programming ( mblock here or scratch, app inventor or microbit - as its like snapping Lego blocks together) to text basd progrrmming. An example from microbit is;

which  gives a beating heart

We had two laptops running debian ( unix rather than windows ), so I couldn't get mblock (or the traditional IDE) running on it. Mblock says it supports Linux but the setup does not look straight forward. Have advised the kids/parents that Windows may be necessary but will try to dig out one of my old Linux laptops to see if I can get it working. 

Half the class were from the previous year so moving to an easier compiler ( mblock ) may not be the way forward... And one of the new children/parents actually asked to use the traditional compiler and get brought through the C as they wanted to understand the code. 

So we may need some more advanced projects and while mblock definitely suits some of the kids we will need to cater for C and some intermediate to advanced projects if possible. 

Exploring IT with micro:bit

Microbit agenda  

1. Overview of Microbit
2. Create interactive badge  - https://codeclubprojects.org/en-GB/microbit/interactive-badge/
3. Tilt the microbit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG08YIMlazY

From Sreeni  who lead room;

• WHAT WORKED
• Lot of enthusiasm 
• WHAT DID NOT WORK / SUGGESTIONS
  

• Instruction to student that windows laptops are preferable particularly in arduino and microbit classes
• One parent asked whether he can take microbit home. 

answer  here is sadly no but as they are needed for classes, but https://www.coderdojocastleknock.com/what-hardware. 

We do allow the arduino room to purchase  kits from us but that is because;

- We get the kits from China to get them chap, the downside is it takes 1 - 2 months to arrive, microbit on the other hand are delivered within 7 days typically.

- Thy are bulky to store and  have limited ( read none ) storage  capacity other than mentors minding kit by taking it home.

Introduction to phone app development with App Inventor

See https://www.coderdojocastleknock.com/home/resources-1/app-inventor-resources/app-inventor-2019-autumn  

From Bob who lead room

In general, we were short of mentors - but I hope this is simply a pinch point as there are multiple mentors joining us at the moment.

The app inventor room completed 1 of 4 tutorials. I had the 4 as I was unsure of how fast the room would be and and a bored room is a challenging room . I would like like to  thank Valentina who thought she was simply coming along to see the setup but she ended up assisting to my relief :)

We  will review the completed 'I love Codi' tutorial next week and start looking at the remainder.

- Cormac, Sreeni and Bob