Are you looking for something fun to do with your scholar during this crazy time? Please join us for a seven week virtual Parent Academy and learn the basics of coding. You and your child will be opened up to the amazing and limitless world of software design. We will cover things like variables, functions, loops and logical operators but don’t worry you’ll be having fun every step of the way. Did we mention that you will also be learning video game design? It’s true, you and your child will be working together to create a complete video game including creating the characters and game levels from scratch!
Check out what we will be covering:
5/5 – Intro to Makecode and BrainPad, loops and logic statements: go over the design of the BrainPad, how it flows from left to right, the core of Input…Process…Output. Talk about the block options and the difference between On Start and Forever blocks.
Projects: Blinky; make the lightbulb blink using loops. Stop Light; using pause statements, cycle through red, yellow and green like a stop light.. Thermostat; use the temperature sensor and display the temp on the display in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Also, use logic statements to create a temperature threshold and when the temperature goes over that turn lightbulb red, if it’s below that threshold then the light bulb is off.
5/12 - Reinforced Logic operators, introduce variables:
Projects: Porch Light; set a threshold for the light sensor to determine if it’s light outside or dark outside. If it’s light outside then turn the porch light off, if it’s dark outside then turn the porch light on. Musical Buttons, create four variables and assign musical notes to them. When each button on the BrainPad is pressed they play a different musical note allowing the students to create songs. With this project also introduce images. There is are two Pacman type images that the students use combined with pause statements that make it look like the character is walking/dancing to the song the student is creating.
5/19 - Recap loops, logic operators and variables:
Project: Earthquake; using loops, logic operators and variables, create a earthquake detector. When the BrainPad detects an earthquake it shows the magnitude on the display, the buzzer makes a warning sound and the light bulb flashes different colors based on the magnitude.
6/2 - Arcade basics, intro to sprites: go over all of the block options.
Project: Intro to Stemmy; talk about what sprites are and what they do, create Stemmy based on the PDF pixel art worksheet, for this project use the right facing Stemmy and put the two other sprites in a “saveforlater” function. Use the buttons to move Stemmy around the screen.
6/9 - Extensions, Animations, Game Mechanics: introduce variables, tilemaps, extensions and using sprite overlaps.
Project: Stemmy Platform; create the basic mechanics of the platform using a tilemap, gravity variable and the double jump variable. Also, use the other two Stemmy sprites to add animation to Stemmy if he moving left or right, if Stemmy isn’t moving use the front facing Stemmy sprite. Use the sprite overlap block so that Stemmy dies if he falls into the lava. The students need to create the exact tilemap that you create.
6/16 - Introducing more game mechanics: Introduce the enemy; the virus and complete the game. The final game will be a game with a timer. Stemmy has to get to the treasure chest, get the sanitizer dart reward and then destroy the evil virus.
Project: Use the tilemap images in conjunction with the canShoot variable to create the game reward. Create the virus sprite from the meteor sprite. The player wins the game when they hit the virus 3 times and destroys the virus. Use variables just like we did in the code club. Also add sprite effects disintegrate when destroying the virus. Add other effects when shooting the dart, opening the treasure chest, etc.
6/23 - Final Class: Finish the game with the timer and answer questions along with adding any game mechanics the students would like to add if we have time.
