Great coding this week. All groups managed to finish their ‘Aliens’ game, then personalise it with some changes of their own.

There was also a ‘debugging’ test where our young coders had to find errors in a piece of code. They did fairly well, especially considering they have only been using Python for a few weeks.

Next week, we’ll be coding a multiple choice quiz. I’ve asked the class to prepare some questions to use. It’s not meant to be a huge job or too onerous and if they don’t have time to do it, no worries. Even if they just come up with some ideas for two or three questions, that would be great. It’ll mean less time next class thinking up questions and more time actually coding.

During the term, students have been receiving information sheets with examples of the code that we’ve been using. If you’d like a digital copy, or a reminder of Dropbox folder access, let us know at info@codechampions.nz

Next week, there’s no class at Chruchill Park School on Tuesday (as it’s a school holiday), but there are classes at Glendowie School (Wednesday 7 April) and St Heliers Community Centre (Thursday 8 April).

Enjoy Easter … and keep coding!

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Unfortunately, the move to a Level 3 lockdown means that we are unable to run coding classes this week (1-5 March).

Beyond that, we don’t know. We will let you know when we have further news.

It was great to get a first full week of coding under our belts.

Students got their first taste of the coding language Python. They did well and I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead.

If you’d like to practise at home, the Python program can be downloaded for free at python.org.

We explored simple in-built functions, like print(), bin() and round(), as well as user-defined functions. For example, we personalised the ‘Hello World!’ message.

We finished by looking at the code behind a a simple ‘guess the number’ game.

Learning computer coding is one of the best ways to prepare your child for the future. It enhances not only a knowledge of digital technology but also helps to develop important life skills, like confidence, focus, accuracy, problem solving, collaboration, and logical thinking.

Join our after-school classes

Code Champions’ courses help to develop computational thinking and understanding for Year 5 to 8 students. In 2021, we’ll focus on the Python coding language. We have three options for classes:

• Tuesdays at Churchill Park School;
• Wednesdays at Glendowie School; and
• Thursdays at the St Heliers Community Centre (100 St Heliers Bay Road).

Turn a passion into purpose

Whether it’s to support school studies or just for fun, our engaging and effective sessions will get your child on the front foot with this important digital skill.

For more information contact Greg Adams at info@codechampions.nz

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the holiday course at Saint Kentigern Boys’ School this week.

There was some awesome coding, tackling the programming principles behind webpages (html and CSS) and chatbots. Great job everyone!

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What a great start to the holiday course.

The first day concentrated on learning some of the basics of coding webpages. Our young coders were introduced to the HTML and CSS coding languages, and created their first pages.

They  worked on headers and footers on the page, adding headlines and images, as well as changing colours and font sizes. Plus, event after just a few hours, successfully ‘debugged’ (or fixed) incorrect code.

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Code Champions is running a two-day holiday course in the week before Christmas.

Location and dates:

• Saint Kentigern Boys’ School: Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 December

Content: Each day will be different. The first will explore the coding that makes websites function. We’ll look at the coding languages HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the basics of how they work and combine together, and create some webpages. During the second day, the focus will be on ‘chatbots’, what they are and how they operate. We’ll code two chatbots, one using block code and, once they have the hang of it, a second using JavaScript. (If there’s any time at the end, we’ll take a quick peek at the Python coding language.)

Age: This course is designed for students in Years 4, 5 and 6.

Coding experience: This course will introduce the basic principles of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and is suitable for anyone who has not already done a lot of web coding or built chatbots. Some knowledge of coding is always useful, but the content is designed to suit to a range of skills and experiences. The real challenge for those attending will be the level of detail and complexity they can achieve when creating using code.

Cost: The two-day course costs $215 (which includes the use of a computer and software during the two days).

Time: Sign in is at 9.15am, for a 9.30am start. We end at 3pm.

Place are limited. To book a spot or find out more please contact Greg Adams at info@codechampions.nz 

© Code Champions, November 2020

It was great to get coding again this week. We hope our young coders enjoyed themselves.

Here’s some of the action from the St Heliers Centre group, who are getting to grips with HTML, CSS and JavaScript this term.

Enjoy the long weekend and we’ll see you all next week.

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If you’re interested in finding out more about our after-school coding classes, please contact us at info@codechampions.nz

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© Code Champions October 2020

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The two days of the holiday course seemed to fly by. Thanks to everyone who took part.

We managed to get through a lot of coding and were impressed with how everyone worked hard and achieved some great results, creating a compass, spirit level, calculator and more.

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It was great to see everyone today for the first day of our holiday course at Saint Kentigern Boys’ School.

Both our young coders and the micro:bits got a good workout, creating a ‘Paper, Scissors, Rock’ game, Dice, Coin Toss simulation, and step counter.

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