The end of term is in sight and there’s just one more coding class to go next week.
We hope our young coders have enjoyed the work they have been doing and look forward to continuing in Term 2.
If you have any question about next term, please contact admin@codechampions.nz
Code Champions April 2025
Welcome to 2025. We’re busy planning and preparing for an awesome year of coding.
Code Champions will continue to host after-school classes at St Cuthbert’s College (Tuesday) and Saint Kenitgern Boys’ and Girls’ School (Wednesday and Thursday). In addition, we’re delighted to be starting a new course at Diocesan School for Girls (Monday).
If you would like information about any of these classes, please contact Greg Adams at admin@codechampions.nz
Code Champions January 2025
We’re already half-way through the term, four classes down, four to go. And it’s been very busy and productive so far.
Creating art with code
Our junior groups have been working with a program called Logo. It has introduced them to a more text-based challenge with an artistic outcome. They have to write instructions for the the program to follow, giving exact directions, colours, angles, etc. These have created some amazing designs, shapes and images, especially once they learned about the ‘repeat’ and ‘random’ options – as you can see below
Webcam filters
The older groups have continued their work with Javascript, first creating a number guessing game. After writing the code, they embedded this on a webpage, adding colours and images, as well as their own tweaks to the game.
Now they are trying their hand at accessing the laptop’s webcam and adding filters to the feed. The code is precise, so they have had to be spot on with their syntax. But it’s worth the effort, as the outcomes are weird and wonderful, from turning themselves into a smurf to inverting the image (similar to an old negative).
Code Champions November 2024
We finished Term 3’s coding classes with a coding challenge to test the effectiveness of an optical illusion.
While they may not look it, the horizontal lines in this image are straight and parallel. To prove it, the classes took the code that produces the image and tweaked the settings to change the offset, size and colour of the squares, all of which help to determine the effectiveness of the illusion.
You can see from the ‘chequerboard’ below that simply separating the squares proves the shape of the lines. Likewise, changing the colour of the squares – in this case to ‘cyan’ – reduces the illusion, due to there being less colour contrast than for the black.
Code Champions September 2024
Our older classes have been tackling JavaScript this term.
It’s a challenging programming language but offers some fun and engaging outcomes, plus the chance to start adding more interactivity to the HTML and CSS code from last term.
The couple of weeks we’ve been working with variables. This gave us the opportunity to create and run a ‘dog age calculator’ and code that calculates how much food we’ll eat in a lifetime.
Next up loops!
Code Champions September 2024
Our after-school coding classes are done for another term.
We hope our young coders enjoyed learning about HTML and CSS, and finishing off their webpages, before we took a different direction with Rapid Router. Some of the challenges they created in the last week were ingenious, as you can see below.
Holiday course
We do have a two-day holiday course at Saint Kentigern on 8-9 July, where we’ll be exploring ‘Coding and artificial intelligence’. There’s more at https://codechampions.nz/july24holidaystkents/
See you all again in Term 3!
Code Champions July 2024
Last week, we introduced a new course during a two-day holiday programme at St Cuthbert’s College. ‘Exploring Coding and AI’ did exactly that and participants learned about the technology behind artificial intelligence and some of the coding principles involved.
Activities included chatbots (talking to them and creating our own), machine learning, face recognition, and AI Art.
Thanks to everyone who took part. We’re looking forward to running the course again in future holidays.
Code Champions April 2024
It’s great to get our first coding classes of the year underway, with a good mix of old and new faces.
Most groups are taking their first steps with HTML and have already created their first webpage, complete with headings.
Code Champions February 2024
Welcome back and here’s to a great year’s coding ahead!
We’re looking forward to running our after-school computer coding classes at St Cuthbert’s College and Saint Kentigern Boys’ and Girls’ Schools.
In Terms 1 and 2, we’ll be exploring text-based programming using JavaScript and HTML. This will allow us to create websites, as well as simple programs and games, and, as we progress, more complex code, like chatbots.
Classes take place on Tuesdays at St Cuthbert’s) and Wednesdays/Thursdays at Saint Kentigern.
If you’d like to know more about these, please contact us at info@codechampions.nz
Code Champions January 2024
Holiday courses took place last week at St Cuthbert’s College and Saint Kentigern.
Both groups completed a range of activities with the BBC micro:bit and MakeCode, including creating dice and coin toss simulations, 7-Second and ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ games, compass and level, and text chat and step counter.
What a great way to begin the holidays, something educational but also lots of fun. Well done to everyone who tool part.
Code Champions December 2023
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