After a long summer break it was great to host Bradford’s 9th Coderdojo at the Innovation Centre.

Having been in existence now for a year we are developing a hard core of regular parents and children who come down on a Saturday morning once a month to engage in some personal coding projects or to learn about some new technology. This week I decided to unleash the Lego EV3s. At the centre we have a number of EV3 kits already made up into simple vehicles that the children can begin to control via the software on the laptops. This can then be downloaded onto the EV3 to work without the need of a USB lead. We looked at some very simple coding to control the speed and direction of the vehicle and then set them the challenge of creating some code to drive their vehicle through several green symbols on one of our coding mats. I thought that this would engage the children for about 45 minutes but was surprised with their enthusiasm and desire to complete the task as efficiently as they could. There is something about controlling a real life physical device that engages and motivates children more than doing coding in a virtual on-screen environment. As the pictures show the need and desire to debug their code effectively using physical devices seems more natural than with with on-screen only activities. The next Coderdojo is on the 24th October with full details here come and join us!