Activities:
(please note that these could change from session to session and you will have to book for specific sessions)
Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online.
Design a helpful mobile app: through a Design Thinking process, children will design a helpful mobile app for a target user of their choice. Young designers will work through 5 phases: frame a design challenge, empathise with their target user, generate ideas, prototype a solution, and test it for real-world feedback.
The BBC micro:bit is a tiny programmable computer, designed to make learning and teaching easy and fun! It can be used to make all sorts of cool creations, from robots to musical instruments and can be coded from any web browser in Blocks, Javascript, Python, Scratch and more.
Python: If you already know Scratch and can type, now’s the time to try this powerful grown-up scripting language (and have fun too!) by creating guessing games, interactive jokes, fantasy games, and more. Plus there's the opportunity to program the amazing micro:bit with MicroPython to play musical sequences.
The Raspberry Pi is a popular and affordable family of small computers developed in the United Kingdom. You can learn to build electronic circuits and use Scratch or Python to program them. Program a buzzer then use it to make an intruder alarm, or build a link between Minecraft and the physical world.
Scratch is a graphical programming language, developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An ideal way to get started with coding, children can drag and combine code blocks and have amazing fun building games, animations and more. It’s a bit like the programming equivalent of LEGO!
Unity Game Development: Unity is a powerful cross-platform game engine used by professional game developers. Learn to create 3D worlds, and get to grips with the RigidBody physics engine. Later, move on to making RPGs or vehicular simulations; then learn to port projects to mobiles, consoles and VR platforms. The Unity activity is held in a fully equipped Kingston University computer lab.
Interested in learning how to create your own web pages? To start with, you will have the opportunity to choose from a variety of cool projects which will help you learn the basics of HTML. You can then progress to designing and building your own web pages as well as using, CSS for changing page layouts; or use Javascript to program how different elements of a page respond to user interaction.
Looking for our projects?
If you've enjoyed one of our projects and want to try it at home, or if you didn't have time to finish it during the session, you can find our library by clicking here
Other useful resources:
The BBC has some awesome coding tools, games and other computer science resources.
Hour of Code
Access tutorials, games and challenges including Lightbot, Python and JavaScript.
Scratch
There are two different ways to run Scratch on your home computer:
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Install the offline version. Here is the download link: http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/
Once you've installed Scratch you won't need an internet connection to run it.
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Alternatively you can run Scratch in most browsers: go to http://scratch.mit.edu/ . The Scratch website gives you access to loads of games, animations, quizzes and art projects that other Scratchers have shared. Hit the Remix button to modify a project you like and make your own version.