SciGirls Code
Week 2
Recap Last Session
- Treating others with respect
- Pair Programming
- Writing Vocabulary in our Design Journals
Vocabulary
Sequence-identifying a series of steps for a task.
Pair Programming-the act of coding with another person at your side
Computational Thinking-a set of concepts, practices, and perspectives used to solve problems.
Coding-Transforming actions into a symbolic language
Algorithm-A series of instructions on how to accomplish a task
Debugging-Finding and fixing issues in code
The Awesome App Race
Discuss
- What steps did the girls go through in the episode? List them in your Design Journal.
- What are the 4 practices of computational thinking?
- What ways to the SciGirls use computational thinking to solve the problem?
- What was the overall process the SciGirls used in the episode to solve the problem and build their app?
What is Computational Thinking?
Getting computers to help us to solve problems is a two-step process:
1. Think about the steps needed to solve a problem.
2. Use our technical skills to get the computer working on the problem.
Let's Get Appy
What are your favorite apps?
Would you change anything about them?
How could you make them better?
Design Journal Prompt
Take a photo and upload it to LRNG Platform.
LRNG Platform
My Robotic Friends
Instructions
Materials-Symbol Key, Cup Stack Pack, 6 Cups per Group, Paper, Marker
- Choose one “Robot” per team.
- Send robot to “Robot Library” while the “programmers” code.
- Choose one image from the Cup Stack Pack for each group.
- Groups will create an algorithm for how the robot should build the selected stack.
- Coders will translate their algorithm to arrows, as described in Symbol Key.
- When programmers have finished coding their stack they can retrieve their robot.
- Upon return, the robot reads the symbols from the cards and translates them back in to movements.
- The group should watch for incorrect movements, then work together to debug their program before asking the robot to re-run it.
Discussion
What did you think about this activity?
What was the most difficult part?
How does this activity relate to coding?
Coding Compliments
Events
Rectangle=Clap your hands twice
Hexagon=say "chugga chugga"
Build Your First App-Coding Compliments
You will use Thunkable to create the app.
Thunkable is an integrated development environment (IDE), which basically means all the tools needed to develop a program are contained in one software application. Explain that the girls will use other IDEs later in the program as well. Thunkable uses a programming language called Blockly, which was developed at MIT and is used in MIT’s App Inventor (code.org also uses Blockly).
IN YOUR JOURNAL
LIST OF TEAM MEMBERS WITH THEIR ASSIGNED ROLES
ACTIVITY NAME
TABLET NUMBER
Wrap Up discussion
- What issues did the teams run into, if any?
- What surprises and challenges did they have?
- How was the event triggered in this app? (the button) What are some other ways events can be triggered? You can show the smartphone sensors video if you have time.
- Ask the girls if they can think of examples of event handling that your (or your parent’s) phone/iPod touch does? Here are a few to get started:
- When you click "send" for a text message, it sends the message and makes a sound.
- When you try to purchase an app from an app store, the phone asks for a password.
- When you click an icon for an app, the app opens.