Jenny Salmimäki • 6.10.2014 • Frantic • Reading time 2 min
Last Saturday a bunch of enthusiastic little coders-to-be gathered in our office to learn some basics of coding. How did it all actually go down?
The excitement was tangible when the first kids stepped into our office – and that was just me and the other organizers. To break the ice we started the day with a playful obstacle course where the kids had to give simple commands to the robot (me) and get it to the other side of the room without hitting any obstacles. This gave the kids a good introduction to the idea of coding: the computer only does what you tell it to do, and you can do all kinds of things simply by combining different commands.
It was awesome to see how kids and parents alike delved deeper into coding.
After the obstacle course, we divided into two groups based on the kids’ age. The younger ones got busy with Code.org’s Angry Birds themed learning game, while the older kids took on Turtle Roy. It was awesome to see how enthusiastically kids and parents alike delved deeper into coding.
After the event, one of the questions we were asked was “why did you decide to arrange this kind of event in the first place?” Well, as many of you know, Koodikoulu is based on a great concept from Reaktor, with the goal of introducing kids to the world of programming. The world around us is rapidly developing into a place where technology is omnipresent. It is of paramount importance that we offer kids the chance to be an active part of our society and one day take the lead. We decided that we want to help children understand the fundamentals of how our society can work better. I hope that lots of other companies will also take on the challenge, share their knowledge, and inspire kids to learn how to code.
Although our code school did not make anyone an expert in coding, we hope it will lead at least a few of the kids on the inspiring journey that programming can offer.
We really enjoyed the event, and will hopefully do it again soon. Thank you to everyone who signed up and joined us!
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If you couldn’t make it to the event, here are some links you might be interested in:
Code.org – Exercises for both beginners and more advanced coders, also available partly in Finnish.
Turtle Roy – A coding app where you can create and draw things with commands, partly in Finnish.
Minecraft – A game where you can simply let your imagination run wild and build things out of blocks; great for learning geometry.
Lego Mindstorms – Build your own robot and give commands to it.
