This past weekend, two of our Forager members, Paul and Lily, attended the Virginia Beach 4-H Computer Science Training for Adult and Teens. It was a filled day of various activities devoted to teaching the concepts of coding in easy-to-learn tasks.
The day started with three different activities. The Code Your Friend activity had each person give explicit instructions to another person to complete a simple task like stand up and wave. It seems easy, but certainly was not. At the Ozobot station, each person created a color coding scheme to make the Ozobot complete different actions to get from home to the shop. The final station of the morning was the Hexbug station, where each person had to create a racetrack for a bug with given requirements, like the bug had to go right or had to go around an object. One thing you learn fast at the Hexbug station is that the more narrow the racetrack, the better the Hexbug will get through the course, which you learn is analogous to coding in general. The more narrow and specific you are with coding instructions, the more successful your program will be in carrying out its purpose.
Afternoon activities consisted of using binary code to make bracelets and a Hack Your Harvest activity that tried to get people to use the most efficient directions to get the tractor from the start to finish points. The day ended with attendees on laptops doing small programming tasks using Makey, Makey, Microbits, and Scratch. There also was a fun drone station where everyone could fly a small drone around the halls.
Overall, it was fun and very educating day of getting bite-sized bits of computer coding and programming that made it easy to understand. We are very thankful to Ms. Sarah for coordinating the day and Ms. Erica for providing the training. Thanks to these efforts, our Forager members are now trained to pass on the excitement and knowledge of coding and programming to other youths.