These
little devices provide something different to a code. To see the coding interface go to http://www.codebug.org.uk/ (or see figures 1 and 2) and click on create.
Last two
weeks
Week 1
The code clubbers initially shared machines, playing with the CodeBug environment, practice downloading to
the bug, writing a routine to scroll their short message. The challenge was then to develop a routine to
have a smiley face and a grumpy face scroll across the screen.
Week 2
All have access to the simulation and code generation on codebug.org.uk but
this time they don’t have the CodeBug each, they have complete a challenge and
run it on the simulation before get a CodeBug to try it. This week's challenge was to get the smiley and grumpy face from week 1 to be selected via the buttons (A and B) - so it involved a loop and conditional statements. Most of them picked it up very quickly.
Two version were built - I reconstructed the ideas in figures 1 and 2 (the code clubbers often did a better version than mine shown here!).
The one shown in Figure 1 works by pressing A -scrolls :-) and B - scrolls :-( . Some spotted that the the 'nose' wasn't quite in the place. Some went and found the build sprite block and used that instead.
Two version were built - I reconstructed the ideas in figures 1 and 2 (the code clubbers often did a better version than mine shown here!).
 |
| Figure 1: Simple Scroll |
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| Figure 2 - Using the build sprite. |
Lessons learnt
- Give them all access individually to the CodeBug website but not to the physical CodeBug straight away
- They are often a limited resources
- There is a great temptation from the code clubbers to focus on download to the actual device when the seem to get more done if the spend more time with website and its simulator first;
- When they have something interesting to put on the ‘bug’; then they can borrow a bug and try it out.
- They should do a bit of show and tell.
Related posts
Basic Motor Control using CodeBug
messing around with Codebug
