Due to a mixup, with most clubs resuming next week, this code club was attended by just five students, four boys, one girl. We should be back to our normal numbers next week. There was one new student, which meant they had missed project one and the Christmas project, but he seemed to get on okay with the “Whack a Witch” project. The fewer numbers meant that we could get round the class quicker to help at any problematic moments.
Again, at the request of customising things, I again suggested they follow the project worksheets to the letter, and that they could customise it after. One thing I did differently this time was to ensure that each student had a pencil, and that they actually ticked the boxes on the worksheets. I think it helped, but I we will see again with the usual student numbers next week.
All students pretty much flew through this project, then began experimenting above and beyond the “challenges” set in the worksheet. One request was to change the mouse pointer to a hammer – I pointed out we could do this in the same way we attached the mouse sprite in the first project. The only issue was a lack of a hammer sprite, so they created one in the sprite editor.
There was also a weird issue where the countdown didn’t stop – From what I could see, there was no bug, but yet it didn’t work as expected. The student proposed a workaround by adding an IF block inside the loop, which worked. It wasn’t ideal but it got the job done. I think he has the making of a professional programmer!
Overall, it was a gentle easing back into things, despite a broken down bus meaning I got to the ICT suite later than I usually arrive, so had a bit less time to get each PC up and running like I normally would. Thankfully it’s far easier to get five students up and running than twelve.
The challenge now is to get these five students onto project three “Fireworks”, the final project on level one, while the remainder of the class will just be starting project two. The new student from last week will be able to work on project one, it’s just the remaining four that I need to somehow hold back long enough for the others to catch up. Certificates for Level One are just around the corner!
