Week of Code - Hardware Edition

These notes are for Week of Code - Hardware (Arduino, Web, Games). Looking for Week of Code - Classic (Mobile, Web, Games)?

Overview

What you’ll do this week

Understand basic Computer Science concepts
Write code in C++, C#, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Build Hardware Projects with Arduino
Design and Publish your own Website
Create your own Video Game with Unity 3D
Receive 1-on-1 support from our instructional team
Share a project presentation with peers & parents

Prerequisites

The ability to type text on a computer (e.g. write an email, edit a Word document)
Access to a computer with OSX/Windows (must have permission to install programs, including necessary passwords)
Software: Google Chrome, Unity - personal edition, Codebender plugin for Chrome, FileZilla, and Sublime Text
Email Account (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc) - used to sign into web services
Experience using a variety of websites, games, and apps

Schedule Summary

Sun/Pre-work - Intro to programming concepts with Angry Birds, Flappy Bird, Codecademy, Scratch, Processing

Mon - Build Hardware Projects with Arduino and C++

Tues - Design and Publish your own Website with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Wed - Create your own Video Game with Unity 3D and C#

Thurs - Project day: go in-depth on a track (Hardware, Web, Game) of your choice

Detailed Schedule

Sunday - optional setup / prework day

3pm - 5pm

Install help time

Hardware (Arduino): Codebender plugin for Chrome
Web: Google Chrome, FileZilla, and Sublime Text
Games: Unity - personal edition

Pre-work

Watch video
Do Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies challenge
Make your own Flappy Bird game
Making Art with Code
- Processing
- Khan Academy
Optional:
CS Topics - slides
JavaScript basics
- Codecademy Hour of Code
- JSBin or JSFiddle
HTML and CSS basics
- Mozilla Thimble
- Codecademy Web Track
Homework challenges
- Rock Paper Scissors in code
- Sonic Pi - music from code

Monday - Hardware with Maker Board

Makerboard Base Kit + Sensors

1pm

Introductions - students, instructors
- Name, school, favorite thing to do (besides computer/video game)
Why it’s important to learn to code
What ground rules should we have?
Text editor skills and vocabulary
- Being precise with Capitalization, Spaces, Punctuation
- Selecting with arrow keys, shift, Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (PC)
- Creating folders and saving files

1:15pm

Controlling lights with code

2:00pm

Controlling Sound with Code

3pm

Break / Game

3:30pm

Sensor Kit - Triggering lights with your environment

4:30pm

Confirm Unity setup for Wednesday
More Maker Board
- Base Kit projects
- Sensor Kit projects

5pm

Tuesday - Websites with HTML & CSS

Website about animals

1pm

What is “The Web”?
View Page Source, see HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Chrome Developer Tools
- Go to Twitter.com/awesome_inc
Use Mozilla Thimble to make our first web page
- HTML Elements
  - Headings
  - Paragraph
  - Links
  - Lists
  - Images
- Styles with CSS
  - Text Colors
  - Background Colors
  - Fonts
- HTML Cheatsheet
- CSS Reference
Create our own site - My Favorite Animal
- Use Sublime Text (a “text editor”)
- Website manual
- COPY THIS CSS CODE

3pm

Break / Game

3:15pm

Special Content

Tables
YouTube embed
- Share -> Embed

Google Form embed

Sample Form

Form embed code:

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OXXXjfutX2pbjZwAuOmwzD_vVMmXVFOJgBX-8sXPTZU/viewform?embedded=true" width="760" height="500" style="border-width:0;" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe>

4pm

Deployment with FTP
- FileZilla
  - Use SFTP
  - Host: projects.awesomeincu.com
  - Port: 22
  - Logon Type: Normal
  - User: (ask instructor)
  - Password: (ask instructor)
- Server
- Relative links
How to register a Domain Name

4:30pm

If times remains:

5pm

At home: see web manual and sample code and sample page
Mozilla HTML Reference
Remind students to bring a mouse for Unity tomorrow

Nick's favorite animal is the Wandering Albatross

Wednesday - Games with Unity 3D

Making Minecraft with Unity 3D

1pm

Unity 3D interface
Run a sample project

1:30pm

Start Making Minecraft

3pm

Break / Game

3:15pm

More Making Minecraft

4:30pm

If time:

5pm

Homework: Finish Making Minecraft
Remind students to bring headphones for Thursday tutorials

Thursday - Project Day

Week of Code projects

1pm

Review what we’ve done so far
- Hardware, Web, Games
Pick a project:
- Hardware
  - Maker Board - Base Kit projects
  - Maker Board - Sensor Kit projects
  - Build a Pebble watchface
  - Sonic Pi - Aerodynamic, make music with code
- Web
- Game
  - Flappy Bird tutorial
  - Other Project from official Unity 3D page, such as Space Shooter
  - Rock, Paper, Scissors…in code
  - Brackeys
  - Five Unity Game Examples
  - Walker Boys Unity Tutorials
  - Snake HTML5 Game
  - Pong Tutorial

Note: many projects here will take longer than 4 hours to complete. That’s OK! Our goal during project day is to help you get started on something significant that you can continue working on after the Week of Code.

2pm

Work time

3pm

Break - Minute to Win It

3:15pm

Work time

4:00pm

Show & Tell
1. Show us one thing you made this week
2. Tell us one interesting thing you learned
3. What’s one thing you want to create next?
Recap
Next steps for learning
1. Online resources: Codecademy, Awesome Inc U on Udemy
2. Awesome Inc Academy
3. Awesome Inc After-School Coding Club