Club leaders’ quick-fire guide to Coolest Projects!

Coolest Projects online is just around the corner and there’s still time for your Code Club members to go on an adventure with code and share their COOL ideas with the world!

We want to make sure you have all the support you need to help your coders make their ideas a reality! To help, we called in our friends to share their advice, from getting started with an idea, to testing and reviewing a finished creation.

Let’s break it down

Members in your Code Club have developed a super COOL idea, and now they’re ready to start to bring them to life. Raspberry Pi Senior Learning Manager, Allen Heard, shares his advice to help coders break down their idea and get started!

Test and test again

Testing your project is a vital step in the coding process. Rohima Crook, Programme Manager for Code Club, talks through ideas to support your curious-coders to test their projects. She encourages members to collaborate with friends and family and to gather feedback on their project.

There’s a bug in my code!

During your coders’ testing phase, they may come across a bug! Mark Calleja, Youth Programmes Manager, is here to help your coders use their problem-solving skills to find and fix bugs in their programs.

Code Club has a helpful debugging poster to guide coders through the different steps. If you’re based in the UK, the USA, or Ireland, head to your dashboard to download. For the rest of the world, you can access the resource via our Code Club international website.

Time to review

Stepping back and reviewing your projects is an important detail in taking part in Coolest Projects. Kevin Johnson, North America Program Coordinator, shares his helpful suggestions on the different ways you can support coders to review their project and ensure it meets their initial design brief.

Alongside these bitesize tips, the Coolest Projects team have a host of FREE resources you can use to help your club members take part in this global showcase

Join the global showcase

We’ve seen 39 countries register their COOL ideas for this year’s Coolest Projects online showcase. Young creators have until 3 May to submit their creations and if you need further support, check out the FAQs or send an email to hello@coolestprojects.org.

Tea and tech in your community

Sharing skills is an important part of Code Club, and when Pontarddulais Primary School in Swansea, Wales got in touch to tell us about their Tea and Tech event, we had to share it with you!

Sharing skills

Pontarddulais Primary School Code Club was recently awarded £2000, which the school’s PTFA (Parents, Teachers and Friends Association) match-funded. The school invested this money into new computer equipment for its Code Club.

To show their thanks for the new computer equipment, the Code Club wanted to share their skills with the wider community.

The Year 6 club members decided that the perfect audience would be their grandparents, so they set up a Tea and Tech event and invited them to see what they had been learning at Code Club.

Showcasing projects

On the day, the Code Club showcased how their new equipment is helping them develop their coding skills. The club members encouraged their grandparents to get involved and have fun with the games that they had programmed in Scratch.

Guests started off with Ghostbusters, and club member Rhys invited everyone to have a play on a variety of Scratch projects that he had programmed, including Chatbot and Boat race. Meanwhile, Code Club member Logan helped guests to design their own sprite characters in Scratch.

“Thanks to the funding, we have been able to buy a broad range of exciting and inspiring equipment, which will help all of our pupils to develop their coding and problem-solving skills. Our event was about showcasing our equipment and sharing our love of coding with the wider community.”
– Jo Marshall, Code Club leader

Opening doors

Why not think about opening your Code Club doors once a term to run a Tea and Tech session? Not only is it a fantastic way for club members to showcase their learning, but it’s a fun way for family members to get involved. It allows them to try something new, but also helps them feel connected to their local community — you never know, you may even recruit some new volunteers!

“What a good idea! For someone like myself who is being dragged into the 21st century, this showed that technology is nothing to be afraid of. The whole event was innovative and fun — a good introduction to coding with no pressure. It was informative and interesting and well-presented by the children.”
-Mrs Ruth Isaac, guest at Tea and Tech

If you’re in the UK, USA or the Republic of Ireland head to codeclub.org to find out how you get involved with Code Club in your community. If you’re based in the rest of the world, visit codeclubworld.org to learn more.

Help inspire the next generation!

Young innovators showcase their creations at Coolest Projects

Over the last three months, Code Clubs across the world have been attending Coolest Projects, the world-leading tech showcase for young people that is organised by Raspberry Pi.

Coolest Projects across the world

Coolest Projects provides the perfect opportunity for young innovators to share their digital projects with one another and the public. This year, Coolest Projects events took place in Manchester; Orange County, California; and Dublin!

We caught up with three Code Clubs from across the world who participated, to find out about their projects and how they got on.

“It was like our Super Bowl!”

Makaylah (aged 16) and Roselyn (aged 12) travelled from Georgia to California to share projects they had created in their Code Club at Coolest Projects USA.

Makaylah and Roselyn with their project — *Makaylah and Roselyn* with their project

Makaylah had built an arcade game using a Raspberry Pi, and Roselynn had made a Raspberry Pi–powered smart mirror for checking the time, weather, news, and your appearance!

The highlight of our year with Code Club was being a part of Coolest Projects. It was like our Super Bowl — the amount of time and effort, along with the progress we made since beginning with Code Club was quite a feat…in fact, we are still recuperating but planning for our next adventures with Raspberry Pi.
– Makaylah and Roselyn

They were able to travel to California with their Code Club leader Yolanda from BHL Middle School, who is a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator.

M.A.D About Litter leaves Scotland and heads to Manchester and Dublin

Bethan, Elsa, Jack, Tara (all aged 11), and Lily (aged 12) all attend Wormit Primary School Code Club in Fife, Scotland.

M.A.D. About Litter explaining their App to judge Maria Quevedo

At Coolest Projects UK in Manchester, the group won the Mobile Apps category with their project M.A.D. About Litter:

Plastic and other litter cause significant harm to our environment. Our app encourages everyone to make a difference, maps litter black spots, recycling points, and converts litter into points for rewards.
– App creators, Wormit Primary School Code Club

Community, technology and ideas

Ayan, George, and Tudor (all aged 10) attend the BF Code Club based in Cluj, their hometown in Romania.

Ayan, George and Tudor at Coolest Projects International

These three creators jumped on a plane and joined Coolest Projects International in Dublin, entering into the Visual Programming category with their project PuFeLass, a quiz about the town of Cluj:

PuFeLass is a fun way to learn things about our hometown Cluj and then test your knowledge with a funny quiz. You can learn a little bit of history, geography and see some cool city landmarks.
– Quiz creators, BF Code Club

When we asked what they enjoyed most about attending Coolest Projects in Dublin, they said:

Showcasing our project to other kids from all over the world, getting to know them, and learning they have similar interests.
– Quiz creators, BF Code Club

Coolest Projects 2020 is on the horizon

Are you curious about Coolest Project 2020? This is what the PuLeFass team says about creating a project to showcase:

Don’t worry that your project isn’t perfect! It’s not about that! It’s about having fun with technology, learning new things, being part of such a great community, about feeling that anything is possible!
– Quiz creators, BF Code Club

The team from Wormit Primary School shared some inspiring advice too:

Don’t be afraid. It is OK to be a little nervous, but don’t let it stop you from doing something. We had to be brave to enter and come along to Coolest Projects, but we are super happy that we did!
– App creators, Wormit Primary School Code Club

Set up a Code Club today, try our projects, and inspire club members to join us at Coolest Projects 2020.

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