Mentor voices: Chris on empowering independent coders in Minnesota

We’re sharing insights from the incredible mentors who guide and inspire young coders. It’s their unique perspectives and the positive learning environments they foster that truly make these clubs thrive and help our global community grow.

Meet Chris, a passionate mentor involved with Normandale Hills Code Club in Bloomington, Minnesota, who’s building an environment where coders develop their problem-solving skills, normalise failure, and explore their creativity.

A smiling mentor named Chris from the Normandale Hills Code Club in Minnesota, promoting a positive learning environment for young coders.

Let’s kick things off by asking:

What inspired you to become a Code Club mentor?

Volunteering gave me a great excuse to lean into my computer engineering background and do something fun with my kids, who are fifth and third graders. It’s been a blast helping them and all the other kids learn more about computer science while bringing in some real-world perspectives and industry terms (like rubber duck debugging and pair programming).

What makes Code Club projects engaging for the young people in your club?

Our club did a number of simple projects to start using the micro:bits — things like creating a name badge, making pedometers, and playing the ‘Hot Potato’ game — but what really brought out the imagination and creativity of the kids was challenging them to design a game of their own.  

We brought in real-world concepts like project briefs to get them to think critically about what they wanted to build and how they wanted to approach it. Ideas ranged from simplified versions of FIFA and Madden to variations of existing party games.  

There were several moments where you could see it visibly click for one of the kids — when they realised they were not constrained by the step-by-step tutorial into building a specific thing, but had the freedom to create whatever they could dream up… which was quickly followed up by the slight fear in realising the challenge they were in for!

An illustration of a micro:bit surrounded by colorful graphics, including musical notes, party hats, and hearts against an orange background, symbolizing creativity in coding.
Engage young people in physical computing with Code Club projects that explore the BBC micro:bit

How are Code Club projects helping to ignite excitement, creativity, or lively discussion with creators?

It’s fun to see how all the different projects inspire certain kids — some have been more excited by the more visual projects, while others get joy from customising and making a project their own. 

When they were given their first option to build something of their own design, there were LOTS of questions. They ranged from trying to understand the guardrails to questioning how they were ever going to know how to code it.  

Our challenge to them was to just get started! We encouraged the kids to start writing code and test it when it was small, then write a little more and test it a little more. The emphasis was on letting the code come together iteratively, and tackling challenges as they came up instead of trying to anticipate all of them ahead of time.

What impact do you believe Code Club projects have on creators’ understanding of coding concepts?

One of the biggest benefits I see is normalising failure — even if following a tutorial, most kids make at least one mistake the first time doing a coding project. And that’s okay!  

Debugging code is a normal part of the development process, and that makes it safer for the creators to experiment, mess up, and learn along the way. My hope is that the willingness to try (and sometimes fail!) will extend into other parts of their lives and inspire them to take more risks than they may have otherwise.

How does your Code Club empower young coders to develop a sense of independence?

As the club has gone on, our young people have been given projects with less and less guidance, moving on from step-by-step tutorials to projects where they define their own problems. 

We frequently talk about the creative side of coding — how you, the coder, get to decide how to solve a problem. Your code may not look exactly like your neighbour’s. There is no one ‘right’ answer. Giving the kids the freedom to solve the problem in their own way builds a deeper sense of ownership of the solution than having everyone learning to do things exactly the same.  

We also give kids the opportunity to pair and partner with others, and put their collective brainpower to work on tackling a problem. This helps them learn alternative perspectives and broadens their understanding.

Has Chris’ story inspired you to make an impact? Join our community of passionate mentors! With active Code Clubs in over 100 countries, there’s a place for you. Ready to get started? Check out our Mentor at a Code Club page.

Bring Scratch sprites to life in your Code Club!

If you’ve ever helped a Code Club creator bring a Scratch project to life in your club, you’ve definitely worked with sprites. But what exactly is a sprite — and how can they become a key tool for creativity, storytelling, and problem-solving in your club?

Discover what makes sprites so special, and how Code Club creators can use them to spark their imaginations and build their confidence in coding.

A mentor and a young student are engaged in a coding activity at Code Club, with both smiling and working together on a laptop, showcasing collaboration and creativity.
Exploring Scratch

What is a Scratch sprite?

In the block-based programming language Scratch, a sprite is any object or character that can be programmed. It could be a cat, a robot, a spaceship, or even something abstract like a button or a speech bubble. Sprites can move, talk, change appearance, make sounds, and interact with other sprites.

Each sprite has:

  • Costumes — different appearances or frames, perfect for animations or storytelling
  • Scripts — the blocks of code that control what the sprite does
  • Sounds — effects or voice clips that bring the sprite to life

How sprites work in projects

Sprites are a very important creative element in a Scratch project. In games, they might be the player character, the enemy, or a moving obstacle. In animations or stories, they become the characters that talk, dance, or react. And in interactive projects, they can act as buttons or score counters.

Sprites can respond to:

  • Keyboard presses (e.g. arrow keys to move)
  • Mouse clicks or movements
  • Broadcast messages from other sprites
  • Changes in variables (like a score or timer)

With just a few blocks, creators can program sprites to jump, spin, teleport, or even have a full-on conversation.

Two individuals smiling, one holding a laptop displaying a Scratch project, and the other holding a circular sign that reads 'We made this.'
Cambridge Make Space Code Club

Creative ways to use sprites in your Code Club

“Sprites are wicked! What the kids see is a way to express their creativity and individuality, and get them to do things and interact with other sprites or the environment around them. What I see is a surreptitious method of teaching them object-oriented programming without them even noticing. Each sprite (object) has its own code (class) and interactions (methods). The ‘Boat race’ has always been our Code Club’s favourite Scratch project, year after year.”

Marcus, Code Club mentor, Wales

Here are four fun and imaginative ways to get your creators to think creatively about how they can use sprites within Code Club projects. 

1. Remix and personalise 

Encourage learners to personalise their projects by choosing their own sprites. Two projects that are great for this are Find the bug and Space talk. Creators can pick from a range of sprites to make the scenarios their own, or even create their own sprite — either by drawing or using their own photos! 

An illustration depicting a magnifying glass, a stylized cartoon bug, and various question marks against a pink background, symbolizing discovery and problem-solving in coding.
Find the bug

2. Create your own

Using the built-in paint editor, creators can draw their own sprites. They can go wherever their imagination takes them, perhaps creating avatars that look like themselves, or entirely new characters. This is great for storytelling!   

You can also encourage creators to draw new faces with our Stress ball project or get creative with Music maker, where they can create new sprites that play music. 

A cheerful cartoon character with an orange body and playful facial features, displaying a thumbs-up gesture against a wavy teal background with lightning shapes.
Stress ball

3. Bring stories to life with costumes

Sprites can have different costumes, which creators can animate — this can be a great way to show emotions or story progression in a project. To develop their animation skills, creators could explore Rock band and animate the drumsticks hitting the drum, or Grow a dragonfly, where they can use a costume to make a dragonfly’s wings move.

A colorful illustration of a purple dragonfly with white wings, flying near several small black and white flies against a turquoise background.
Grow a dragonfly project

4. Sound effects and voiceovers

Adding voices or sound effects can turn a simple sprite into a fully-formed character. Whether it’s a robot beep or a voice recorded in session (don’t forget to pack headphones for when everyone tests their projects!), audio can really help creators connect with what they’ve made.

The Sprint! project is great for experimenting with audio — your creators could add running noises, or change the congratulatory cheer at the end. Another nice project for audio creativity is Broadcasting spells, where creators can add sounds to sprites that turn into toads, and then make noises as they grow and shrink!

A cartoon-style green frog sprite with large eyes and a surprised expression, set against a vibrant red background, while a magic wand points towards it.
Broadcasting spells

Tips for supporting creativity with sprites

Encourage exploration and let creators spend time browsing the sprite library or drawing their own sprites. This might get messy, but they will learn what they can do with a sprite and how they can make it their own.

Ask open-ended questions when you are talking to creators about how they can expand their project. Try “What else could this sprite do?” or “Can you make your sprite react to the player?”

Leave time for a ‘show and tell’ at the end of a session — this provides the perfect space for creators to explain what their sprite does and why they made it that way. You’ll often be amazed by the thought and creativity behind their choices.

“The Code Club engaging projects have fostered much interest and excitement with the creators when they see and hear the sprites’ interactions. Creators discover really fulfilling moments as they place coding blocks into order and watch their work come to life.”

Mahendren Reddy — IT Teacher at ML Sultan Primary School, South Africa

Learn to code and bring sprites alive! Discover animation, storytelling, and game design with our Scratch Code Club projects. 

A 7000-km trip for a look inside the thriving Code Club community in Telangana, India

Telangana is a state in south-central India where you’ll find a thriving Code Club community, with over 1000 clubs. This is a result of a partnership between the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TGSWREIS). 

As part of our partnership with TGSWREIS, we’ve provided training for Code Club mentors to help them set up clubs and have the skills and confidence to run them successfully.

To discover how effective the training has been, in March 2025, some of our colleagues in India went on a field trip to visit 185 Code Clubs across 33 districts of Telangana — a total journey of 7275 km!

A group of creators sat on the floor looking at one laptop.
Creators exploring our Scratch project ‘Space talk’ 

Code Clubs in Telangana are often run in residential schools. These schools are mostly in rural, agricultural villages with limited urban development so many of the clubs were accessible only by motorbike. But it was worth the ride to meet the inspirational mentors and creators there and learn more about how Code Clubs are running in these areas.

“After almost a month of training, I was excited to see these clubs in action and discover the usefulness of the sessions we did. We created resources keeping a few assumptions in mind, and I was keen to see whether those assumptions provide mentors with the right level of support to run their clubs confidently.”

– Suraj, Code Club training coordinator

Training teachers to upskill and run a Code Club 

Raspberry Pi Foundation trainers have run many sessions over the last six months with teachers in Telangana. For example, computer science teachers were invited to the Coding Academy Moinabad in Hyderabad, where they showed us how keen they are to develop their skills in Scratch, Python, and web development. These leaders were excited to learn!

In addition, 1000 teachers joined us in December and January for our in-person ‘Prepare to run a Code Club’ training session, where they learnt how to set up and run a Code Club and the free resources and support available to them.

“The Code Club training I attended at Moinabad was one of the best experiences I have ever had. The facilitators made us extremely comfortable and we were able to keep an open mind throughout. We were going to learn new concepts, but the detailed, step-by-step training worked well!” 

– K. Revathi, Code Club educator

A classroom with four rows of laptops which teachers are sat at.
Mentors being trained at Moinabad 

Taking a field trip to assess the training

After providing the training to upskill mentors and encourage them to start Code Clubs across Telangana, the team set out on a field trip to visit clubs, offer support, meet young creators, and learn about the impact these clubs are having, as well as the challenges they face. 

It was clear from the first clubs they visited that, despite limited resources like shared laptops (often the ratio is 1:3) and inconsistent internet or power with no backup, the atmosphere in these clubs is vibrant!

What we learnt from our travels

Combining online and offline learning

Within Telangana clubs, young people will often work offline on Scratch resources and our online project pathways, creating animations and adapting them according to their interests and adding cultural elements.

Online activities like building web pages also gave creators a chance to personalise their projects — showcasing their school or sharing meaningful information in ways that reflected their own voice.

A hand drawn HTML poster
A HTML poster created at a Code Club

We learnt that creators grasped coding concepts and followed briefs effectively, even with limited resources and in schools with no resources at all. We were impressed with their resourcefulness and how they adapted online resources to offline.

We’re now working on more unplugged projects to help leaders, mentors, and creators continue to learn and thrive in environments with fewer available resources. Watch this space!

Personalising projects for real-world impact 

A big element that we encourage across the whole of the Code Club community is that we want to support creators to make projects that matter to them. When we see this first-hand, we are truly inspired. 

During our field trip, we saw young people using their coding skills to address local issues and offer potential solutions to water management, crop health, and gender equality. 

“I never thought that our computer lab would be used. Now I can also design things which are useful for me and my community. I always used to watch these things on YouTube and now I get a chance to MAKE it. I am very happy that I got a chance to be part of Code Club.” – Sagar, Code Club student mentor

Building life skills and confidence

These clubs in Telangana are bridging the digital divide by providing essential skills — both digital and wider life skills — to more rural communities.

We noted that peer learning is emphasised, fostering collaboration and shared discovery, and allowing young people to experiment and build teamwork skills.

A group of creators sat on the floor with a mentor looking at a Scratch project on a laptop.
Exploring code together

It was also encouraging to hear that in the short time these Code Clubs have been running, mentors are seeing how they are significantly improving logical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and digital literacy among young people. Mentors told us that they’re helping to boost young people’s confidence and show them the future opportunities available in STEM fields.

“Many of our students had never used a computer before this Code Club. With the right support and resources, they are now exploring, learning, and even creating on their own. Bridging the digital divide is not just about technology — it’s about giving every child a fair chance to succeed.” – Sridhar, Teacher

What’s next?

The inspiring encounters with amazing mentors and young creators in Telangana’s vibrant Code Clubs reinforced that this partnership is about more than just code — it’s about unlocking potential and building brighter futures, one project at a time.

Returning to our desks, we’re now focused on translating these insights into better support for rural clubs through improved online/offline resources, skill-building videos, confidence-boosting training for leaders, and readily available technical help.

Do you wish to start a Code Club in India? Reach out to Vasu, our National Community Manager at: india@raspberrypi.org