Blog: Half-term tech fun!

We’ve been taking our sessions on tour – here’s what we got up to at half term!

Last week over half term, we worked with East Sussex County Council’s library service to run lots of free coding and making sessions at libraries across the county.

It’s great fun to take our sessions out and about on the road, and give young people from further afield than our base in Eastbourne the chance to have a go.

Thank you to the library service staff for being such great hosts at all the venues, and to everyone that came along!

Here’s what we got up to…

Exploring Minecraft in virtual reality

Minecraft lets your imagination run wild, with the open world game allowing you to build almost anything out of blocks. So wouldn’t it be cool to see your creations up close?

That’s exactly what we did! With our Oculus Rift S headset, everyone had a go at immersing themselves in their creations. The headset and controllers track your movement to make the world feel real.

 

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Coding LEGO robots

Learning to code is even more fun when there’s robots involved! Using drag-and-drop programming software, everyone made their LEGO robot move around the room and tested their problem-solving skills, completing the tricky challenge of making it go around in a perfect square.

Some used maths, others preferred trial and error – and a couple of teams even added in ‘victory dances’ at the end!

 

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Programming our own games

Using both Scratch and Microsoft MakeCode Arcade, everyone had a go at making their own games using drag-and-drop coding.

At Uckfield library, we used Adafruit’s PyBadge boards to play our games. There were chasing games, ‘flappy bird’ remakes, maze games, and plenty more!

 

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Designing 3D name badges

At Hampden Park library, everyone had a go at making their own 3D name badges, which we will 3D print and deliver back to the library.

We used the free 3D Builder tool, which can be downloaded on any computer running Windows 8 or later if you want to experiment at home. It’s a great starting place for seeing how you can make objects out of simple shapes.

Here’s a photo from when we ran this session at Hailsham library, last autumn:

 

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Why this is worth doing!

It’s a privilege not only to get young people enthusiastic about tech, but to help our fantastic library service get more people through their doors and learn more about all the things their local libraries offer.

We were also delighted to receive some fantastic anonymous feedback forms from parents and children. It’s really heart-warming to see our sessions going down so well.

One young person crossed through the happy face to draw a heart!

 

Another said they enjoyed everything!

A parent also wrote:

My son was very excited and he was so happy with the experience. Helpers were kind […] really helped my sons shyness

Another parent wrote:

Very helpful (especially for Mum, who didn’t have a clue about coding!) Nice helpful tech people. Lovely to have a free event

More to come!

We’ve still got some library sessions coming up over the next few weeks – all of these are free to attend, but must be booked in advance via the library website.

On 25th February, we’ll be delivering an introduction to coding for adults at Seaford Library.

On the 4th March, we’ll be running another 3D Design session in Hastings Library.

On the 25th March, we’ll be celebrating Science Week at Battle Library by talking about Women in Tech, and showing you some coding basics.

We’re also running free sessions at our base in Eastbourne, which can be booked via our events page.

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