Take part in the Hour of Code

At Raspberry Pi Towers, our magical helper elves* have been working around the clock to bring you some fantastically festive Hour of Code activities. Raspberry Pi Elves Ben and Gert The Hour of Code is an idea launched in 2013 by Code.org – a non-profit organisation dedicated to expanding participation in Computer Science by making it available in more schools. Their vision is very similar to our own at Raspberry Pi: Every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. To help support this initiative we have created a bumper pack of activities for beginners, and for those ready for something a little more challenging – and they can all be achieved in an hour. There's something for all ages and abilities in our tasty selection box, including quizzes, spinny flowers, Santa detectors, musical delights and even snowflake design. Put an hour aside, pull up a Raspberry Pi and tuck in! Clive’s Santa Detector No more propping your eyes open with matchsticks to try and catch Santa! This Scratch program uses a low-cost infra-red detector to set off an alarm when Santa sneaks into your room. It’s a great introduction to using simple sensors on the Raspberry Pi and can be adapted to lots of different projects. Ben and Rachel’s Raspberry Pi Music Box Trigger some sounds using buttons and the GPIO pins on a Raspberry Pi. In this activity you learn how to wire up a series of buttons to your Raspberry Pi GPIO pins and program them with Python to play particular sounds when pressed. Les Pounder’s Kids Ruby Quiz Ruby is an easy to learn language that was created in the late 1990s by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto as a general-purpose programming language. It is the language that is used to create music in Sonic Pi. In this activity, you create a quiz using a special application called Kids Ruby. Simon Johnson’s Sorting Hat Lesson Plan Raspberry Pi Certified Educator Simon Johnson has created a lesson plan for teachers based on his Picademy team project, the Sorting Hat!  In this lesson, students create a Raspberry Pi-powered Harry Potter-style Sorting Hat, using the button on a Pibrella add-on board. Carrie Anne’s Snowflakes Draw snowflakes with code using Python Turtle. Great fun, and a fab way to start learning how to code with Python. In this activity you learn how to use a sequence of instructions to make shapes, how to use loops to repeat instructions, and how to store information in variables. See our Hour of Code page for more fun activities to try out. * No elves where harmed whilst creating Hour of Code resources or soldering.

URL: http://www.raspberrypi.org/hour-of-code-dec-2014/