Constellation — meet the winning team
Meet the winning Code Club from the Moonhack 2023 project, Constellation. Read more about the winning team below.
Vincentia Code Club group is a school-based Code Club that is run by Ms Conventry, the school’s teacher-librarian, and a volunteer of over 7 years who is a retired and very experienced electrical engineer. The club is made up of mainly students in year 3, in their first year of Code Club and they are joined by students in older grades who have remained in Code Club.
The Code Club has been competing in Moonhack since it began 9 years ago. For some of the older students, this was their second, third, or even fourth Moonhack event! In Code Club the students began the year completing Scratch projects and moved on to using micro:bits. This year they are doing physical computing, using micro:bits in adapted M-Bots, Environmental science kids and some are even using voice recording equipment and buttons with their micro:bits to make interactive diorama displays.
For Moonhack 2023 it was decided to invest time in the Constellation project as the students had been enjoying using micro:Bits during their club sessions. The project aligned with what some of the students were learning in school already, and they were also able to link in some Indigenous perspectives as well.
Once they had chosen the project, the students spent a couple of weeks coding and Mr. Brown used his engineering skills to devise the backdrop and have the constellations printed out to use in the display. He also gave the students a presentation on the constellations and got them to (approximately) measure and place their micro:bits and constellation labels in the correct position on the backdrop in relation to their position from one another in the sky.
The students in the club really enjoyed the process of beginning a coding project from Scratch (no pun intended) and being able to make something that is interactive, or something that can complete a task. They find it empowering to know that they have the skills to create projects to solve real-world problems, and it is always a lot of fun! And their work on their constellation project is what brought them to be the winners in 2023!
Ms Coventry and her coders have some advice for other coders. Never give up on your coding projects! Even when they seem hard, or things aren’t working as you intended, keep going. The young coders will tell you that you just need to think of some different ways to solve the problem and keep trying until you figure it out.
What great advice! This will help all of our coders as we enjoy our Code Club sessions, and look forward to Moonhack in October this year!
Happy coding.
Kaye
Code Club Australia
