Expedia Group CoderDojo in London
On Wednesday 17th July 2019, Expedia Group organized our first CoderDojo at our London office
CoderDojo is a volunteer-led community group for young people aged 7 to 17 to come together and learn to create cool projects with technology.
It’s free to come along and all experience levels are welcome; whether you’re new to coding or have a project idea that you want to make reality!
For this first session, we had about 10 participants aged between 7 and 13 years old.
As an ice breaker, we did the “two truths and a lie” game mentioning 3 things we had done during that day. I was quite glad that most kids fell into my trap when I said that I played PlayStation at work, and they all thought it was the lie… 🙂
We organized different activities depending on what the kids were interested in:
- Scratch, using drag & drop blocks instead of traditional code, to make a hippo fly or build more complex projects.
- Learn basic algorithm skills based on Star Wars or Flappy Bird games.
- Use of the BBC Micro:Bit to create games or simulate robot emotions.
At the end of the activity, the kids were invited to show what they achieved over the last hour. It was nice to see the majority of them really happy & enthusiastic to tell us about what they built. Sharing knowledge and collaboration are very important soft skills.
In summary, it was fun for the kids but also the mentors!
After receiving spontaneously good feedback from some participants at the end, we can say this first session was a success. We obviously have room for improvement and already got some new ideas for the next session. Thank you to everyone involved!
We plan to have a monthly Expedia Group CoderDojo on the 3rd Wednesday of every month, next one 21st August. Whether you are a kid, a parent or a mentor, we hope to see you there!
