Dojo Resources

Dojo Activities

For every Dojo session our volunteers pull together activites based on things they've seen or used elsewhere, activities provided by organisations like the Raspberry Pi Foundation, or creative ideas they come up with just for the Dojo (sometimes with a bit of help from ChatGPT!) Feel free to download and use our resources:

2024

• August - National Playday 2024! | Scratch | Python | Micro:Bit | Pico |
• July - National Chocolate Day (or your favourite food!) | Scratch | Python | Micro:Bit (step counter) | Micro:Bit (distance tracker) | Micro:Bit (holiday activity tracker) |
• June - National Clean Air Day & The Environment | Scratch | Python | Micro:Bit (Starter) | Micro:Bit (Advanced) | Web
• May - National Biscuit and National Numeracy Days | Scratch | Python | Micro:Bit | Web
• April - Our First Birthday!! | Scratch | Python | Pico | Micro:Bit | Web
• March - World Book Day | Scratch | Python | Web, Pico & Micro:Bit
• February - Chinese New Year | Scratch | Micro:bit | Python
• January - Astro Pi - Code that could be run in space! (Python)

2023

• December - Advent Calendar (Scratch) | Elf Name Generator OR Xmas Tree Builder (Python)
• November - Fireworks Challenge (Scratch) | Fireworks Challenge (Python)
• October - Space Game (Scratch) | LED Blastoff OR Make a space ship (Python & Pico)
• September - Make your own game (Scratch)
• August - Make a maze game (Scratch)
• July - Ghostbusters (Scratch)
• June - Catch the Bus (Scratch)

Raspberry Pi Projects & Paths

CoderDojo is part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a charity whose mission is to enable young people to realise their full potential through the power of computing and digital technologies. As part of this mission, they make lots of projects and pathways available, completely free, and you can use them from any computer with an internet connection. You can access them here.

Software

Depending on what you want to work on in the Dojo, you will either access some apps online in the browser, or you will need to download a programme to your laptop. Please try to install anything you need ahead of the session:

Apps we use online in the browser:

• Scratch is a great place for young people to start coding. Click together brightly coloured blocks to build your code and make an amazing animation or game!
• MakeCode for micro:bit Ready for the next level? Micro:bit is a really cool single board computer that you can make all sorts of cool real world devices with! We have a supply of micro:bits at the Dojo you can borrow through the session.

Apps you need to install on your computer:

• Thonny is great for young people who are already comfortable with Scratch and are looking to do more advanced coding with the Python language.
• Geany is a great all round programming…program for young people who have moved past python. Geany can be used to code in a number of different languages.
• VS Code is a really popular coding programme, used extensively for building web apps, but it can be used for coding in all sort of languages!
• Unity is fantastic for making 3D environments, games and characters. It is a very intensive programme, older computers might struggle to run it.