What is coding? Most people know nothing about it until they begin the Hour of Code campaign. Everyone has the potential to change their lifestyle. Taking an hour of every day to code can be the best way to break out of a boring routine. There are many free coding games and websites online that provide you with enough tutorials to learn a coding curriculum.
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time to search through the various offerings, download the ones that seem interesting, and understand what they’re trying to teach.
The Hour of Code initiative respects your valuable time. Through their collection of resources, you can learn the basics of more than 40 programming language in only one hour apiece.
RoboGarden wants to play a part in this campaign, so we have developed three different levels of fun coding games. If you have a background with the Scratch programming language, you can dive into the intermediate-level challenge, consists of six amazing missions that take place in various captivating scenes.
1. Avoid water:
• We start with a winter scene where Robo, RoboGarden’s hero robot, needs to step forward to get to a red ornament, then move backwards to get to a blue ornament. Be careful to help Robo avoid falling into any blue water cells while he is skating.
• In this mission, students will learn about mathematics as they count the exact number of steps Robo should move forward. From there, they must count the number of steps Robo should take backwards to collect the remaining object.
2. Lollipops in both directions:
• The second mission takes place at a birthday party, where there are sugary lollipops in front of Robo as well as behind him. Help him collect them all by repeating movements using the fewest number of code blocks possible.
• In this mission, students will learn to use loops to repeat blocks of code a specific number of times. You must use loops to complete this mission.
3. Too much dust:
• The third mission takes Robo near a volcano, where he will have to follow the yellow path until he reaches the green cell with the pressure value. He must check the value on the pressure valve and go collect the orange mask if it is greater than 100.
• In this mission, the student needs to differentiate between right or left rotations while recognizing math concepts like >, <, and =. Students must use if-statements to solve the mission as they help Robo decide whether to move two more cells to the right or to stop on his current cell.
4. Follow the path:
• The fourth mission takes us to a scene on the moon, where Robo must follow a green path to retrieve a torch and a red toolbox. Robo should move forward as long as the cells are green and stop once he reaches a red cell.
• In this mission, the student will learn more about Robo’s color sensor. The solution should be generic because it will be applied to multiple scenarios. The student must use a while loop because the number of repetitions will vary according to the number of green cells.
5. Pick up the bait from thin ice patch:
• We return to the ice world for the fifth mission. Remember that Robo wouldn't want to fall into the icy water! He needs to skate forward until he reaches the thin ice patches to collect the bait.
• In this mission, the student must use loops and variables. It’s important to use a condition to repeat the loop since the location of the thin ice patches will vary across several repetitions.
6. Important quote:
• The final mission takes us to a gorgeous mountain scene. Robo will need to write letters on the ground in a specific order. When he is done, he can read the quote he has created.
• In this mission, the student must create a list and retrieve a specific a value from it. The student will use the “Print to Cell” block to print characters on the screen.
After a student enjoys coding and play on the final level, they will be eager to take on the advanced level and continue to learn more about programming with games. Check out RoboGarden through the free Hour of Code preview and register now to activate your brain.
