Last summer we ran two Cryptography Dojos at Glasgow Science Centre based on the idea of sending and decoding secret messages. The young coders learned about ciphers, from the Caesar cipher used by Roman Emperor Julius Caesar 2000 years ago, to RSA encryption  used to provide secure internet connections for online shopping today.  They also learned about methods used to break these ciphers. After breaking a few messages encrypted using  a Caesar cipher “by hand”, the coders were given a Python program that implemented the same cipher, but had several bits missing.  During the remainder of the session they implemented the decrypt function, a function that allowed the user to specify the encryption key used, and a brute force function to enable any message to be broken quickly. This code was also used during some workshops with CBBC at their “Live in Leeds” event last summer, and as part of a “Cryptography Treasure Hunt” with a group of coders from the Princes’ Trust where the “treasure” was the means to save Glasgow from an attack by the Extreme Violence and Insurrection League (E.V.I.L.). However, our team of secret agents and cryptographers needs to be expanded to enable us to face further threats like the one above.  With this in mind, we hope that other dojos will run cryptography sessions.  To assist you in this our code can now be downloaded from our Github repository : File caesarCipher2_7base.py has a cut-down version of the program that has a complete encryption function but only skeletons for decrypt and brute force functions. The key (the value to shift letters by to encrypt) is also hard coded. This allows coders to work out for themselves how to code decrypt, brute force, and obtaining the key. File caesarCipher2_7original.py contains the complete program in case any of the coders runs out of time or finds the task too challenging. The inner loop in the nested loop in the brute-force function could be replaced by the decrypt function, but it can be a useful way of introducing nested loops. The repository also contains a python program that implements a Vignère cipher. This uses the encrypt and decrypt functions from the Caesar Cipher program, so link in to the previous code. The Vigenère program also allows you to customise your program by setting the EVIL_ORGANISATION variable. If you have any questions you can email me at claire@coderdojoscotland.com  (on a secure channel, of course…) Claire Quigley CoderDojo Mentor

2014’s first Edinburgh CoderDojo was all about game development. The session started with a brief discussion of what game development is and how it works including the various disciplines involved and the different stages of the development cycle. After a quick look at the myriad of excellent free tools available to try, the group was divided into two parts, one where the young people could get creative with Microsoft’s Kodu and the other where they could get their hands dirty with the Unity3D engine.

Both of these tools enabled them to start creating 3D games with ease. Kodu offers a visual programming language suitable for young children and adults alike, allowing for narrative creativity and storytelling while teaching logic and problem solving skills involved in programming.

Unity3D is a more involved tool, which might be too complex for younger audiences, but provides much more control and flexibility, enabling anyone to create production quality games. This proved popular with the slightly older age group, although people as young as 10 were able to follow along with great interest too. The basic building blocks of the engine were explored through a simple tutorial, which provided the foundation for a project which could be expanded upon in the future.

Overall the day was a success and everyone seemed eager to continue with their exciting projects at future Dojos. Looking forward to the next one in February.

Timea Tabori

CoderDojo Mentor

Moray College hosted its first CoderDojo on Saturday. Twelve enthusiastic young people, aged between 12-17 years, signed up for the free computer coding event.

The theme of the first club was web design. Each of the coding club members created their own multimedia website adding images, music, cartoons and Google maps. They have asked for the following in future club meetings:- Video and picture editing, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Advanced Web Design, Game programming (e.g. Scratch, C++). It was wonderful to have the support of three students from the college and the additional help of a local Computing Teacher.

Look out for the next Moray CoderDojo in February.

Claire Griffiths
Moray CoderDojo Mentor

What are Open Badges?

The Mozilla Open Badges project issues digital badges to recognise skills and achievements. It allows you to display online real-world achievements and skills which may help with future career and education opportunities. The badges issued by the Open Badges project are digital indicators of skills learned inside or outside the classroom. This July, CoderDojo Scotland joined other companies like NASA and Disney-Pixar, and has become an Open Badge issuer.

Designing our Open Badges

Doug Belshaw from Mozilla joined us for an Open Badge designing workshop in Glasgow Science Centre. A dozen of our mentors who had indicated an interest in recognising achievement and education joined us for an afternoon of Open Badge design and implementation. Doug challenged us to think about what types of activities or skills should be represented by our CoderDojo Scotland badges.

We looked at examples of existing Open Badges related to programming and digital making skills. For example, Mozilla offer Webmaker Open Badges that show skills in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Similarly, Codecademy are looking into converting their programming skill badges into the Open Badge format.

We didn’t want to copy badges that are already out there, so we decided that rather than awarding badges for skill (for example in HTML, Scratch, or Python) our badges would recognise attitudes and behaviours that are specific to CoderDojo. In other words: “What can you do or learn at a CoderDojo that you don’t get from learning from a book or online portal?”

Our Badge Choices

With this in mind, our badges will centre around activities that are unique to the Dojos, you will be able to get a badge for team-coding (for example “working on a group project”), being a Good Neighbour (“helping someone debug their code”), or developing communication skills (“presenting your work to an audience”).

Our badges will be platform and technology independent – we won’t specify what you need to use or how to make it. “Solve a real-world problem using code” is open enough that it could be attempted using any language.

On our design panel, the industry mentors commented that seeing badges like this on a job resume would give them a better picture of the candidate than simply a list of skills and awards.

Not all badges need lots of effort to be earned. For example, our first badge (titled Hello, CoderDojo) is awarded for attending one CoderDojo session. And if you come back for another, you’ve earned Return to the Dojo. (We don’t plan to offer any other badges for long-term attendance, as our sessions are monthly and it would take a while to come to 50 sessions!)

Get Badging!

We invite you to start using Open Badges to recognise the learning that happens in your CoderDojo – Hello, CoderDojo is available now for you to award at your next session. Email Craig at badges@coderdojoscotland.com to be sent a set to award to your participants.

CoderDojo hit Stirling’s Old Town Jail on 1st of September 2013 and looks to be a creative, exciting new computer coding club. The young people that came along were enthusiastic and keen to learn new things about areas which they had an that interested them.  The day was split into various sections which allowed mentors and the young people to interact.

The puzzle Blockly, a visual programming editor was the first task of the day. It allowed the young people to understand the basic building blocks and principles of coding through the use of a fun, interactive mapping game.

The second task of the day was discovering how if-statements (a fundamental programming concept) worked and how to use them. The website  ‘If This Then That’ was used as a learning tool which allowed a greater understanding and allowed the young people to build their own if-statements based on inputs they customised. By the end of the day the young people were posting pictures, comments, and timestamps to the CoderDojo Stirling Twitter page using their if-statements. Overall the day was a success and paints an excellent picture of what’s to come!

Stirling CoderDojo returns on 5 Oct; Book now.

Laura Blair
CoderDojo Mentor

The 12th and 13th August marked the first CoderDojo events in Inverness. We had 30 young people over 2 days taking part in web development workshops in Eden Court. The workshops included an introduction to the CoderDojo movement along with sessions on HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

By the end of the day,  the young digital makers had created their first website and published it online. There was a variety of different website subjects as well as different design and functionality. Local parents commented that CoderDojo was a good thing for the young people of Inverness, as nothing like this currently exists there. It gives them the chance to develop computational thinking skills and prepare them for a future that is becoming more reliant on technology. With the abundance of unfilled technology jobs out there hopefully we are encouraging these young people to be the digital creators of tomorrow. We’re looking forward to returning to Inverness later this month.

Martin Goodfellow
CoderDojo Mentor

Welcome to the new online home for CoderDojo Scotland. This is where we will share news about the work CoderDojo Scotland are doing across the country, and allow young people to book onto our workshops in locations across the country.

I look forward to seeing you at a future CoderDojo

Craig Steele
CoderDojo Scotland Mentor