Parents, if you’re looking for an activity that will challenge your kids and prepare them for the future, you’ve come to the right place in Austin, TX! My Coding Place offers after-school programs and camps for kids to teach them the valuable skill of programming computers to prepare them for the future. My Coding Place empowers the next generation with problem-solving skills and teaches kids not only to create but to think critically about innovation. In our programs, we guide students through the fundamentals of computers, chess, game design, and coding, teaching creative problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Our goal is to enable young people with new ideas about their world and new skills to change the future. Join us for one of the following camps this summer!
Camp Descriptions
This camp will focus on the fundamentals of chess including strategies for the beginning, middle and endgame. Students develop their skills through puzzles, lessons and games against other students. This camp is designed for beginners and those new to chess that want to improve their skills.
This camp will be 1.5 hours a day where students will play chess in groups, play group games, and be coached on their moves.
Students will have fun engaging their artistic side in our Digital Art camp! Create and edit images, shapes, and text, and learn how to make photo collages, use selection tools, filters, digital brushes and more! This is an introduction to photo editors and visual communication, solving visual problems with digital solutions. Add to your portfolio every day to show friends and family.
Throughout the course, students will establish proficiency with the photo editor interface and tools, and will gain an understanding of file formats, color management, image resolution, and pixel depth for differing output needs. They will learn about texturing, compositing, and various effects that can be applied when creating and manipulating images.
Scratch is a color-coded, block-based programming language that exposes students to basic coding constructs in a creative, engaging way. Beginner students will develop typing skills, reading comprehension, game/art creation, as well as critical computational thinking. The artistic and youth-friendly aspect of Scratch will allow students to build fun animations and games, keep scores, change backdrops, create colorful characters, and other artwork.
They will also learn coding and math concepts such as events, loops, variables, random numbers, and the coordinate system. Through application and practice, students will become proficient in the fundamentals of programming.
Learn game design and coding with Roblox, a popular tool where creativity and imagination are limitless! Code with drag-and-drop blocks and make your own version of your favorite Roblox games. Learn LUA programming concepts and take Roblox to the next level by applying loops, conditionals, variables and arrays. Students will make professional quality games that they can play with friends and family!
This camp introduces the cool web technologies of HTML and CSS that form web pages! Learn techniques to design and build a basic web page with animated graphics and learn about the underlying frameworks and scripting languages that can power websites. Examples of projects include a greeting card, a recipe, and a custom page relating to the student’s interest such as cars and sports. The Javascript programming language will be introduced but not explored in depth until Wonderful Web II.
In the second edition of Wonderful Web, students will add some muscle to their previously created websites with Javascript. Students will have already learned HTML5/CSS in Wonderful Web I, providing a backbone upon which they will continue learning.
Javascript is the most popular language for web development. This allows websites to have more functionality, interactivity, and purpose. With Javascript, students will learn how to make a dynamic website or game that they can actually play with instead of making one they can only view or read. In addition to making something creative, students will be taught coding concepts such as variables, objects, arrays, if statements, loops, and functions.
For students who have had some coding experience, this is an introduction to object-oriented programming. Learn about topics like polymorphism, classes, abstraction, and inheritance. Students will put these into practice by building engaging applications. Did you know that Minecraft was created using only Java? Students will have the ability to create their own games such as tic-tac-toe, endless runner and many more exciting projects.
ComputerCraft is a modification for Minecraft that’s all about computer programming. It allows students to build in-game Computers and Turtle Robots, writing programs for Minecraft using the Lua programming language. By learning how to program computers in ComputerCraft, students gain extra control over their Minecraft worlds and can create new and exciting things.
This mod allows you to build fully-functioning computers inside your Minecraft world, then use those computers much like you use a real computer. Students can play games and program the robots to carry out actions, such as mining, farming, crafting and protecting them against monsters, while learning basic programming concepts such as loops, variables, and conditional statements.
This class requires the purchase of Minecraft Java edition on a PC or Mac. ComputerCraft should be downloaded; instructions will be sent the day before class starts.
Minecraft is a lot of fun. However, it is more engaging, entertaining, and educational when kids learn how to build mods—small programs that let users modify game elements and add content. This introductory class teaches kids and parents how to create mods of different types, using the Minecraft Forge modding tool. No programming experience is needed.
Students will not only build some amazing mods, but they will also learn how to work with Java, the same programming language that Minecraft uses. This class requires the purchase of Minecraft Java edition on a PC or Mac. Forge should be downloaded; instructions will be sent the day before class starts.
“How long will it take me to fly to Japan?” “How many possible chess moves are there?” “How does Mario jump on Goombas’ heads?” Welcome to Math in Action, where we seek to answer these questions and many more! What separates Math in Action from your typical math class is we are all about demonstration! Instead of worksheets and tests, we utilize projects and experiments to teach math concepts in a fun and engaging way. Topics covered will range from Pre-Algebra to the introduction of basic Trigonometry. By the end of the program, students will have a much deeper understanding of math and be able to apply it to real-world problems and computer programming. Please join us as we deepen our understanding of the world around us through math!
This course will teach app building for Android-based mobile phones and tablets using MIT App Inventor - a visual programming environment that will raise your kids from the status of technology consumer to technology creator. Apps are created by simple drag and drop features instead of the regular and more complex coding environment. Students can bring their own Android device or use the Android phones that will be provided.
Attendees will learn useful features such as how the app uses the camera, voice recognition, and language translation. User interface components like buttons, sliders, and notifications will also be created. There are over 22 million apps in the library of MIT App Inventor, created by 400,000 unique monthly users from 195 countries!
This camp has the potential for an endless amount of projects.
Curious about AI and machine learning? This camp introduces artificial intelligence and explores definitions and concepts in this exciting and growing field. Students will train machine learning models to recognize text, numbers, images, or sounds. This builds on introductory coding concepts, by adding models to educational coding platforms Scratch and App Inventor, and helping students create projects and build games with the machine learning models they train.
Concepts covered:
Algorithms
Data processing
Classification
Machine learning
This camp introduces students to building, controlling, and playing with Robots! In our course, we will be using Ozobot Evo and Makeblock mBot brand robots. The robots are controlled from an easy to learn block-based coding platform. Students will learn basic coding constructs such as event-handling and conditionals; and the process of manipulating and directing their robot with gears, motors, and electricity.
Python is often thought to be the best first typed language for beginners to learn! Not only is this language easy to learn, it is commonly used in the professional technology world to achieve a wide variety of results such as website development, machine learning, game creation, and data science/analytics. Learn to use loops, counters, conditionals, and other basic coding constructs. Python is the real deal, favored by companies such as Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify. We will introduce algorithmic or computational thinking that will help students solve problems logically before coding.
Concepts covered:
Navigating a code editor
Turtle, a library of code to help generate graphic art
Basic coding concepts
Ages 7-18, let's learn some keyboarding skills! Keyboarding is a lifelong skill that requires practice to get faster and improve dexterity and accuracy. It's also fun to race and improve your personal time. Join us for 2.5 hours a day for a week as we introduce your student to the hows and whys of learning to type!
Students will be introduced to touch-typing skills through the use of classroom instruction and online tools, with a focus on finger placement, posture and accuracy. Students will play fun typing games to reinforce proper technique.
