Seattle CoderDojo has been graciously hosted by Amazon.com at their South Lake Union campus since December 2013. We have also had side journeys to Microsoft, The Museum of Flight, DigiPen Institute, and the Living Computer Museum, but we mostly call Amazon home.
In our regular set-up, Amazon provides us with 4 class rooms and a small conference room, which we split up like this…
The Beginner Room
Absolute beginner through Advanced Beginner
Capacity: 25-30 children
Code.org has built up an impressive set of tutorials, ranging from simple programming logic for early readers to entire computer science curricula for various grade levels. On top of this, they’ve partnered with companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Disney to build dozens more tutorials to help kids get comfortable with and explore computer programming.
In this room, kids and parents are given a few suggested starting points and work on these self-paced tutorials with patient and experienced mentors on hand to help them get over any bumps in the road.
The Scratch Room
Advanced Beginner & Intermediate
Capacity: 25-30 children
The Scratch IDE from MIT is a great way of programming with drag-and-drop pieces, sort of like building a computer program with Lego.
Generally there is a concept introduced early in the class with different exercises for the kids of different experience levels in the room.
Check out some of the lessons we use at https://scratchcats.org/
The Rotating Workshop Room
Beginner through Advanced, depending on the workshop
Capacity: 25-30 children
This is where we try new technologies and switch things up, offering multi-week workshops. This is the only room that isn’t always drop-in, usually because the workshops are designed to build upon one another.
Over the years, we’ve done workshops on Cryptography, Arduino electronics, Minecraft Modding, Game Development, Mobile App Development, Website Development, and more.
Hacker Room & Professional Certifications
Intermediate – Advanced
Capacity: 25-30 children
This room is where tweens and teens work on what interests them. We can get them started on online tutorials to help them learn a variety of development topics from basic JavaScript to Harvard’s Intro to Computer Science (CS50), help them with projects they bring in, or even help them work through free professional certification programs. The content is self-paced and online, so self-motivation is required.