We set our Year 8 students a 10 hour computing challenge. The scenario was straightforwards enough: imagine that you’ve been asked to design a handheld computer game to tie-in with a new movie. The game should be small enough to fit in a chocolate box.
We had a set of Raspberry Pi computers in school, and a collection of different sized small screens for them to choose. For input, they could design a user interface for a Makey-Makey or use an Arduino Leonardo with different sensors – including accelerometers, capacative touch sensors, joysticks and light sensors.
The students already knew how to program in Scratch, and were given a number of Bonus Level challenges to complete in their teams.
I was so impressed with their work that I used the challenge as my main theme for my presentation at the Festival of Computing at Roehampton University in London later that term; and we set up the chocolate boxes for visitors to play on at the International Robotics Fair in Prague at the end of June.