It’s About the Hour!

Written by Schadrack Cineas

Behind every e-game, app, or website, there is intricate coding that allows it to function. Not many people are familiar with coding and how it works, but on December 10, 2020, MAST@FIU students had the privilege of learning the building blocks of coding.

Hour of Code is an event where participants receive a one-hour introduction to computer science. Since last week was Computer Science Education Week, Dr. Nuñez, our AP Computer Science and Computer Science Principles teacher, believed it would be great for us to take an hour out of the school day to code as a school.

Pictured above is Dr. Nuñez, our AP Computer Science teacher who organized the Hour of Code.

Some of Dr. Nunez's students volunteered to join various classes and lead coding presentations and activities. That day Anissa Adams, Gerson Herard, and Neyida Michel led Mrs. Garcia's class in three different coding activities held on the Hour of Code website.

The group led by Gerson coded a basketball game. The code blocks used served to insert dribbling animations, sound effects, a scoring system, and an end game function. Some coding blocks were color-coded so that students could recognize how they serve different types of functions.

Gerson’s screen as he directed the activity.

Anissa Adams walked the group through a Flappy Bird coding exercise. Flappy Bird was removed from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, so this activity gave students who had never been introduced to the game a chance to play. Most of the functions were the same as the basketball coding activity Gerson's, but this time more modifications were possible with just one click, such as changing the background.

The final activity was an art activity led by Neyida. This activity was slightly more challenging than the others because it required some critical thinking to determine angles of rotations and pixels traveled to outline the sketch provided. Coding may be hard at first, but this activity proved that one could develop enough skill to create something of their design with practice. If students had any trouble, Anissa, Gerson, and Neyida were there to help and support them through the activities. At the end of the training, students received a certificate of completion.

Some of our students showed off their certificates.

Some of our students even coded with their pets!

When asked about his coding session, Gerson stated, "I think it's important to have these coding sessions because technology is becoming more prevalent."

Technology is everywhere, and having it helps our society to be more productive. Without coding, we might not be able to use some of the software components of technology we use. Next time you play a video game or open one of your favorite social media apps, be mindful of the codes in place to make the app function well.