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Hi Niamh,
I had a proper look at your code and wanted to come back with one tweak that would a difference.
At the moment the flower only moves every 5 seconds on the game update, so once the bee lands on it the score keeps climbing while they sit there together. That is why the points shoot up so quickly.
The fix is when the bee overlaps the flower, change the score by 1 and then set the flower to a new random position straight away. That way the bee actually has to fly off and chase the next one which makes the game far more challenging and a lot more fun to play.
Hi Ciara,
Chase the Pizza tutorial on the MakeCode Arcade website is a fun one and I like the Pac Pizza twist on the name. Tying it to counting, comparing and recording values up to 10 and beyond gives the game a clear Maths purpose.
Your algorithm design account was clear too. Setting out the sequence of what happens when the player catches the pizza, score up, timer reset, pizza moves to a random spot, is a good way to describe how the pieces work together. One small thing worth knowing. The overlap block you used is an event, not a conditional. It fires automatically whenever the two sprites touch. Conditional logic in MakeCode is the if and then block from the Logic category, where the code checks a condition and only runs if it is true. The two feel similar but they work differently and it is a useful distinction for the children to grasp.
Two small things I noticed in your code as well. Your countdown is set to 3 seconds rather than the 10 you described and because the countdown block only sits inside the overlap event, the timer does not start until the player catches the first pizza. Adding a start countdown block to the on start section would fix that.
One thought for your next one. It would be worth building a game from scratch in one of the three set styles we worked through in this module, a timed catch or collect, a chaser or an invader.
Hi Helen,
This is one of my favourite worlds so I was delighted to see you pick it. Home Sweet Hmm gets the balance just right because the situations feel real to children, the friend request from someone they do not know, the offer of cheat codes in exchange for a password, the dodgy email about an order. That makes the safety message land far harder than any list of rules ever would.
Your plan to pause at different points is also well judged. The learning in this world really sits in the talk between the activities, so giving pupils space to share what they would do and why is where it comes alive.
I love your poster idea for the follow-up too. Getting pupils to discuss their own top online safety tips shows you exactly what stuck with them and it gives the learning a life beyond the game.
Hi Sarah,
This is a lovely, practical choice. The dice tutorial can be a nice fit for infants because it takes something they already know and use and shows them the code behind it. The shake function is perfect at that age too since the action is physical and instant and they get a real feel for an input triggering an output without needing any reading.
Your STEM links are strong and the graphing idea is my favourite. Rolling the micro:bit dice repeatedly and recording which number comes up gives infants real data of their own to look at and it opens up lovely talk about whether every number turns up the same amount.
Hi Ann Marie,
Great to read this. Hour of Code: Generation AI is a great choice and I love that you took the time to watch the Dream Space video lesson too. It is really encouraging to see you drawing on more than one resource to build your understanding and the fact you spotted how well it breaks the bigger AI ideas into child-friendly language shows you were watching it with your own pupils in mind.
Your plan to pause at different points and check understanding is well judged. That is where the real AI learning can land, in the talk between the challenges, and mixed-ability pairs will keep that talk going.
One suggestion to build on it. The world is built around the responsible AI principles, so you could pick one, example fairness, and come back to it in your closing discussion by asking where they saw it in the game. That gives the conversation an anchor.
Looking forward to hearing how this works in your classroom. 😊
Hi Susan,
I had a proper look at your code and wanted to come back with two small suggestions.
At the moment your stars spawn from the same position each time, so the dog can just sit in one spot and rack up points. If you set the star to spawn at a random x position along the top, the player has to actually chase it around which makes the game much more challenging and a lot more fun.
The other one is adding a countdown timer, so it becomes how many stars can you catch in twenty seconds. That gives the game a clear end point and a score to beat and it turns your catching into something children will want to try again and again.
Both are small changes but they will make a real difference to your game. 😊
Hi Susan,
This is a lovely choice. Empathy Village is one of those worlds where the Minecraft part is really just the vehicle and the real learning sits in the conversations it opens up.
Your instinct not to use it exactly as it is feels well judged. Introducing the questions gradually, pre-teaching the emotional vocabulary and building in pause points for paired talk will make it far more accessible. That focus on pupil voice and wellbeing ties in neatly with SSE too.
One practical heads up. When I went looking at this one on the Minecraft Education website, the world file itself no longer seems to be available to download, so it is worth checking you can actually get the world before you plan around it. If it turns out you cannot, the questions and structure would still work beautifully in another world or even unplugged.
Hi Paddy,
Really enjoyed reading this. A clear strength here is how embedded the digital learning already is in your school. Having the Dream Space Ambassador Programme running gives your pupils a real structure to work within and pairing it with Teams, OneNote and MakeCode means the technology is woven through the learning.
Your action to run a micro:bit lesson every fortnight feels realistic. It is regular enough for the children to build fluency but paced so it fits alongside everything else you are doing.
I especially like your second action about peer and self-assessment in every coding lesson. Getting pupils to debug, improve and reflect on their own programs is where some of the deepest computational thinking can happen and it takes some of the load off you as the only source of feedback in the room.
One question to help you focus. Would it help to give pupils a simple shared language for that reflection, say what went wrong, what they tried and what they changed? That makes their thinking visible and easy to capture for SSE.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 😊
Hi Niamh,
This is really strong. I love that you went with Teachable Machine because there is nothing like letting children train a model themselves to make machine learning click. They stop seeing AI as magic and start seeing it as something built from the examples/data they feed it.
The Imposter Test is the standout for me. Showing the model a green apple when it only ever saw red ones is such a fantastic way to make bias visible/concrete and your critical question lands it perfectly by pushing them to blame the data rather than the machine.
One thought to build on it. When pupils write their Model Report, you could ask them what they would add to the training data to fix the mistake. That moves them from spotting the problem to solving it.
If you use this in the classroom, we would love to know how it goes. 😊
Hi Paddy,
Apologies, you have shared a link to MakeCode micro:bit code.
Could you please share the link to your MakeCode Arcade game.
There were 3 game styles demoed in module 3: Timed catch/collect, chaser or invader.
Please watch the MakeCode Arcade website tour video in the module or follow the steps below to share your MakeCode Arcade project link:
- Open your project in MakeCode Arcade.
- Select the Share icon in the top-right corner.
- Add a title for your project.
- You can also add a thumbnail image or animated GIF, but this is optional.
- Select Share Project.
- Copy the link that appears and paste it into your forum post.
Hi Marie,
I really like this. Building AI fact checking into a debate is a clever move because it gives the children a genuine reason to interrogate the information. Having to spot the false facts in their own pack and listen out for the other team’s shaky claims turns critical thinking into something active and a bit competitive which will really pull them in.
I also like that you plan to model critical thinking yourself and bring authorship and sources into the discussion, since who created the information and whether it is reliable is right at the heart of AI literacy.
One question back to you. When they highlight the false facts, would it be worth asking them to jot down how they knew, whether it was their own knowledge or a source that gave it away? That makes their reasoning visible and those sheets would give you richer evidence for SSE.
Hope you enjoyed the course. 😊
Hi Chelsey,
Eat the Pizza tutorial on the MakeCode Arcade website is a fun one and I like how you tied it to both Maths and SPHE. Framing it around hand-eye coordination, problem-solving and interpreting the final score gives the game a clear learning purpose.
I liked that you talked through the algorithm design too. Planning the sequence of how the player moves, how the pizza changes location, how the score increases and how the timer ends the game is a good, clear way to describe how the pieces fit together.
One thought for your next one. It would be worth building a game from scratch in one of the three set styles we worked through in this module, a timed catch or collect, a chaser or an invader.
Hi Luke,
Luke in Outer Space is a great variation on the chaser style. Having both an alien that chases and a meteor bouncing around gives the player two dangers to track at once which makes it more challenging and more fun than a straight chase and it fits your space hazards objective really nicely.
I like that you used bounce on wall for the projectile. That keeps the meteor bouncing unpredictably around the screen which adds real tension and makes the dodging feel different every time.
Your iteration account was spot on too. Tuning the alien’s speed, the firing rate and the win threshold until it felt challenging but fair is exactly what iteration is and it shows you were really thinking about the player’s experience.
One small suggestion. You have stay in screen switched on for the projectile which is great, but it would be worth adding the same block for Luke so the player stays in the screen boundaries.
Hi Ciara,
Healthy Food Catch is a lovely idea and the market setting with a basket catching apples, carrots and bananas fits your healthy eating objective really well. I also liked that you chose iteration as your computational thinking process. Testing different speeds, timer lengths and scoring rules and improving it step by step is exactly what iteration is about.
I had a look at your code and it is a great start, but it is not quite finished yet, so the game will not play through as you are hoping.
My best suggestion is to watch the timed chase/collect game tutorial video again and build alongside it, pausing as you go. That will walk you through getting the food spawning and falling and the overlap and scoring working and you will have a fully playable game at the end.
Looking forward to a go at Healthy Food Catch once it is up and running. 😊
Hi Grace,
Chase the Pizza tutorial on the MakeCode Arcade website is a fun one and I liked the personality you gave it. Pixelizabeth and the Valhalla line made me smile and that playful framing is a nice way to keep the children engaged.
Your debugging account was clear too. Spotting that the countdown was sitting below the change score block and reordering it until the game ran as expected is a good, honest example of testing, finding the problem and fixing it.
One thought for your next one. It would be worth building a game from scratch in one of the three set styles we worked through in this module, a timed catch or collect, a chaser or an invader.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. 🙂
