As we closed in on the end of the third quarter in Help Desk, students had the chance to try out PyGame and ran it on Rasberry Pi. The Rasberry Pi is esentiallly a very simple and small computer that just consists of a single board. However, it is more powerful and has more ability than one would think just by it’s appearance. One additional feature that does not come with the Rasberry Pi but can be implemented onto it is a camera. Students were able to learn how to connect the camera then run the functioning camera software on the Rasberry Pi. Students also got to have fun using the miniature computer by playing games using a program known as PyGame. Many iterations of classic games were avaliable to play on PyGame. Students also got the chance to create their own game using PyGame in a sense. Students went online to github, downloaded code for a simple game on PyGame, and then created their own game with the exception of the code, which they could copy and paste from github.
TalentBox in Help Desk
In the first few weeks of second semester Help Desk, students have been using the software TalentBox to learn different technology-related skills. The wide variety of skills that tutorials are provided ensures that retry much any student can find an interesting topic and increase their knowledge in the said field. Music/audio engineering, game design, architecture and coding are among some popular tutorial paths students are taking. In a progressively more technology-oriented world, this program also gives students a chance to explore or improve in something that they may possibly study in college or pursue as a career. Personally, I chose the Game Design path. I am hoping to major in computer science in college, and hopefuly do something related to sports or video games with that knowledge. I considered choosing the Programming tutorial course in TalentBox, but I have taken computer science classes before, and the tutorial was a bit more beginner-level coding in Scratch. Luckily, the Game Design path involves some more complicated computer science and programming aspects, while also focusing on something I enjoy and hope to pursue in the future.
Computer Science Week at BHS
.As the Computer Science Week at BHS comes to a close, many different students have had the opportunity to either come down to the library and learn about the computer science scene, or showcase their creations in as well as teach their peers about their computer science experience. Help Desk students had the opportunity to do both, displaying things such as their ability to fly drones and then explaining the concepts of drones to other students, but also learning about technology themselves when representatives from companies such as Apple and Microsoft came to BHS. The highlight for many, though, was on Thursday, when Help Desk and Computer Science Principles students traveled over to Marshall Simonds Middle School to bring the Computer Science Week at the High School to them. After a brief presentation speaking about aspects of computer science at the high school, such as how we began with computer science, what we enjoy about it, and the uses of computer science in every day life, followed by a video describing the coding program the students would be using, the kids split up into two groups. Remarkably, roughly half of the students had had some experience with computer science / coding, so they split up into a group to work on some slightly more advanced programming. Those who did not have as much experience with computer science, however, were still able to code, doing slightly simpler block coding online. Overall, this event was made available to and enjoyed by many, and definitely successfully expanded the interest in computer science in Burlington.
Unity Game Development Tutorials
Over the past week or so, the students in BHS Help Desk have been trying out Unity. Unity is a popular game engine that has been being used to develop more and more new video games as of late. In addition to being a platform for developing games, Unity also provides tutorials related to coding and video games. On their platform, there are many different options of games to code, along with tutorials on how to create the games. The difficulty of creating the games ranges, and along with that, how many steps / the length of the code changes. Personally, despite having some background in coding, as I have taken multiple computer science / coding courses, I chose one of the easy / medium difficulty projects. I think this was a good decision as I have some experience coding, but coding games - specifically the 3D games they have tutorials on - is quite different than what I had deviously done. Overall, I am enjoying the project as it is challenging but not too challenging, and I am progressing nicely and have the tutorials provided by Unity for help in the case I do get stuck.
Drones in Help Desk
In the first few weeks of Help Desk we have seen, learned about or even ourselves used many interesting things, such as the Nintendo Labo, Raspberry Pi and our robot Baxter. However, one of the most interesting (and prevalent today) types of technology we have used ourselves at Help Desk are drones. So far this year, we have already been able to fly the drones outside, Our initial experience flying drones was mostly centered around getting ourselves familiarized with the drones and how to control it. We controlled the drones on our first day of flying with a controller that could be connected to a smart phone. We all eventually got practice wth flying the drones around and learned a few features, such as setting the home point of the drone so it can return to where it started. Our second and most recent flight was similar in some aspects as we are still new to drone flying, but this time we were able to utilize a feature the drones have where you can control the drone’s flight by simply making certain hand motions. In addition, we got to try out some more different features of the drones which we used for our second flying session. Overall, I enjoyed using the drones for the first time and am looking forward to seeing what other features and ways we can use the drones in the future.