In The Coding & Robotics studio, kids played the beloved Steve & Kate's Coding game, then used the skills they learned to created and share their own apps in the Steve & Kate's Coding Workshop. I was delighted to help add levels to the game and contribute to the Workshop portion of the app.
Check out the Robotics Studio project to learn more about building and coding bots.
Scope:
45 Camps around the U.S. serving about 30,000 kids
My Role:
- Program Design
- Workshop UX
- Workshop CSS
- Puzzle Design (new levels)
- Content Creation
- Staff training materials
Outcomes:
- 45% of campers playing game created an app (5% increase)
- Over 400,000 level starts on 3 new levels
When I joined Steve & Kate’s, kids were already playing the beloved Steve & Kate’s Coding game. It was video game that allowed them to run and jump through levels while learning coding concepts to overcome obstacles. In the Workshop, kids could apply the skills they learned to design and code their own apps.
The Workshop
Upon my arrival, a first, minimum viable version of the Workshop was in place, but it needed to be re-vamped. I updated the user interface to:
re-organize the coding block categories
clarify workshop states (building, running app in debug mode, playing app)
add the visual designer’s and app concept creator’s updated art for characters and background
support photo backgrounds
allow editing of app names and icons
support app uploading
support app sharing
Workshop updates for app building with the visual designer’s character and background illustrations
Workshop Inspiration
In The Pool, I included example projects with coding how-to content. In coordination with weekly features in our Program Arc, I’d also load new example apps into the Workshop so kids could fork my sample code. The Secret Alpha app released for Secret Agent week is shown below.
Ice Levels
I helped add a couple of new levels to the game during my time at Steve & Kate’s, my favorite of which were the ice levels. Each level of the game focused on a different coding concept. In the ice levels, we took on functions and variables.
In this level, the player (Moose) has to use a launcher to fling ice, snow, and fire through different obstacles. In early puzzles, the full function may be present, requiring the player to choose only the angle or force with which to launch the projectile. As the level advances, however, players have to pull the correct functions from the list of available coding blocks and then correctly define variables to get to the end.
Defining puzzles for kids to solve in the Ice Level
Val’s illustrations and the resulting puzzles
Analog Activities & remixes
Through experimentation and the help of secret agent week, I found that introducing analog coding activities attracted kids who might not think of themselves as video game players or robot builders. We also introduced remix activities that combined fashion construction skills with bot coding. Once newcomers got going in the Coding Studio, they often surprised themselves with their ability to encode, decode, and code.
