[Aside: If you're a Maritimer, you'll know what Moar-ish means. For you mainlanders, it means something you want MOAR of.]
A full house convened at Shopify last Saturday afternoon for the first ever Code for Kids workshop. The event was hosted by a young, energetic group of Shopify employees, spearheaded by
Julian Nadeau. (You might have caught
my interview with Julian last week.)
When I first walked into Shopify, I was flooded with memories of startups where I used to work. The funky design, the open spaces, the toys lying around everywhere. Startups are built for working hard and playing hard; the combination of flexible work spaces, loud colours, inappropriate artwork and toys seem specifically intended to spawn creativity and new ideas. Le sigh.
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| Hilariously inappropriate artwork at the Shopify entrance |
The twenty kids present installed themselves in a large open space filled with tables and
Raspberry Pi computers to learn the very basics of coding including if-then statements and if-then-otherwise statements. The formal instruction portion provided the kids with an overview of the basics using a very age-appropriate mix of videos and instructional segments. The kids were also introduced to Scratch, a basic programming software that can be used to create games. And then they were unleashed!
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| Julian and Edward leading the session |
For a couple of hours, those kids toiled and chatted and played and created all sorts of video games by dragging, dropping and re-arranging if-then statements to drive the actions of their avatars. The Dude had a fantastic time and was especially excited that he got to
take home the computer. Yeah, that's right. The kids all walked away from the session with a brand new Raspberry Pi, keyboard, mouse and the requisite cables to plug it into a tv or monitor (not included ;) We had proposed to get him a Raspberry Pi for his birthday (tomorrow), and then opted not tell him that he was going to get one with the workshop. He was beside himself.
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| Raspberry Pi computer |
As for hubby and I, we hung out and chatted with the Shopify folks and some of the other parents, including my friend
@SageCram and Twitter buddy
@heyglenns. Sage and I figured that we would just be a distraction to our kids so we sat on a giant beanbag chair together and chatted about work and life. Not half bad for an afternoon, if I do say so myself.
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| Sage & I (don't you love her red shoes?) |
The verdict? Well, the Dude can't stop going on about his new computer and the fact that he got to make a video game. He's even brought some of his friends over to check out the tiny Raspberry Pi. I'd say that it was a rousing success.
So the big question is: will Shopify do it again? According to the Code For Kids team, yes they have some other events in mind as early as June. And a little birdie even told me that they are looking at an online element to help kids learn python, ruby, etc. Sounds incredible! If you're interested, I suggest you head over to the
Code For Kids site and sign up to the mailing list so that you don't miss out.
Beacuse, as
@Heyglenns commented about the day:
I totally agree.
