summer camp · ages 6 and up
Coding Carnival Tycoon Camp for Kids in Frisco, TX
In this camp, ninjas will learn how to create awesome arcade and carnival-style games using MakeCode Arcade and controllers for the games with Makey Makey. Ninjas will create a fishing game, a music game, and a whack-a-mole game!
- MakeCode Arcade
- Makey Makey
In the camp
What they do
The projects they work through in the camp, one at a time.
A reaction-time game on a micro:bit
Four variables, a random countdown, and two pins you complete a circuit with by holding them. Beating a friend by fifty milliseconds is the whole point.
Carnival games in MakeCode Arcade
Block-coded games built to be played by other people, which is a different job from building one for yourself.
A Makey Makey controller
Ordinary objects wired up as buttons, so the game is played with whatever they can find rather than a keyboard.
A carnival the room plays
Everything gets set up and everyone goes around to everyone else's.
The concepts behind it
What they are actually learning
The camp is the reason they turn up. These are the ideas they use to do it, shown the way they meet them, and they are the same ideas behind any programming language they pick up later.
Variables
set start to 0set running to falseset false_start to falseNamed values the program keeps track of while it runs. The reaction game needs four of them before a single thing appears on screen.
Booleans
set running to trueif not false_startstart the timerA value that is only ever true or false. It is how a program remembers whether something has already happened.
Events
on pin P0 pressedstart the countdownon pin P1 pressedstop the clockCode attached to a moment rather than run from the top. Pressing a pin completes a circuit through the player, which is the trick the whole game rests on.
Randomness
pause 1000 + pick random 0 to 2000plot x pick random 0 to 4A game nobody can predict. Without it the reaction test is a memory test.
What they leave with
By the end of camp
Taken from the camp's own curriculum, not written for this page.
- Learned how to use MakeCode Arcade
- Learned important coding fundamentals
- Learned how to customize sprites
- Learned how to create custom physical controllers for a virtual game
After camp
Loved our camp? Keep building all year.
Create is our core coding program, where a ninja builds real games in JavaScript and works up through the belts. The first session is free, so they can try it before you decide.
Before you ask
Common questions
Is this hardware or software?
Both, and that is the point. They code in MakeCode blocks and the code runs on a micro:bit they are holding, so a bug is something they can feel rather than only read.
Do we need to buy a micro:bit?
No. Every board, cable and Makey Makey is here and stays here.
What is a Makey Makey?
A small board that turns almost anything that conducts - fruit, foil, a friend's hand - into a button. It is how the carnival games get their controllers.
Can they keep playing afterwards?
The games are theirs in their MakeCode account and run in a browser afterwards. The boards stay with us.
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