Hour of Code

Saw some ad for this event called Hour of Code and I thought Ace might appreciate a free lesson on coding given he has shown interest in this..

But somehow, my sign up did not seem to go through or something...  And I did not get any confirmation of sign up email..

But over time, I forgot about it.. till Aunty KP reminded me and told me that she signed up for Lele too:)

I signed Ace up for Minecraft and Kodu Game Lab coding... and also microbit coding..

Ace was so happy to know his best friend Lele is also going!:)

We reached early and so quickly went to queue... heng ah... turns out there was a problem with their sign up page (Microsoft leh.. cant believe sign up page also screwed up), and so it ended up oversubscribed. I asked Ace to put his bag on a chair to chop a seat for Lele... so tat was how Lele, who was slightly late managed to get a seat in the class...

BTH our good fren.. sit there.... diam diam play with his phone... his laobu like dead person like tat... only care about his phone.. Maybe should throw his phone away..

Ace says it was quite fun... and because Lele is a few years younger, some parts were difficult for him and so Ace said he guided him along..

But I appreciate Microsoft starting this to encourage children to learn to code lah...

STILL on his phone...

Lesson started proper and some other kids left when the finished and so Lele went over to another computer..

This is Ace still working on his project...

The kids even had time to take photo after the the event... I got this photo from Twitter acc of someone called Richard Koh....

Because there was a large amount of people who signed up but had to be rejected for the first session.. second session, the microsoft people responded very quickly and got more chairs from all over so tat they can seat more people in each class so everyone who signed up has a chance to go in...

So for the Kodu one.. there was overwhelming amt of kids in the class room...
Took me a while to find Ace...

I actually also signed Ace up for a third session.. which is about programming using Microbits... 

Since there were very few sign ups for this (this is for age 11 and above), I sat down and did the lesson together lah :)

This lesson is about this thing called the microbit.. it is something tat Microsoft came up with and can be on sale... once you program it, it is like a mini CPU tat can do interesting stuff like showing letters, numbers... so you can program it to show temperature, keep score etc.....

I actually think we saw something similar but more advanced when we visited Maker Faire 2016... But tat one was built to be used in real world and Microbit is for children to learn how to use technology to build stuff...

It is like this board... that has to be connected to battery and also your computer so you can program it..

I was quite impressed... because when the teacher talked about what to do next, Ace would start doing it without needing to wait for instructions.. and when the boy beside him have trouble, he could actually troubleshoot and tell him what is wrong.. (the instructor made the same mistake and just skipped through it)



Photo above also from twitter acc of Mr Kelvin Choo.

Midway in the class, we were told VIP coming in.. so Shammugam and some other MPs came into the room, walked one round, took some photos... Too bad I couldnt find any of us online as well :)

 I shy.. so only took photo of ONE VIP :) hahahaa

Then we were told that the microbit can be programmed to show random numbers and my son immediately exclaimed that they can now generate 4D number of the week and promptly programmed it to do just tat! Hahahahha

I asked Ace how come he seems so familiar with this program and he says it is because it is similar to the Scratch program he learnt in ICT in Dubai...

THe person said microbits will be available for sale at a little more than $10 in HomeFix soon and we can buy it and use the free tutorial to explore how to build other stuff:) Interesting..

Then after we were done, Ace complained he is very hungry.. but his dad was coming to fetch us.. so I thought of what I could give him to "dong"... and remmebered the free Llao Llao they were dishing out... Our good friend repeatedly went for serving after serving till he had three servings:) hahahha

While we were waiting for Max, I smelled this unfamiliar smell... and then when I walked up to the christmas tree, I realized it came from the tree... I touched the leaves and found out that it is a real tree! So this is how a christmas tree smells like! Wow.. I never knew that is how they smell like till today:)

I tot all christmas trees are pine trees but it doesnt smell like pine.... so I googled and realized that it is possible to have spruce or fir trees and christmas trees:)

Then Max said he was stuck in a jam and will be late.. so we went back to play games at the event...

Complete xx amt of activities and get a freebie...

Ace completed the activities and got himself a new shoe bag... good lah... our house needs! hahahaha...

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