How to Implement

Part One: Play the Big Event (15 min.)

• As a big group, stand in a circle, with you as part of the circle so that all the girls can see you. Hold up the event-o-matic remote (a “remote” you can draw with three different shapes as buttons) and tell them what it is: a remote that tells them to do different actions or make different sounds. Point to each button and tell them what they will do when you “press” it. For example:
  • circle = jump in the air
  • rectangle = clap your hands twice
  • hexagon = say “chugga chugga”
• Have the girls start doing something (like jumping jacks or singing a song), then interrupt them by pressing one of the remote buttons. They should do the action and then resume doing the activity. Pass the remote around, allowing girls to create different actions for each button. Once you think they have the concept you can stop the game.
• Review the CT concept of events and, optionally, watch the Big Event video (2:00), you can refer back to how events were used in the Star Wars Hour of Code activity and tell them that they are going to create their first mobile app using events.

Part Two: Build the First App with Thunkable: Coding Compliments

• Share with the girls that they will use events to create an app that will give a compliment when you push a button. They will create this app using Thunkable.
• Thunkable is a software program that developers use to create mobile apps for the Android operating system (Android is on a variety of phone/tablet brands such as Samsung and Nexus). Thunkable is an integrated development environment (IDE), which basically means all the tools needed to develop a program are contained in one software application. Explain that the girls will use other IDEs later in the program as well. Thunkable uses a programming language called Blockly, which was developed at MIT and is used in MIT’s App Inventor (code.org also uses Blockly).
• The girls will use laptops to build their apps in Thunkable and tablet to test it out.
• Girls will work in teams of three or four. Have them decide which role each girl will start with, making sure they get a chance to switch roles during the activity.
• Each team should have a tablet and a laptop.
• Have the girls keep a record of the logistics below in their design journals (they should all do this, in case one of them is absent on later days when they need to refer to this information again).
  • team name
  • list of team members with their assigned roles
  • activity name
  • laptop and tablet ID
• Pass out the Coding Compliments directions or have them go to the For the Girls page on a tablet to view them.
• Give them time to work through the tutorial as a team.
• Wrap Up discussion
  • What issues did the teams run into, if any?
  • What surprises and challenges did they have?
  • How was the event triggered in this app? (the button) What are some other ways events can be triggered? You can show the smartphone sensors video if you have time.
  • Ask the girls if they can think of examples of event handling that your (or your parent’s) phone/iPod touch does? Here are a few to get started:
    • When you click "send" for a text message, it sends the message and makes a sound.
    • When you try to purchase an app from an app store, the phone asks for a password.
    • When you click an icon for an app, the app opens.

Summarize Event Handling

• Explain to the girls: When you made your apps you used both the designer and the blocks side of Thunkable. Every time you create a design element in your app you have to tell the computer what the element will do in the blocks editor. This is why Thunkable is called a “blocks programming language.”
• For every element that you put into the designer side of your app, you have to tell your computer what to do with it and when it should do it. This is known as event handling. In your design, you told the app what to do when the user tapped a button, so you put an event handler on the button.
• The event was the user clicking on the button and the app handled it by calling TextToSpeech to say something. When you code, you have to think about both what you want your app to do and when you want it to do it.