Avonhead Code Club - Moonhack 2021

Introduction

Code your own planet saving project! Moonhack is a free international event bringing kids across the world together for a week of coding. Choose either the Scratch Matariki project or the Python carbon footprint calculator below, get coding and be part of the Moonhackathon!

What you will make

An interactive animation that tells the story of Matariki, or
A simplified carbon footprint calculator that can help people understand their personal impact.

What you will need

A computer or tablet capable of accessing the internet.

Scratch Matariki Project

This is a beginner level Scratch project that celebrates the story of the Māori New Year star, Matariki. Use this link to go to the Code Club online project: Matariki-accessible.pdf and follow each step in the project.

Twinkling stars - we want to make all the stars in our constellation twinkle, here is a link to the starter code: scratch.mit.edu/projects/494287540
Adding a narrator - a narrator can introduce Matariki and give instructions to the user. Here is some text you can copy and paste (a whakataukī or proverb from Te Ara) but you can use your own:

Ka puta Matariki ka rere Whānui. Ko te tohu tēnā o te tau e!

Matariki re-appears, Whānui starts its flight. Being the sign of the new year!

Click on each star to hear its story

Telling a story - each star in the Matariki cluster has its own story to tell, you can use a Broadcast block to tell these stories. Broadcast is a way of sending a message to all the sprites in the program. Here is some text you can copy and paste:

We fly kites when celebrating Matariki as they flutter close to the stars

Click on the kite to make it fly!

Make the kite fly - add blocks to move the kite across the screen and then flutter with the stars.
Going home - the final step is to go back ‘home’ or to the night sky scene. Here is some text you can copy and paste:

Click on me when you're ready to head back to the stars

Other stars - can you add stories for the nine other stars in the Matariki cluster? The Te Papa website has lots of information about the stars and is a great place to start your research:

Matariki star cluster, are there 7 or 9 stars?

The legend of Matariki and the six sisters

Python Carbon Footprint Calculator Project

An intermediate level Python project that is a little bit more challenging. Create your own tool to measure your personal carbon output. Use this link to go to the Code Club online project: CarbonFootprintCalculatorMH2021-accessible.pdf and follow each step in the project.

List questions - we want to ask the user some questions and provide them with the possible answers that will allow us to measure their carbon footprint. Here is a link to the starter code: trinket.io/python/81650e4984
Adding it up - we will get the user’s response, find out how much carbon it uses and total up their emissions.
Input validation - you now have a simple CO2 calculator but what happens if the user enters a number that the program isn’t expecting, or something that isn’t a number at all? Validate the user input so that if they enter something incorrect it doesn’t crash the whole program.
Repeat the programme - Can you loop through the entire program so that multiple people can use the carbon calculator without having to reset it every time?