Club News, Meeting Announcements & Notes

FVGCC 2021-2022 Year in Review

Robin

Fox Valley Girls Coding Club had a small and energized group girls for the 2021-2022 school year. This meant that we were able to do a few projects that we had been a little shy to attempt with larger groups. In this blog post, I wanted to review a few of the activities that we did and what we learned.

During our first meeting, we ALWAYS ask the girls what they want to learn and then we try our best to make sure we at least touch on each of those requested subjects. This year, the most popular request was for web development and game development.

Slack and GitHub – Over the years, we have figured out that the two pieces of software that all of the girls need to know how to use are Slack and GitHub. Slack is how we communicate and GitHub is how we share code.

Web Development with Replit and Glitch – One of the easiest ways to jump into simple web development is with online IDE tools like Replit and Glitch. We used both of these this year to learn about the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python.

Game Development with Unity – We set up our Unity Development environments and we all build our own versions of the Rolla-ball game together. This gave the girls some great experience with professional game developer tools and a physics engine!

Prep for a Hack-a-thon – Each year, we have a group of girls from the club that go to a local hack-a-thon together. Hack-a-thons are events that usually last between 8-48 hours in which groups of developers build a piece of software. Those projects are then judged at the end of the event. Often, prizes are given out for the best projects. This year, girls from our club helped form a team that competed in the Hack For the World Hackathon in Naperville. They won the Judge’s Choice Award – check out their project here!

Some of this year’s projects can be found on our GitHub Repo!

Even though we were completely remote this year, we really had a fabulous group of girls and I think they really had a great time and learned a lot! See you next year!

Schedule

2022-23 FVGCC Schedule Announced

MMaki

We are so excited to be back for another year of teaching girls to code! If you are interested in joining us this year and are a high school girl, age 14-18, please contact us at fvgcc12@gmail.com. We will be hosting meetings on Zoom as well as reintroducing some in person meetings at 25N Coworking in Geneva, IL. By hosting Zoom meetings, we are now open to girls everywhere. So, if you are interested in learning to code, contact us! We hope to see you on Zoom at our first meeting on Friday, October 14 at 5:45 pm!

As of now, we are planning for two Zoom meetings per month and one in-person. But, girls can join from Zoom for all meetings. We will continue to monitor Coronavirus rates within our community and make a plan to safely teach our group in a fun and engaging environment whether in person or online!

2022-2023 FVGCC Schedule

October 14 – Welcome meeting with an introduction to Slack

October 21 & 28

November 4, 11, 18

December 2, 9

January 6, 13, 27

February 3, 10, 24

March 3, 10, 17

April 7, 21, 28

May 5 – Last Meeting and farewell to our Seniors!

Uncategorized

Document Library Available

Dottie

Over the course of our meeting planning and preparation we have developed a series of “How To” documents as reference material for the projects we work on. We are putting these together into our on-line library for easy reference. Starting off, we have documents on Web site development with Glitch and GitHub, Responsive Web Design with Bootstrap, Python Flask for Web Development, and Visual Studio Code for Web Development. We will be adding more and updating along the way.

Go to FVGCC Document LIbrary
Schedule, Uncategorized

2020-2021 FVGCC Schedule Announced

MMaki

Last FVGCC Meeting for the 2019-2020 school year took place on Zoom. We said farewell to 4 amazing Seniors who will be continuing their educations at Iowa State University, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Nebraska, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

2020-2021 Remote Schedule Announced

October 2 – Welcome! Introduction to Slack and Codesters

October 16 & 23 – Jump into Codesters (Python)

November 6, 13, 20 – Codesters (Python), GitHub, & Intro to Glitch

December 4, 11, 18 – Website UI: HTML & CSS in Glitch

January 8, 15, 22 – Putting it all together: JavaScript & Python in Glitch

February 5, 12, 19

March 5, 12, 19

April 9, 16, 30 – Can we meet in person yet??!!??

May 7 – last meeting and farewell to our Seniors!

Meeting Announcements & Notes, Uncategorized

March 13, 2020 – Meeting at 25N

Robin

This week we will have a mini code-challenge hack!

The Challenge: Build an on-demand analog clock in Codesters.

  • The application should ask the user “What time is it?”
  • The user should be able to type a time in standard 12 hour digital format. Example:  2:34 (am & pm is not necessary)
  • The UI should display an analog clock face with the time requested by the user
  • The application should be able to give feedback when the input is invalid
  • After the analog clock has been displayed, the user should be offered the option to enter another digital time

See you then!

Meeting Announcements & Notes, Uncategorized

January 24, 2020 -Meeting at 25N

Dottie

January 24th meeting cancelled due to weather!  We will follow this agenda for the January 31st meeting

AGENDA & NOTES:

WELCOME/REVIEW

  • Welcome any new members
    • Make sure everyone is signed up in GroupMe, Slack, Codesters, and GitHub
  • Any questions, comments, or ideas from our last meeting?
  • Any additional info/skills/setup needed for members attending Hack For the World hackathon in Naperville on February 1

Set up Mac and Windows laptops for:

  • Python, pip (Python’s package installation manager), and IDLE
    • Practice Python Create a simple Python program using terminal or command window and/or IDLE
    • Practice pip: Use pip to install PyGame and Kivy
  • PyGame:  modules for creating Python games including Sprites, sounds, and more
  • Kivy: framework for creating cross-platform UI in Python
    • Practice: create a simple app in kivy
  • Visual Studio Code: Code editing with rich editing capabilities,including Intellisense, debugging, code snippets, and more
    • Practice: create a simple Python program in VS Code
    • Practice: Edit a PyGame in Visual Studio Code

Instructions for installing all of the above:

More Good Stuff to Try:

Enhanced Python Flask app on Glitch: We previously looked at a simple Python Flask app together that accepted user input for a Dream to add to a list kept in memory. We now have a working prototype that incorporates a Snake game and uses persistent storage to keep a leaderboard in a file https://glitch.com/~rainbow-brie

Classes: Use of Class as a data structure in Python. May demonstrate/practice in Kivy and is also used in the above Python Flask app

Web Sites in VS Code/Connecting VS Code to Glitch: We will not have time to do this as a group during tonight’s meeting, but if anyone is interested in creating/editing/debugging Web sites in Visual Studio Code and/or connecting your Glitch projects to Visual Studio code for editing here is a guide:  Web Sites and Glitch in VS Code