Girls Who Code at Home

Learn the language of computers with these fun activities!

Girls Who Code, a non-profit organization working to empower young women in computer science, is now offering free computer science learning materials online that anyone can do at home. In response to school closures, and in an effort to practice social distancing as a community, Girls Who Code wants to support families and educators by providing these activities at varying levels of difficulties.

Enjoy any of the activities provided on the Girls Who Code at Home website with your middle schooler, regardless of gender! Below, our patron services associate Evelyn Dominguez shares her experience with completing two of the activities with her siblings. Go ahead and give them a try!

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Activity 1: Debug the Maze Unplugged

As complete beginners to coding, we decided to start with one of the beginner activities, “Debug the Maze Unplugged,” which you can access by clicking here. For this activity we were asked to follow a set of coding, or instructions, to get through a maze from start to finish while having picked up the ‘Star’ somewhere in between. But there’s a catch. Somewhere in the code there are ‘bugs,’ or errors in the instructions, that we have to find and edit so that the code takes us through the maze successfully. Towards the end of the activity packet you are given an option to write down your own code for the maze. It was very fun trying to hide simple bugs in the code and having someone try and fix them. This was definitely a great introduction to some simple coding!

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Activity 2: Stay Positive Binary Bracelets

“Stay Positive Binary Bracelets” was another great activity for beginners. Using binary code, the language computers use, and a binary decoder, provided in the packet, we were able to represent our initials in binary code. The activity packet also provided a template for a binary poster where you can write down your own message using binary code. Access this activity by clicking here.

Can you decode Evelyn's Message??
(two rows skipped = space)

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Did you give either of these activities a try? Have you found any other fun challenges on the Girls Who Code website that you want to recommend? Let us know in the comments!