Is there a virtual Circuit Playground that students can program now that schools are moving to a distance learning model?

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Now that we are off for an indefinite period of time, is there any way that students can program a virtual circuit playground to test their code in lieu of the real thing?

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I do not believe that the lessons taught by code.org using the Circuit Playground can be put onto a virtual Circuit Playgrounds. There is, however, a programming environment that does feature a virtual circuit playground and some suggested projects (not from code.org) if you are looking for some alternate projects that could be done without having the real circuit playground.

Mike

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Thank you. I am looking for anything they can do at home with Unit 6, which were getting ready to start!

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As far as using the circuit playgrounds, if you can’t distribute them, it will be difficult to replicate the lessons in unit 6 on code.org However, perhaps you could have them do a maker project of some kind offline in preparation for them coming back at some point? I know at least one state has stated that school is done for the year and I’m not sure if any of us know when we will be back for sure, so that uncertainty is what makes it difficult. The projects at the Adafruit site in my post above do involve “off line” creation along with programming. The programming could be done using the virtual Circuit Playground, but the only way to really integrate the hardware would be at some point an in-person activity.

I wasn’t at unit 6 … fortunately for me, my code class is at unit 3 in CSD, so they can make their games at home. I know other teachers are looking for unplugged activities which can be found in other forum posts in the last few days. It’s just hard to say what to do for a hardware unit such as unit 6 if students can’t use the circuit boards …

I’m hoping others may have ideas for us though. Anyone done anything with unit 6 when students don’t have access the the circuit playgrounds?

Mike

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Great idea, Mike! Maybe the kids could use the problem solving process to design a robot to solve a problem, then draw or use household items to “prototype” it, then explain how it works with the input-output-storage-processing model.

To tie in some of the event-based programming, maybe the robot could respond to different “events”.