During the first week of camp, the goal was to get the students familiar with the MakeCode platform and to get them working with the Micro:bits. As stated before, the majority of these students had either never programmed before and NONE of them had done any physical computing whatsoever. Since the first day was spent introducing the platform to all 200 students, it was now time to shift our focus to the 60 that wished to put most of their energy into the STEM program. I would still have the chance to work with the other 140 students for about an hour per day, but would spend most of my time with the 60 who elected STEM as their major.
I decided to take a very rapid fire approach to the instruction, with one activity and lesson building on the one prior. In just the first two days we covered algorithms, strings, loops, conditionals, and variables (including while and for loops). Nothing I have used in the passed has allowed me to progress so many students so quickly. I'm not going to say that we achieved mastery, but the student we absolutely able to demonstrate their understanding of each concept and by the end of two days were able to apply that knowledge.
On day 3 of the camp, students were able to generate a rock, paper, scissor game. This was pretty formulaic but the level of engagement in the room was unsurpassed:
Students were then given a challenge. Modify their program from rock, paper, scissor to a 6 sided die. I was overjoyed that every single student in the room was able to meet this challenge!