As part of their 'Evolution of Technology Season', Campus North are running a drop-in for kids this Halloween called 'Code Monsters', with plenty of coding, programming and technological activities to keep your little ones busy.
This free event will run from 10-2 on Saturday 31st October at Bunker Coffee and Kitchen in Newcastle. Children aged 6-14 will be able to build and program robots, create their own ghost-buster video game, play with conductive dough, program new items into Minecraft and much more besides.
The event organiser Lyndsey Britton is keen to get kids learning about coding and programming, 'Technology is a massive part of their world. This is a really educational way of getting them into tech rather than them always playing on computer games.'
'Coding is already part of the curriculum, and hopefully for some of them it will lead onto a career. With the after-school scheme, 'Code Club', we know it has had an effect on other subject areas - it's improved logical thinking and problem solving skills.'
Lyndsey says Campus North wants to put something back into the community, 'We want to make children aware of what's on their doorstep in the North East, and what opportunities are here for them. Even if they don't want to be a computer programmer, there's plenty of ways they can be involved in tech.'
Transcendit web developer Paul Callaghan has just started his third year of running a 'Code Club' at a primary school in Durham. He says that the clubs are here to stay, 'The number of Code Clubs in the area are increasing, greatly helped by the number of local companies like Transcendit who are effectively sponsoring the scheme by donating staff time.'
Paul says that the children he works with are very enthusiastic and eager to learn, although they do occasionally go off topic, 'I do spend a fair amount of time trying to avoid explaining how to program Five Nights at Freddy's.'
Campus North is running the 'Evolution of Technology' season in partnership with Tech North from October to December. To find out more about the opportunities available for children, check out their website: http://campusnorth.co.uk/#code-club
