For all classes:
Duration: 4 weeks, 1 class (1 hour) a week
Cost: $ 120 (except “A Taste of CodeCraze” and “Digital Fabrication”, $ 150)
Mode: Online or in-person, depending on parent/student preferences
Place for in-person classes: CodeCraze, LLC, 1001 E Wilson St, Suite 140, Batavia, IL
Time: Times are determined with parents
Age Group: See individual classes – the given ranges are just a benchmark; please talk with the instructor about the level of the class for your child
Parents will receive a detailed report on what was covered in class and the students’ individual progress.
Not all our current classes may be listed here. Send a text message to 630 828 5566, or an email to contact@codecraze.com to obtain more information about a particular class.
Drawing and Games with Code – Python Turtle:
Age Group: Grades 3-6
Python is a widely used programming language and industry standard. It is used in a wide range of applications, from building websites and apps like Instagram, Google, YouTube, to sectors like finance, health and insurance, as well as data science.
In this class, students will be introduced to Python visually, using a beginner-friendly module (Turtle) for drawing and animation. We will also learn to make some fun games. The curriculum was developed, tested and updated by CodeCraze over the past three years.
Advanced Coding:
Age Group: Grades 4-8
This class is for students who have a good command of the basics of a text-coding language like Python or JavaScript, and want to improve their skills building upon their current knowledge. We kindly ask students (or parents of students) who are interested to contact us by E-mail, and indicate their previous experience with coding.
Advanced Robotics:
Age Group: Grades 6 and above
This class is for students who already had an introduction to basic concepts of mechanical engineering, and who have a solid experience in building and coding robots.
Among the topics to be covered are: Artificial Intelligence in self-driving cars (building on the summer camp with the same name), metal robot building and Python-coding through Arduino boards, advanced Vex IQ coding. We kindly ask students (or parents of students) who are interested to contact us by E-mail, and indicate their previous experience with robotics.
Robotics for Young Kids:
Age Group: Ages 6-9
This class offers students who have had little or no previous experience with robots, the chance to meet our fleet of robots. We have Vex robots, mBots, Wonderbots, Zumis, Lego robots, and Arduino boards. Students will be gently and playfully introduced to basic engineering concepts, building principles and coding. Along the way, we will dress our robots with shields and spears for a joust, code them for a soccer game, use a grasper, a sketch pen to code drawing shapes and code to play hide and seek with other robots.
Make Your Minecraft Movie:
Age Group: Grades 3-6
You like Minecraft? You also like animation? Then this is your class. In this class, you will learn all that is needed to make a Minecraft movie: creating a story, characters, landscapes, buildings and tools, animating them, using the camera, adding sounds, and finally editing your movie. The concepts learned are not confined to Minecraft and can be applied to any animation project.
Advanced Scratch:
Age Group: Grades 3-6
This class is for students who already know basic aspects of the block-programming language Scratch, like building loops, using variables and conditionals, and broadcasting. We will see that Scratch is capable of offering much more than most people assume!
Roblox Coding:
Age Group: Grades 4-8
Roblox is a very popular online gaming and game creation platform. Just like Minecraft, it offers a great opportunity to learn coding. This class aims to enable students not just to play Roblox, but create and share their own games that other users can play (a good amount ofmonetary gain is also possible). Students will learn coding concepts like variables, loops, conditionals that will be useful with any programming language.
Digital Fabrication:
Age Group: Ages 7-10 and 11-14 (two separate groups if needed)
Meet our machines: 3D printer for multi-materials, 3D printer with dual extrusion (IDEX), CNC milling machine, Glowforge Laser Cutter, SLA resin printer, Stationary 3D Object Scanner, Handheld 3D Scanner, Sublimation Printer, Vinyl Cutter, Digital Line Plotter, and an Eggbot.
The goal of this class is to help students physically produce objects of their imagination. Using TinkerCad or Fusion 360, students will learn how to design their 3D objects on a computer screen. We will also learn how to scan a real object, like a hand. Then we will feed the designs and scans to the appropriate machine and observe the production process (and learn to troubleshoot).
Students will take home some of their projects.
Stop-Motion:
Age Group: Grades 3-6
Have you ever seen Walt Disney’s first productions of Mickey Mouse? For many years, cartoons were produced using the Stop Motion technique. And it is still extensively used, for example, in the recent Star Wars movies. In this workshop, students will be introduced to stop motion by creating their own story, setting their scenes using self-made backgrounds, lego people and bricks, adjusting the light conditions, taking shots, recording sounds and dialogues, bringing these all digitally together, and finally, thinking about improvements by learning more about these various elements of stop motion movie-making.
Maker Corner:
Age Group: Ages 7-11
Have you always wanted to build and tinker with real but safe stuff? Students will be introduced to our maker corner with 11,000 components, circuitry elements and more, learning to use the many parts, pieces and tools. Sometimes we will guide them to realize their ideas, at other times they will receive challenge cards with guidelines to build an object with a limited number of given tools (for example, what about an an alarm system with an automatic catapult arm that throws paper balls to people approaching your desk? Or a rubber band car, motorized boat, or a vehicle that drives without wheels?)
They will take home some of their projects.
Make an Arcade Game (Scratch):
Age Group: Grades 3-6
Gameplay is in the foreground in our arcade games class: a good arcade game should be simple, fluid, increasingly challenging, and fun throughout. In this class students will learn to create such a game; the exact nature of the game is a surprise that will be revealed to the students in class. Students will write their game code in the programming language Scratch which is a fun, easy to navigate coding language developed by MIT engineers to introduce elementary and middle school students to software programming using colorful, predefined blocks.
Intermediate Robotics:
Age Group: Grades 3-8
This class is for students who either had a standard introduction to Vex IQ (ClawBot level), Lego robotics, or to coding with robots like Dash, mBot, etc.
The class aims at closing a gap between introductory and advanced levels of robotics classesas we think this is not sufficiently offered elsewhere for students with this level of knowledge. Students’ existing knowledge of mechanics and their knowledge of coding will be applied to real situations to solve practical problems. This will be done by using Vex IQ robots and Zumi Self-Driving cars.
Robotics with Cue:
Age Group: Grades 4-8
Cue is a sassy but smart black robot. But it can assume other character traits, too. The main thing is, you can program its sensors and motors in so many fun ways that learning robot coding becomes a self-runner. We have various attachments and mats for Cue so that topics and tasks never get boring!
Make an Arcade Game (Python):
Age Group: Grades 4-8
Gameplay is in the foreground in arcade games: a good arcade game should be simple, fluid, increasingly challenging, and fun throughout. In this class, students will learn to create challenging 2D games; the exact nature of the game is a surprise that will be revealed to the students in class. Students will write their game code in the programming language Python, an industry standard used in a wide range of areas, thereby acquiring coding skills in a very useful language.
Minecraft Coding:
Age Group: Grades 3-8
Minecraft is one of the most popular sandbox games ever, meaning that the players are building and exploring in virtual worlds using building blocks and other resources without specific goals. Due to the freedom the player enjoys in the game, the platform has been used for a wide variety of educational purposes, from classical school subjects to coding. We will use MakeCode (a Scratch-like block coding language designed for Minecraft) and Python to learn coding within Minecraft worlds.
A Taste of CodeCraze:
Age Group: Ages 7-10 and 11-14 (two separate groups if needed)
In this special class, students will have a chance to cast a glance at what goes on at CodeCraze. CodeCraze has three main pillars: Coding, Robotics and Makerspace. The latter encompasses building devices / vehicles with mechanical or circuitry elements, on the one hand, and fabricating objects that students design with 3D modeling software, on the other.
Due to time restrictions, video production topics like green screen, stop-motion or computer animation will not be part of this class.
Accordingly, students will try out all these aspects:
2 weeks of general introduction to coding, one of which will be about Scratch, the other one about Python.
2 weeks of general introduction to robotics, building a mini Vex robot and coding its basic behavior.
The final 2 weeks will be the candy for the students’ hard work- using a 3D printer/carver/Glowforge to print an object of their choice. Depending on the project, they will either take the print home right away, or (if the object requires a longer printing process) it will be send to student’s house.
The class represents not just a display of the creative fun and activities at CodeCraze, it is also an excellent introduction to experimentation, innovation, design and problem-solving in the area of tech.