The Department of Youth and Culture (D.Y.C.) has once again partnered with Member of Parliament Hon. Mr José Vanterpool to facilitate its second Coding Camp. As part of D.Y.C.’s Summer E.S.C.A.P.E. Programme last year, students who attended Coding Camp were introduced to the basics of web development and coding languages such as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
This year’s programme has been extended for approximately two weeks – August 16th – 27th. Over this period, Mr. Vanterpool will work with 2 cohorts, each comprising 12 students, who will be introduced to and taught to code in the Python programming language. When asked about the programme, Mr. Vanterpool had this to say:
“I’d like to thank the Department of Youth and Culture for affording me the opportunity to partner with them, once again, to facilitate the 2021 Summer Coding Camp. This year, I decided to introduce the students to the Python programming language because Python is one of the most popular and widely used programming languages in the world. This course aims to provide a foundational introduction to Python upon which students will be able to grow their skills. Students will learn concepts specific to the Python language, but will also be introduced to general concepts which are useful, and are common across all programming languages – such as algorithms, variables, control structures, and data input/output which they will use to solve basic problems and create games.
“As coding is a skill best learnt through practice and repetition, I’ve structured this year’s course to be very practical. Every day the students follow my guidance to develop a different game completely from scratch. For example, on day one, they built a quiz game that produced the user’s score and percentage based on the total number of correct answers at the end. Today, on day two, they built a game where the computer generated a random number that they had to find, and then we held a competition to see who could get it in the least amount of guesses. After completing the competition, I provided them with a technique that computers use to perform what’s called a ‘binary search’ that allowed them to find any random number between 0 and 1000 in at most 10 guesses when playing the game. The students loved this and quickly caught on to the technique and how it worked. For tomorrow’s project, we will be building a Rock/Paper/Scissors game where the kids can play against the programme which they code and create.”
Assisting Mr. Vanterpool in facilitating this year’s coding course is 17-year -old Mr. Jesarni Gumbs. Jesarni is a former 5th form student who recently completed his 2021 C.S.E.C. examinations. Jesarni, like Mr. Vanterpool, has represented Anguilla regionally at the Leeward Islands Debating Competition and has a passion for coding. He aspires to study and attain a degree in Computer Science and is currently shadowing Mr. Vanterpool for the summer to gain experience and further exposure in the field. When asked his thoughts about how the camp is progressing thus far, Jesarni opined: “The children at the camp are excelling beyond expectation; grasping onto the concepts quickly and finding creative ways to transform what they’re learning and add extra features.”
The first cohort of students will complete the Summer Coding Course this Friday, 20th August, 2021. The second cohort will start on Monday August 23rd, and end on Friday the 27th August, 2021.
