Creating and Practicing Code on my iPad

This week as part of my Create with Code course, I spent some time working on my iPad.  I mostly use my ipad for creating and editing movies as an assessment tool with my students.  We video procedural steps for demonstrating all kinds of skills, like steps to properly sear a salmon in the Professional Foods program or showcasing proper safety when handling shop tools in Building Technology.
This week I had the chance to explore some of the creation tools for creating your own game, puzzles, quests and challenges - similar to the different types of games you might find in the App store.  While creating with my personal device, I was reminded of a quote that I pulled from Seymore Papert's book, Mindstorms.  His quote was the following:

"Increasingly, the computers of the very near future will be the private property of individuals, and this will gradually return to the individual the power to determine patterns of education. Education will become more of a private act, and people with good ideas, different ideas, exciting ideas will no longer be faced with a dilemma where they either have to sell their ideas to a conservative bureaucracy or shelve them. They will be able to offer them in an open marketplace directly to consumers. There will be new opportunities for imagination and originality. There might be a renaissance of thinking about education. "

Using Hopscotch, I created a game much like the old arcade classic - Frogger.  You can try my game out yourself (as basic as it is), I called it Turtle Crossing, take a look.  Hopscotch forced me to consider my games goals.  Then, by breaking down the tasks for the individual assets, I created loops for the cars using block programming.  In addition, I had to consider conditional statements for my main character to consider what happens if my game piece collided with a car, or what would happen if the character completed the goal.  Additional buttons for controls had to be configured as well.  It was not as difficult as I thought.  I first had to start thinking in simplest terms, and code the scenarios.

Video of my solution
I also had the chance to play some games as well.  The video above is from one of the levels in CargoBot.  I found these puzzles very challenging.  Using controls and then programming those controls, I programmed the bot to move the boxes.  With limited program space, the game player has to create loops and use visual blocks to create conditional statements.  I had trouble wrapping my head around this.  I could talk out the movements, but really struggled with configuring the correct movements with the limited programming space I was afforded.  If I could spend time with others working on solutions together, I think my learning curve would improve.  This was a game that benefits from more than one competent mind!  As Papert states in the quote above - "there will be new opportunities for imagination and originality" - all on my iPad.