Computer Science Creates Fun

Max Rosenberg

Theme Editor

Mira Costa’s Advanced Placement Computer Science class sent a group of students to the Manhattan Beach TEDx event at Mira Costa on Nov. 4 to display projects that the students worked on in class for over two weeks.

The project, known as the “Makey Makey,” requires students to build a physical tool that connects  to a computer game, which the students coded using the computer program, “Scratch.”

“I liked this project because it was very collaborative and it took a lot of problem solving skills to accomplish,” junior Zach Cochran said. “It was fun to see all of the different projects that students created.”

Students formed two- to three-person groups for the “Makey  Makey” projects, and around twenty total students presented their work in the Costa cafeteria at TEDx. The projects ranged from “Wack-a-Squidward” to real-life Club Penguin sledding.

“I really enjoyed seeing how different groups used the ‘Makey Makey’ in different ways to create their projects,” senior Jordyn Tonne said.

In order to have the opportunity to participate at TEDx, the AP Computer Science students had to present their work in a try-out in front of TEDx officals. The students who ended up presenting at TEDx received extra credit on the project. Those who only tried out were eligible for an A, and those who did not try out could receive only an A- at the highest on the project.

“The project stressed creativity, meaning you had to be unique in how you used the ‘Makey Makey’ and what you actually decided to code into scratch,” Cochran said.

The skills that were most tested in the “Makey Makey” project were a combination of creative engineering because the students had to build things that had to stand up to repeated use, and they had to program something that was easy to use and fun to play,  AP Computer Science teacher Aaron Braskin said.

“The goal of the ‘Makey Makey’ project was to give students the experience of seeing something they created used by other people,” Braskin said. “When I was first learning to program, the moment I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life was the first time my friends used a game I had written, so I wanted to give the students a feeling along those lines.”