What’s Happening 19-Nov-2015

Kinsale Coderdojo’ers…..

We are settling into our new home at the Kinsale Community School, and on behalf of our dojo, I’d like to thank Fergal McCarthy and the rest of the Kinsale Community School for supporting our Coderdojo with such generosity!….please join me in thanking them!

This is our 4th year as a Coderdojo, and we wouldn’t be so successful without our volunteers, so please also give a thanks to all those who support our dojo, week-in and week-out!

Finally, our dojo has started very casually this year, with a focus on mentoring various projects that people are interested in, or helping dojo’ers to find self-paced training ideas, but are planning on big group project for our whole dojo next year, so stay tuned and we’ll have more information in the coming weeks.

Reminder:  

Kinsale Coderdojo meets weekly,
on Thursday evening,
from 7pm-9pm,
at the Kinsale Community School
….see you there!

Happy coding!

What’s Happening 16th June 2015

We had another OUTSTANDING showing at this year’s Coderdojo Coolest Project Awards day, held in the RDS, Dublin, on Saturday June 13th.

Check out some of the Press from the event, and a special feature on Darragh Walsh’s NFC project, at these links:

Irish Times – 2015 Coolest Project Awards, with Kinsale mention

Irish Tech Central – 2015 Coolest Project Awards

Kinsale had six project submissions for the Awards, with Thomas Brandes winning the Scratch category, and Anthony Butterly getting runner up in the Games category.  The other Kinsale Coderdojo participants were:  Joseph and David O’Donovan, Casey Ring, Ethan Monkhouse, James O’Hagan, Patrick Gowran, Oisin Coyle and Darragh Walsh. All ten of our Kinsale Dojo team did a fantastic job in getting their projects ready for the awards show, and a great thanks has to go to those friends and family members that helped them generate such high achievement!

Our Dojo is going from strength to strength and we would like to thank Sean O’Sullivan in SOS Ventures, Hal McElroy in the Trident, and Fergal McCarthy at the Kinsale Community School, and all their respective staff members, for hosting us in the former Avego offices, the Trident Hotel and the Kinsale Community School respectively.  Without that support, our Dojo wouldn’t be able to meet weekly.

Ireland’s future will be heavily dependant on the technology industry, and our Kinsale Coderdojo is a terrific environment for kids to learn about technology, product development and learn about programming.  We aid their learning by mentoring kids and presenting them with immersive experiences.  Learning these skills at such an early age will give those kids a huge advantage over others, just like learning hurling, football, swimming or any sport is an advantage when done at a young age.

To get into the exciting world of technology, contact us at:  kinsalecoderdojo@gmail.com

Regards, Jim/Nick/Des

What’s Happening 8th May 2015

Our dojo is hosted for a 2nd straight week at the Trident Hotel, Kinsale.   We will run our dojo from the “Chart Room” again…which has, without a doubt, the most spectacular view of any Coderdojo in the world!

Our immense thanks and gratitude goes to Hal, and his Trident Hotel staff, for offering us the hotel facilities at short notice, and for their generous sponsorship for our cause!  Please help out the Trident, as a progressive and caring local business!

We will again run three projects this coming week….(1) finishing Nick’s “Learning python” tutorial, (2) continuing the “Learning Scratch” for those new to programming, and (3) mentoring those dojo’ers that are submitting an entry into the “2015 Coderdojo Coolest Projects Awards”.  The two tutorial sessions will be focussed on assisting newcomers to python, or new comers to programming, to learning python or Scratch, respectively.   The “Coolest Projects” session is all about mentoring the entrants for this years competition, because you DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT!!!!

As usual, “Be cool, and have fun!”

Kinsale Coderdojo mentor, Jim Blair