With the school holidays soon upon us, we are all excited to have an enjoyable break with our families. Why not explore the endless possibilities that technology has to offer while having fun through our #Techtivities? 🐇

Let’s kick it off with this month’s #TechFact! Did you know that Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, would send his first ever tweet on the social media platform in 2006? Now, Twitter is the 9th most viewed website globally! (Source)

He even sold this tweet eventually as an NFT for $2.9 million dollars! 😲

Image for #TechFact (March 2023 Techtivities)

Now that we’re learnt a new titbit, keep scrolling on to discover techtivities that you and your family can indulge in this month! ✨


Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience

Artist Vincent Van Gogh is definitely a household name among any art enthusiasts. Coming to Southeast Asia for the first time ever, dive into the world of artist Vincent Van Gogh at Sentosa! 🤩

Starring over 300 of his famous works such as the Starry Night, Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience is a 360-degree multi-sensorial exhibition where art meets technology! 🌍

What tech is here? 🤔
🧑‍💻 Be mesmerised by beautiful artworks as they are digitally projected using Video Mapping technology and combined with movement and sound to enhance your sensory experience! 🖼️
🧑‍💻 Experience life as Vincent Van Gogh through the help of Virtual Reality (VR), where you can discover the inspiration behind his works! 😲
🧑‍💻 Transform into an artist yourself as your creative pieces become larger-than-life digital representations with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI)! 🧑‍🎨

 

Details:
When: from 1 March 2023
Where: Resorts World Sentosa – B1 Forum
Price: from $19
Learn more here.


Keppel Centre for Art Education

Is your little one a budding artist, or maybe they are not that interested? Keppel Centre for Art Education at the National Gallery Singapore is sure to convert the kids to art enthusiasts! 😉

Filled with exciting immersive activities and interactive exhibits, your kids are sure to enjoy the wonders of art and explore their creativity! 😊

What tech is here? 🤔
🧑‍💻 For the active ones, My Ink-Credible Adventure exhibit is sure to be a hit as they make art through running, clapping, jumping and all kinds of action, with the help of tracking technology! 👏
🧑‍💻 Go the unconventional route and create art using robots at the Ink Studio! 🤖
🧑‍💻 Draw your own animals, and see them join and interact with the other digital animals in the forest at the interactive Who’s In the Woods exhibit – all done through Artificial Intelligence (AI)! 🐈

 

Details:
When: Permanent
Where: National Gallery Singapore
Price: Free (for Singaporeans and PRs)
Learn more here.


29Rooms

Up for a full multi-sensorial experience from visuals, textures, sounds and even smells? 29Rooms is a new exhibit at Gardens by the Bay with 29 interactive spaces created in collaboration with local and international artists. Get ready for your senses to be amazed as you travel to various places while being at the same spot! 😄

What tech is here? 🤔
🧑‍💻 Adventure through different countries with the help of Immersive Technology from Samsung! ✈️
🧑‍💻 Experience nature and zen with 360-degree projection created with Mapping Technology, combind with visual and auditory ASMR at the ethereal Huetopia room! 🕊️
🧑‍💻 Calling fans of singer Billie Eilish! Gather at her room, where you can tag along on her journey of creating her own fragrance and get the full experience from sights and sounds to even smells – all with the help of Projection Technology! 🎤

 

Details:
When: until 16 April 2023
Where: Gardens by the Bay
Price: from $16
Learn more here.


March Holiday Coding Camps

Last call for our March Holiday Coding Camps!

Is your child a fan of games like Geometry Dash? Maybe they like puzzling over questions. Why not learn to create their own (and even better!) version of platformer games or quiz programs? 😉

At our March Holiday Coding Camps for ages 7 to 18, these are just some of the many possibilities awaiting your child! Be it Scratch, App Inventor, or Python – you can do it all on any platform of your choice.

With both physical and online options, there’s definitely a class suitable for everyone! Hesitate no more, grab a friend this March Holidays and join us here at Coding Lab.
Sign up here or feel free to drop us an email, call us or WhatsApp us to get in touch. 😊

Details:
When: 13 to 17 March 2023
Where: Online, Parkway Parade, Bukit Timah (KAP Mall)
Price: From $401.52

Sign up for your Coding Lab class now!


Image for #TechNews (March 2023 Techtivities)

From binary codes to machine learning 🤖, these concepts may seem very daunting, let alone for young children! The children’s storybook “Daisy And Her AI Friends” 📕 was launched by AI Singapore to make AI more easily understandable for kids!

Targeted at lower primary students, this is the first initiative by AI Singapore’s literacy program AI For Kids (AI4K) to improve digital literacy amongst young children. Adapted from winning designs by elementary children, the storybook features illustrations that are children-friendly to make it more relatable to young readers. Learn more about this beautifully illustrated, educational, and children-friendly book on AI here! 🧑‍🤝‍🧑


If you haven’t seen our previous techtivity recommendations, check out our February #TechtivitiesOfTheMonth, which includes more cool tech-related activities you can do with friends and family!

(Written by Thinzar)


Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.
Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger

Games have been at the forefront of entertainment for all ages and have never been more accessible.

The two most popular games on our kids’ minds are Minecraft and Roblox. By the age of 7, many of our Students will have heard about these games through their friends or YouTube channels. As a result, many parents have approached Coding Lab, inquiring about the presence of either a Minecraft or Roblox curriculum where the students can be guided into their foray into online games and at the same time, learn programming.

We sat down with our Educator and Assistant Curriculum Team Lead, Hovan Tan, to ask him his thoughts on what platforms are suitable for our children, and how we came to the decision to develop and launch our special Minecraft Code Your World curriculum, instead of other platforms. Let’s hear from Teacher Hovan! 👏


We sought an answer of creating either a well-designed Minecraft curriculum or Roblox Curriculum for the right age group.

Hours of research commenced, on the platforms. We wanted to ensure that the curriculum we deliver does not only improve your child’s computational thinking skills, but also most importantly, keep our students safe and secure in an online environment.

We chose to create our Minecraft Code Your World curriculum, and forgo Roblox entirely, despite the multitude of requests we received for Roblox classes. For you to better understand our decision, we will be breaking down our prior research on the two platforms.

Let us see how Minecraft and Roblox compare in 2 key areas; (1) online safety, privacy and parental settings, and (2) programming support.

(1) Online Safety and Privacy Features

Minecraft

  • Minecraft has access to Microsoft’s Xbox features, which include a comprehensive suite of privacy and security features that protects individuals from online dangers.
  • Parental controls are also available on Minecraft, which allow parents to maintain and monitor their children’s interactions and activity online, enabling/ disabling online features to their choice. Such features are also available in the Java Edition, Bedrock Edition (Windows), and Minecraft Education Edition.

Our Conclusion: Minecraft allows children to enjoy learning and playing with proper parental safeguards in place.

Roblox

  • Roblox (and Roblox Studio used for programming) is a free platform which is easily accessible online and has an easy account creation process (check out the video below which illustrates this!).
  • Roblox is an online experience first, online interactions are at the forefront of its success. Minimal account safeguards exist for parents, and most importantly, children can easily circumvent these safeguards by creating a new account in under 5 minutes.
  • Through research, we have found past articles which documented the presence of inappropriate adult content on Roblox.  Playing on this platform therefore comes with risks such as exposure to sexual content, which is not suitable for minors.

Our Conclusion: Roblox has a low barrier of entry, with minimal safeguards in place, potentially carrying the risk of children being exposed to online dangers.

(2) Programming Support

Minecraft

Image of Minecraft Interface (Minecraft Blog)
Image of Minecraft Education Edition’s user interface

Microsoft released the Minecraft: Education Edition in 2016. Players program interactions inside Minecraft using the embedded Microsoft Makecode editor, which allows programming using blocks (for beginner coders, or text-based JavaScript or Python (for Intermediate and Advanced Coders). Microsoft MakeCode is also available in the Minecraft Bedrock as an additional app, an easy-add on programming tool for young gamers.

Microsoft MakeCode easily scales from Beginner all the way to Advanced level programming. The Minecraft MakeCode API (essentially the coding commands) makes it easy to onboard new coders. Students who have done Scratch can use coding concepts they have learned, such as conditional statements and iteration, in MakeCode. Psst: Coders can even quickly switch their programs from Block language to Python or JavaScript so they can see a side-by-side comparison of the languages!

On top of that, Microsoft is actively developing MakeCode and Minecraft Education. They are adding new code commands (API), features, and support on a regular basis, making the platform a real joy to teach and code on.

Roblox

Image of Roblox Interface (Minecraft Blog)
Image of Roblox Studio’s user interface

Released in 2005,  Roblox Studio, utilising only the text-based Lua programming language. Roblox does not have a block-based language. Roblox API (application programming interface) is extensive and complex, which is more difficult to understand and discover for young coders and new coders.

Roblox Studio can be paralleled to Unity (a platform used for game development – which we teach to our teens!) which allows game developers to create fully fledged games in Roblox, Whilst the Roblox API allows for creating complex, custom features in games, the learning curve for coding simple things is much more difficult with a steeper learning curve for the average 7-12 year old student. 

MINECRAFT VS ROBLOX – PROGRAMMING

Programming on Minecraft is great for young kids to start off with; with drag and drop blocks; which also allows for an easy transition into text-based languages as the student advances. That is why Minecraft is suitable for all ages and programming levels. So when your kid tells you they want to program in Minecraft, believe them! It really is an exciting educational experience they are going through.

Roblox, in contrast, requires advanced knowledge to program more than just the basics. More suited to teens, if you’ve already let your 7 year old try it out; chances are that your young child is spending his/her time playing the game more than coding (so now you know the secret ;-)) Furthermore, without the appropriate parental safeguards and the ease of creating a new account, we really wouldn’t want our students to go therewhy start at all; if Minecraft can provide a much better and safer learning and gaming experience?

Minecraft Education Privacy

Restricted Access to Online Games

– Only players that are in the same Azure tenant (the same domain such as @codinglab.com.sg) can join multiplayer worlds together. When students create multiplayer worlds in Minecraft Education, only people with accounts on the same tenant can join their world. In other words: it’s easier to limit your child’s interaction when he plays – you know they’re only playing with their friends from coding class, and not random online strangers!

Classroom Mode for Minecraft

– Minecraft Education Classroom Mode is an optional app that allows teachers to monitor and manage multiplayer games in Minecraft Education, such as disabling chat and pausing the game. Yes parents, we use this all the time to ensure optimal class experience and control 🙂

In summary

Here is the main differences between Minecraft and Roblox platforms.

Image of Comparison Chart for Minecraft blog

Our decision?

With our priority being safety and fun learning, it was a clear choice for us. From the credibility of Microsoft, to its multiple years of strict parental controls; to Minecraft being a game first, rather than online interaction. Together with an age-appropriate programming platform, we opted to create a curriculum for our students using Minecraft’s Code Builder!

Our students have won competitions at the National Japan Minecraft Cup Competition for three consecutive years. Every year, students from Singapore and Japan meet online to program and submit their ideas for the cup.  Check out our past accolades here (2019,2021,2022). If your child is keen to join us but has no prior experience, keep a lookout for our special Minecraft Code Your World classes are available during our holiday camps for ages 10 to 12. Check out our schedules here under P21S – Advanced Computer Scientists!

*Note: You would need to complete our App Inventor 1+2 and Python Junior 1+2 before joining our Minecraft classes. 

(Written by Hovan, edited by Thinzar)


Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.
Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger

This year, we had the opportunity to coach Woodgrove Primary, who won the Most Feasible and Sustainable Award in the National Thinkers Challenge 2022 by Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan!

Out of 52 teams, the team placed in the top 3 and clinched 1 out of the 5 awards presented. This competition aims to let students think of innovative tech solutions and this year’s theme was food wastage, and the students created a prototype mobile app incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Woodgrove Primary - Award Presentation
Here is the Woodgrove Primary Team during their Award Presentation!

Congratulations to the team who worked hard on their mobile app! They definitely deserved to be featured in 8world for their brilliant project. We are proud to be able to mentor these young talented coders and see the amazing work that they have created at the end of the journey. Thank you, Educator Edmund, for your brilliant coaching and mentorship of the team!


To boost Singapore’s Smart Nation capabilities, the inaugural National Thinkers Challenge (NTC) hopes to introduce to primary school pupils the concepts of design thinking, artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies. Organised by the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan, the competition this year drew 232 upper primary pupils from 37 schools.

Want to create your own apps? Explore the different possibilities that you can create with our App Inventor classes (ages 10-12)!

(Written by Thinzar)

Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.
Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger