Forsyth County Library hosts fun way to learn coding basics

Scratch workshop’s creators say it helps kids think creatively.

Q: My grandson is taking an online computer class called Scratch offered through the Forsyth County Public Library and taught by Robotics for All. Would you tell me what Scratch is about and about the company that is teaching this?

A: Your grandson par- ticipated in the eight-week workshop on a coding program called Scratch with o ther classmates where they were introduced to the basics of the visual block- based programming lan- guage.

Developed by MIT, Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively, according to its website.

A ninth-grader at the time, Maximilian Goetz read to students in underserved communities. He saw the impact of teaching reading and recognized the lack of educational opportuni- ties offered. Being a fan of helping others and his back- ground in robotics led him to pitch an idea to the school’s principal.

The in-person robotics class became the stepping- stone to providing a gateway of instruction to his peers that morphed into creating Robotics for All, now offered virtually, according to Goetz, founder and CEO.

“We realized that the edu- cation in robotics in itself is an important way to combine STEM subjects together, and it was a piece that was missing in a lot of schools due to funding,” said Vice President Garrett Tieng.

The classes are designed to engage and be fun, according to Tieng.

“The first thing you do is you make your character move on the screen,” said Sanjay Ravigopal, who teaches Scratch. “So I think students really love it because right off the bat they can see how coding is used to make a game because that is the first concept they learn. They also see how they are able to abstractly think when they play a game and logic their way into how certain games work.”

Robotics for All is volunteer-based and offers classes for free if needed.

Enrollment for spring courses direct through its website is open until March 5. The next session starts March 15.

COURTESY Catey Iacono, a student in the eight-week basic Scratch workshop hosted by Forsyth County Public Library, edits the Dodging the Shark game she had as homework.