Welcome to the factory!
A Very Useful Monster factory is where you will learn how to bring your own Very Useful Monster into this world. This web site will to guide you through the steps you need to learn how to bring your code to life in a Very Useful Monster that you can carry with you and interact with.
What is a Very Useful Monster?
Every Very Useful Monster is unique because it is a monster that you design based on what you want it to do. You will use programming, robotics and your imagination to make your monster. It can be as useful as you want it to be… some more advanced Very Useful Monsters help patients get through chemotherapy, others are used for Alzheimers care.
The more you learn about coding, digital design and robotics, the more useful your monster can become.
Get Started!
The workshop projects are organized like note-cards, they’re designed to work in order but it is OK to jump around within a module. The Lessons are organized into three modules:
It’s Alive These are introductory lessons designed for beginners. They provide step by step instructions from writing and uploading the first program through introduction to core programming concepts.
Pet Monster Once the monster has been brought to life, it is time to start training it. This module digs deeper into coding concepts while building a pet monster capable of responding to its environment and learning from it.
Be Useful It is time to make our monster useful! This module starts with a design thinking framework and encourages students to grow their coding, making and planning along with their monster.
Grab your Makey:bit or bit:explorer with micro:bit, go to the first lesson!
If you’d rather just watch the videos, here’s the playlist on YouTube
Overview
The Very Useful Monster curriculum is a collection of challenges designed for self directed exploration of core coding concepts. Each challenge addresses a coding concept as structured around the general theme of designing a pet monster. Each pet monster will be different and everyone will have their own journey.
After learning how to write and upload code to the micro:bit through to give the monster a beating heart, everyone’s exploration will diverge as they build their own monster.
Assessment, if required or desired, is possible for someone with no coding experience: Can the student explain what they wanted their robot to do and does it do it?