This activity from the CS4FN team at QMUL is a metaphorical introduction to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and the difficulties of working at the command line.

The whole-class activity uses a game called spit-not-so. The winner of the game is the first to choose, from a...

This series of three lesson activities uses Scratch to create animations that tell a story, and can link to studies in English.

A starter Scratch file partially tells the story of the Great Fire of London. Additional resources are provided allowing children to improve the animation.

Using some short...

A useful handbook for setting up a student-led STEM club, with exemplars from three schools.

It is increasingly recognised that giving students opportunities to act as ambassadors and mentors for STEM subjects outside of school can be of great benefit to the individual, their institution, and to the broader...

Using a set of simple ‘swap puzzles’, this CS4FN activity helps students to learn, fundamentally, what an algorithm is and how they can be made more efficient. Students are encouraged to create algorithms for solving the puzzles which can be used by future players to win, with no understanding of the game, in as...

This infographic gives a clear overview and summary of the progression of the Teach Computing Curriculum through each key stage and year group from the beginning of key stage 1 through to the end of key stage 4 with suggestions for post-16 options.

The Teach Computing Curriculum resources contain everything...

This CS4FN activity from the team at Queen Mary University of London highlights some issues encountered during the design of human-computer interfaces (HCI). It acts as an introduction to HCI, introducing the need to translate problems and to understand how people behave.

The activities include a robot...

By creating their own paper ‘robot face’, students learn about how high-level language is translated into low-level machine instructions. The resource, created by Paul Curzon and Peter McOwan of the CS4FN team, covers sequencing in programs, compilers and interpreters. A detailed instruction sheet guides the...

This magic trick from the Computer Science for Fun team at QMUL shows that computing is about more than just programming and computational thinking is about more than just algorithms.

A simple mathematical approach is taken with dealt piles of cards – this allows the dealer to control the whereabouts of the...

This unplugged activity from the CS4FN team uses two examples – an insulting computer and one that can play snap – to look at simple computer programming, flow of control and logic. Everything is provided for this front-of-class activity, which would act as an effective starter for a lesson on programming concepts...

This resource uses the version of Minecraft that comes pre-installed within the Raspbian operating system for the Raspberry Pi. As such a Raspberry Pi is required to use this e-book. Minecraft: Pi Edition comes with a powerful Application Programming Interface (API), which allows students to hack and make entire...

In this resource , students can get started and are guided step-by-step through the process of creating all sorts of projects using Scratch including games, animations, quizzes, electronics circuits, and more. Although originally written for the Raspberry Pi all the projects can be ported to other platforms (except...

The This is Engineering: Entertainment STEM resource explores the essential role that engineers play in the entertainment industry.

This is Engineering: Entertainment asks young learners to express and share their thoughts and ideas, to be curious, experiment, find their own passions and interests, and to...

Containing two linked activities, these resources from the CS4FN team introduce graphs to represent inter-related data and algorithms to negotiate them.

Suitable for non-programmers being introduced to algorithms, the two challenges – the Knights Tour and the Tour Guide – are similar. Both use graphs as...

Using sparkles to code flashing sequences. There are variations on difficulty including the introduction of switches.