We run in-person kids coding clubs throughout San Luis Obispo County using our custom built CodeDigs.com learning platform. We are looking for part-time Kids Coding Club Assistants who can work side-by-side with a main coding instructor to help kids learn how to program. As you gain experience and master the CodeDigs.com lessons, there will be an opportunity to transition into a main coding instructor role where you have the potential to double your hourly pay overtime. Class sizes are max 8:1 teacher/student ratio and include 1 main coding instructor and 1 coding assistant.

You don’t need to know how to code yourself as long as you are willing to learn the basics and how to use our learning platform at CodeDigs.com. Part of your paid training will consist of completing all of the same CodeDigs.com lessons that students go through so you can effectively help the coding instructor with students. Your primary role will be assisting students who have trouble in lessons and help them get through these lessons.

Our coding clubs held throughout the 5 Cities in multiple locations including schools. You will need to be available between 2:30pm to 4:30pm Monday through Friday and 5 to 10 hours additional to help with prep & setup.

Experience Required:

• Be comfortable with a computer and typing.
• Be willing to learn the CodeDigs.com software.
• Enjoy working with kids.
• Have a fun & playful personality with a great sense of humor. This is a must!
• Good at troubleshooting.
• Be willing to share and come up with your own ideas for club lessons.
• Patience!

Email your resume and a short description on why you would be a good fit for this position to misty@codedigs.com

Following is a guide on how to create a Christmas tree circuit ornament. We started out using construction paper for the tree but that wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t sturdy enough. I found some cheap foam Christmas tree shapes at Michaels craft store for 50% off so I couldn’t pass that up. These were perfect and much more stable.

Supplies Used

• Foam Tree
• 3 LEDs
• Battery Pack
• Two 3v Cell Coin Batteries (inside battery pack)
• Copper Tape
• Aluminum Tape
• Pipe Cleaners
• Ornament Hook
• Stickers

Following is what the circuit built out looks like. We used a parallel circuit design.

The parallel circuit was made with the 2 copper tape strips. We also placed 3 smaller copper tape strips extending from the parallel strips over to the LEDs so the LED legs could connect. The LED legs are taped down on top of the copper tape with aluminum tape. We used aluminum tape because it is a little heavier, stickier and sturdier than the copper tape so works better for keeping the legs taped down.

You may have noticed the black + on the left and the black – on the right. The long legs on the LED lights need to be placed on the + side of the circuit and the short legs of the LED needs to be placed on the – side of the circuit. The red wire from the battery pack needs to be placed on the + side and the black wire needs to be placed on the – side. Make sure and have the silver exposed part of the wiring touching the copper tape.

Step-By-Step Guide

1. Punch holes in your tree where you want the LEDs to go (I pre-punched these).
2. Create the parallel circuit with all of the copper tape.
3. Add the short copper pieces from the parallel circuit extending to the holes where the LEDs will be.
4. Attach the battery pack to the tree with double sided tape (I have the batteries already in the pack with the tape on the back).
5. Tape down the red wire to the + side of the copper tape circuit with aluminum tape.
6. Tape down the black wire to the – side of the copper tape circuit with aluminum tape.
7. Place one of the LED heads through the top punched hole. Tape down the long leg to the extended copper tape piece on the + side of the circuit with aluminum tape and tape down the short leg to the – side with aluminum tape. I colored the long legs with a black sharpie so it’s easier to tell which is which when installing them.
8. Test to see if it work before adding the remaining LEDs. The battery pack has a small switch on the bottom. Turn this on. If the LED turns on, your circuit is working.
9. Now attach the other 2 LEDs through the other 2 holes like you did in step 7.
10. If everything is attached correctly all 3 LEDs should be on.
11. Lastly, decorate the tree with your pipe cleaners for garland and the stickers for ornaments, etc.

Finished Christmas Tree Circuit Ornament

For those reading this who want to make their own Christmas Tree Circuit, following is where you can get the supplies

• Foam Christmas tree shapes from Michaels or Amazon has a bunch of foam Christmas tree shapes too if you do not have a Michaels near you.
• Battery Holders – you can get these in bulk for really cheap from a supplier or you can also get them in smaller quantities from Amazon
• Copper Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• Aluminum Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• LEDs from Amazon. You can get smaller packs too but this is such a good deal especially if you anticipate using LEDs for other projects.
• 3v Cell Coin Batteries from Amazon
• Stickers, pipe cleaners -> dollar store & Michaels.

This is the latest robot project my 1st grade daughter and I have been working on. I incorporated magnets into this robot in order to give her creative ways to design her robots. Plus, what kid doesn’t like playing with magnets? 

We used a small tin, different sized magnets, different kinds of hardware (nuts, bolts), pipe cleaners, paper clips, felt circles, vibrating motor, 3v cell coin battery, toothbrush heads and a small rolling wheel.

Following are a few different designs we created. The possibilities are endless.

My daughter loved making her tin bot. Think of it as the Mr. Potato Head of bots. Kids can use their imagination to place magnets where they want them and use different hardware, pipe cleaners, paper clips for the eyes, arms, nose, mouth, etc. It was fun to show her how these other parts became magnetized themselves when coming into contact with a magnet. She had fun hanging all types of small metal parts off the arm bolts which became magnetized from being in contact with the circle magnets they were attached to.

This tin robot also has a small vibrating motor attached to the bottom connected to a 3V cell coin battery in order to make the robot move around. Following is a picture of how this is wired up.

The aluminum tape has the red wire sticking to it and the blue wire is stuck to the bottom of the battery which is stuck to the tin with double sided tape. When you want to turn the motor on, simply stick the aluminum to the top of the battery making sure the exposed metal wire touches the battery.

You can modify how the robot moves by placing the toothbrush heads in different positions and also placing the motor in different positions. Following are 3 different videos showcasing different placements and how the robots movement differs with each design.

If you created your own tin robot share it below in a comment. Either post the link to your YouTube video or to your Pinterest pin.

This post includes Python code that will trigger the water pump to turn on when the soil sensor detects that the soil in the plant is dry.

The pump will turn on pulling water from the tub through water lines up to the plants. The code also detects when the soil sensor is wet and will trigger the pump to turn off. This assures the plants are only watered when the plant soil is dry and not over-watered when the soil is wet. Download Soil Sensor Code

For those reading this who want to make their own Christmas Tree Circuit, following is where you can get the supplies

• Foam Christmas tree shapes from Michaels or Amazon has a bunch of foam Christmas tree shapes too if you do not have a Michaels near you.
• Battery Holders - you can get these in bulk from a supplier but you can also get them in smaller quantities from Amazon
• Copper Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• Aluminum Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• LEDs from Amazon. You can get smaller packs too but this is such a good deal especially if you anticipate using LEDs for other projects.
• 3v Cell Coin Batteries from Amazon
• Stickers, pipe cleaners -> dollar store & Michaels.

In this post we include the Python code that triggers the motor to turn on when the rain sensor detects rain.

The motor will open the top of the tub so rain can be captured in the tub. The code also detects when the rain sensor is dry and will trigger the motor to spin the opposite way to close the top of the tub. This assures the water does not get polluted with outside elements when it is not raining. Download Rain Sensor Code

Note: this is the main script you want to call to run the rain sensor code. This script also imports motor_function.py which controls the motor so you will need to download both files for the rain sensor to work.

For those reading this who want to make their own Christmas Tree Circuit, following is where you can get the supplies

• Foam Christmas tree shapes from Michaels or Amazon has a bunch of foam Christmas tree shapes too if you do not have a Michaels near you.
• Battery Holders - you can get these in bulk from a supplier but you can also get them in smaller quantities from Amazon
• Copper Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• Aluminum Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• LEDs from Amazon. You can get smaller packs too but this is such a good deal especially if you anticipate using LEDs for other projects.
• 3v Cell Coin Batteries from Amazon
• Stickers, pipe cleaners -> dollar store & Michaels.

For the Solar Water Bot prototype we wanted to keep things simple for the rain capture tub. We ended up finding a small tupperware tub from Osh Hardware that already had a top flap with hinges on the back that easily opened and closed.

We inserted a screw in the front of it and attached a string from the screw loop up to the top of the wooden pole where the motor is.

We then drilled a small hole into the side of the tub towards the top and placed the water line through this hole down to the bottom of the tub where the water is.

The water line from the tub is connected to one side of the pump and another water line comes out of the other side of the pump into the plants. This allows for the water to be pulled from the tub into the plants when the pump turns on.

For those reading this who want to make their own Christmas Tree Circuit, following is where you can get the supplies

• Foam Christmas tree shapes from Michaels or Amazon has a bunch of foam Christmas tree shapes too if you do not have a Michaels near you.
• Battery Holders - you can get these in bulk from a supplier but you can also get them in smaller quantities from Amazon
• Copper Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• Aluminum Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• LEDs from Amazon. You can get smaller packs too but this is such a good deal especially if you anticipate using LEDs for other projects.
• 3v Cell Coin Batteries from Amazon
• Stickers, pipe cleaners -> dollar store & Michaels.

This part is fairly easy to get setup. We simply purchased a small solar panel that is already wired with ports to charge a battery. We also purchased a small battery pack that fit well with the solar panel pack. The photo demonstrates how to connect the solar panel to the battery back and then plug the Raspberry pi to the battery pack. Following are links to the solar panel and battery pack we used.

Solar Panel With Ports To Charge Battery

Battery Pack

For those reading this who want to make their own Christmas Tree Circuit, following is where you can get the supplies

• Foam Christmas tree shapes from Michaels or Amazon has a bunch of foam Christmas tree shapes too if you do not have a Michaels near you.
• Battery Holders - you can get these in bulk from a supplier but you can also get them in smaller quantities from Amazon
• Copper Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• Aluminum Tape from Amazon. This will last you for a long time for many, many projects.
• LEDs from Amazon. You can get smaller packs too but this is such a good deal especially if you anticipate using LEDs for other projects.
• 3v Cell Coin Batteries from Amazon
• Stickers, pipe cleaners -> dollar store & Michaels.