I recently had a need to exchange data between the Unity game engine and spreadsheet software. The simplest common format supported by most spreadsheet programs is CSV (Comma Separated Values.) I had assumed that this would be such a common thing to do it would be built into either the .NET or Unity libraries. It turned out this is not the case.
It’s a new year; time for a new project. I’ve been a member of CAS (Computing at School) for several years. It is a group for teachers, parents, IT professionals, and other education specialists, that came together to advocate for the teaching of computing as a subject. But, in a classic case of be careful what you wish for, our focus has now shifted to supporting teachers with the computing curriculum. I decided to join my local hub.
It was Ludum Dare last weekend. I was running my code club so I set the theme, “one room,” as a challenge for my club members. I usually do this when the competition comes around, but I think this is the first time one of my club members has taken up the challenge and completed a game. It took a little encouragement, but I am delighted with both the effort and the result.
Last week’s programming surgery was the most popular yet, with 5 attendees, and a diverse set of programming topics to discuss. I won’t attempt a detailed record of the conversations as my notes were too brief for that, but I will summarize a couple of interesting topics.
Debugging the installation of my HMRC PAYE software wasn’t something I planned for my Saturday evening. But with the first payment of the new tax year due next week I thought I’d make a quick submission to get it out of the way before the bank holiday. But the transition to the new year didn’t go as smoothly as it could have.
Last night was the first Croydon Tech City programming surgery of the new year. On several of these events last year, I forgot to write up the questions and learning. So, this time I decided to keep notes as we went along to remind me what I needed to write up.
Last month, the good folk of Lives Not Knives and a few of us local technology specialists got together to host an event for London Technology Week. Our theme was upcycling cardboard. Mick Rideout and I created a workshop where attendees could add their own faces into a virtual reality zombie game running on the Google Cardboard virtual reality glasses.
Kirstin of the Home Educators Coding Club, which runs in Norfolk Library, left a comment on my previous post asking some questions about the details of running our library programming club. I feel these are questions of general interest to those running or planning to run their own club. So I decided to write up my answers in a new post.
As you can see from the large hole in my post history, I’ve been a little busy for past couple of years. Of course, this is no excuse. I’m just as busy now, if not more so. But I’m going to put more effort into regularly updating this blog.
Code Club is one of the reasons for this extra pressure on my free time. About two years ago I set up a club in our local library. And last week I was asked to answer some questions for a Code Club blog post.
On Thursday, I started a new monthly Croydon Tech City event. I’ve scheduled this event for 19:00 to 21:00 on the last Thursday of the month at Matthews Yard. The programming surgery is a chance for local programmers to get help with their programming problems from local professionals.