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The Artists | Think Like A Coder, Ep 5

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TEDEd Animation

Let’s Begin…

This is episode 5 of our animated series “Think Like A Coder.” This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hedge, as they attempt to save the world. The two embark on a quest to collect three artifacts and must solve their way through a series of programming puzzles.

Additional Resources for you to Explore

5) De-Painting
There are thousands of square pixel paintings of different sizes. You have to paint an X across the middle of each painting. You have a robot that can go forward, turn left or right, and move a paint brush up or down.

Main concept: Nested loops, path logic
Code.org resource: Nested loops with the bee

Digital Resources
code.org (https://code.org) has great resources for students and teachers. It also includes an extensive curriculum mapped to K-12 curriculum standards (https://curriculum.code.org/csf-19/standards/).

If you’re looking for programming challenges, check out the Advent of Code, which is run by Eric Wastl, who consulted extensively on Think Like a Coder and inspired quite a few of the puzzles. The Advent of Code is a yearly event that takes place in December and involves 25 coding challenges linked together by an overarching plot. It’s also available throughout the rest of the year, and the challenges it features are a great way to stretch your coding and problem-solving skills once you have basic proficiency with a programming language.

FreeCodeCamp (https://www.freecodecamp.org) has thousands of coding lessons and programming challenges, and you can even get certified for a few different skills.

University of Michigan's Python for Everybody Specialization on Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/specializations/python) is a beginner-level intro to software development using python that focuses on interacting with data.

Microsoft has a 44 video series called Python for Beginners. In their words, “Even though we won’t cover everything there is to know about Python in the course, we want to make sure we give you the foundation on programming in Python, starting from common everyday code and scenarios. At the end of the course, you’ll be able to go and learn on your own, for example with docs, tutorials, or books.”

If you’re trying to decide what programming language to learn, a flowchart like this one may be a helpful starting point.


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About TED-Ed Animations

TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »

Meet The Creators

  • Educator Alex Rosenthal
  • Director Tolga Yıldız
  • Narrator Addison Anderson
  • Producer Serin İnan, Bethany Cutmore-Scott
  • CG Supervisor Saman Khorram
  • Concept and Character Design Ali Anılır, İbrahim Hakkı Uslu
  • 2D Motion Design Sena Celebi
  • 2D Animation Gürkan Gürler
  • Modeling Hür Serhat Öz, Elif Kaya
  • Rigging Eda Gokce
  • Texturing Ali Anılır
  • 3D Animation Ece Gener Doğan
  • Compositor Gürkan Gürler
  • Project Coordinator Gizem Tutumlu
  • Music Tolga Yıldız
  • Sound Designer and Mixer Deniz Doğançay
  • Director of Production Gerta Xhelo
  • Editorial Producer Alex Rosenthal
  • Fact-Checker Eden Girma
  • Puzzle Consultant Eric Wastl
  • Special Thanks Sara Kladky

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