Course Overview and Goals

Objectives and Overview

CS Core is a course where youth will develop programming skills while creating a variety of projects focused on creative expression with code. You’ll learn fundamental programming concepts through a variety of short projects utilizing JavaScript, particularly the p5.js library. You’ll build your personal digital “sketchbook” while honing your programming skills!

One of the bigger picture goals of this course is to build confidence and understanding of fundamental programming concepts. The core objectives of this course are focused mainly on understanding programming fundamentals and building confidence and familiarity.

Lesson Objectives

• Recognize the strengths of JavaScript and how you can create with p5.js 
• Identify some ways that p5 can be extended and integrated into other web contexts.
• Understand the expectation of creating a digital sketchbook throughout this course and the general process of accomplishing this.

Core Course Concepts

The core concepts are split between the fundamental programming skills to be demonstrated through their p5 sketches, as well as some additional p5 concepts. Here are all of the core course objectives:

Core Programming Concepts:

• Setting up a development environment
• Creating and using variables
• Working with loops
• Commenting, troubleshooting, and debugging
• Recognizing data types
• Conditional code
• Working with functions
• Working with arrays

Core p5.js Concepts:

• Creating user interaction in a p5 sketch
• Building basic user interfaces with the p5dom library