Features

It's been four months since PC Pro launched its campaign to get Britain's kids coding, and the response to our rallying call has been astonishing: our inbox positively swelled with letters from appreciative parents and inspired youngsters alike.

Our software's creator, Dr Michael Kolling from the University of Kent, has seen a groundswell of interest in his Greenfoot Java programming project. Even the BBC interviewed us about our desire to see more of Britain's children put aside their word processors and start learning how to really make software work.

Now we bring you the second in our series of step-by-step tutorials to help push your children's programming skills further still.

Why should you start coding with your kids? With programming now almost eradicated from the school curriculum, children are no longer inspired to delve any deeper than the user interface with

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today's computer software. However, as our inbox shows, there's a genuine appetite to learn what makes software work. "I just loaded the software up and had a go with my 12-year-old daughter," writes PC Pro reader David Jenner. "She enjoys ICT and generally completes her classwork faster than the others, but the teacher is just not challenging the class to create things other than as a 'competent user' of software. She loved this and was right into the wombat scenario. Technically, the learning was excellent - very akin to extreme programming."

Another keen coder writes: "My name is Elizabeth Chesters. I am 15 years old and have been collecting and reading PC Pro for quite a while, and finally there was a decent article on programming. I have only taken a taster lesson in programming, in advance of A-levels, and after an hour it left me wanting more!"

Our second tutorial builds on the skills learnt in our first feature and introduces new techniques, such as managing collision detection and mapping co-ordinates. This time the challenge is to help Pengu cross from one side of a crevice to the other by hopping on a floating cloud, although that's only the starting point for creating your own game.

We've included the Greenfoot software and game scenario on this month's cover disc, along with a PDF of our first Teach Your Kids to Code tutorial, in case you missed it in issue 160.

Let us know how you get on at letters@pcpro.co.uk, and happy programming!