For those struggling  to come up with gifts for the techies and geeks in your lives we put together a list of great websites for you. If you know of a great site that should be on this list please let us know.

Toys 
Electronics –
Makey Makey: http://www.makeymakey.com
Snap Circuits: http://www.snapcircuits.net/
Robotics –
Sphero: http://www.sphero.com/sphero
Cubelets: http://www.modrobotics.com/cubelets/
Ozobot: http://ozobot.com
Dot & Dash: https://www.makewonder.com

Maker/DIY Electronics
Retailers –
Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com
Sparkfun: https://www.sparkfun.com
MakerShed: http://www.makershed.com
Manufacturers –
Arduino: https://www.arduino.cc
LittleBits: http://littlebits.cc
LilyPad: http://lilypadarduino.org
Raspberry Pi: https://www.raspberrypi.org, http://us.kano.me

Books
Programming –
Scratch: Super Scratch: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11730
Minecraft Modding: Learn to Mod Minecraft in 24 hours: http://amzn.to/1lIPgoy
Raspberry Pi: Top 5 for 2015: http://bit.ly/1IzF2Bi
Electronics –
Arduino: Sew Electric: http://sewelectric.org,
Arduino Adventures: http://amzn.to/1OKAxFt,
Sylvia’s Awesome Arduino Project Book: http://superawesomebook.com

Games
Robot Turtles: http://thinkfun.com/products/robot-turtles/

The first meeting went well. The slide deck presented by Dave Welch is attached to this post.  Please share and comment!

Thanks!

Startup Meeting 10282015

I have been contacted by another group who was working in parallel to create a dojo in St. Louis. We will be combining our efforts and they have an initial planning meeting scheduled for this Wednesday, October 28. Follow the link for more details!

https://t.co/D5DGC4xsaS

Electronics & Robotics

Adafruit – Learn & Buy Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc.
Arduino
MaKey Makey
Raspberry Pi – Getting Started with Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi.org

Coding Events, Programs & Camps

Black Girls Code
Code.org
CS First
Digital Media Academy
Hour of Code
i2 Camp
iD Tech Camps
Made With Code

Coding Tools, IDEs & Editors

Cloud9 IDE
Codepen.io
Compilr – write code from your browser
GitHub 
JSBin HTML/Javascript Editor – an HTML editor you can use in your browser and see instant results
JSFiddle HTML Editor – an HTML editor you can use in your browser and see instant results
Koding – code in the cloud

Game Development

Cocos2d – open source software frameworks for building cross-platform games and apps
GameMaker – software to make games – GameMaker Lite is free
GameSalad – can produce iPhone, web browser-based content in HTML 5, and Android applications.
GameSalad Getting Started Cookbook
GameSalad – Overview of GameSalad Basics (video)
GameSalad – Welcome to GameSalad tutorial video
Minecraft API
Unity 2D – Lessons from Jesse Freeman
Unity 3D (has downloadable free version)
Unity 3D – Fungus – Fungus is an extension for Unity 3D for making fun story-based games
Unity 3D – Learn Unity
Unity 3D Student – learn video game development through bitesize modules combined with challenges

General

36 Free Kids’ Programming Resources
Code.org Studio
Code School – learn Ruby, Javascript, Git, iOS
Codeacademy
CodeHS
CoderDojo Tutorial List
codeSpark
Hackr.io Tutorials
Khan Academy – Computer Science – beginner, visual, fun!
Khan Academy – Computer Science – advanced
Kithub – hands-on kits for young innovators sent monthly
Learn to Program (book)
LEGO Mindstorms
Light-Bot – game that teaches kids basic programming concepts
Made With Code – Projects (Google) – Coding for Girls
Pluralsight – for adults, but some smart kids might benefit from these programming courses
Popcorn (from Mozilla, lets kids integrate video and code)
Terrapin Logo
Treehouse
Udacity – great Into to CS class in Python as well as iOS & Android app development classes
Webmaker Teaching Resources
Young Programmers’ Podcast – video podcast for computer programmers in grades 3 and up. Learn about Scratch, Alice, Python, Pygame, etc.

iPad Apps to Teach Coding

Cargo-Bot
Circuit Coder
CodeQuest – from Codarica – kids build their first website with HTML and CSS
codeSpark
Hopscotch
Kodable
Kodable Class
Move the Turtle
Robo Logic 2 HD
Scratch Jr

Mobile App Development

Android – A Beginner’s Guide – basic Android app programming
ARIS – user-friendly, open source platform for creating and playing mobile games, tours, and interactive stories
Developing with Swift – learn how to make iOS 8 apps in Swift, tutorials by Stanford
iOS 8 and Swift – How to Make a “Freaking” iPhone App
iOS – Lynda.com Teach Kids Programming iOS (must have account)
MIT App Inventor
PhoneGap – create an app using HTML and Javascript
Stanford Fall 2011 iPhone and iPad Development Course
Swifty – learn to code in Swift
Udacity – iOS & Android app development classes

Programming Tutorials

Java

Java – Learn Java with Greenfoot
Java – Teaching Kids Programming – Java

Javascript

Javascript – Code Avengers – Learn Javascript
Javascript – Code Monster
Javascript Tutorial – W3Schools.com
Javascript: Understanding the Weird Parts – Udemy

jQuery

jQuery Tutorial – W3Schools.com

PHP

PHP for Kids
PHP – Lynda.com Teach Kids Programming PHP (must have account

Python

Python – How to Think Like a Computer Scientist – Learning With Python
Python – Invent with Python
Python – Program Arcade Games with Python and Pygame
Python – PyCharm – a free, open source, Python IDE – both take and create courses with info, tasks, code, hints, tests for completion, and progress tracking. JetBrains also set up a public git repository where educators can share courses they create.
Python – The Python Game Book
Teach Your Kids to Code: A Parent-Friendly Guide to Python Programming – book

Ruby

Ruby – Kids Ruby
Ruby – Ruby for Kids
Ruby – Learn to Program Ruby
Ruby – RubyKin – Teach Kids Ruby
Ruby – Try Ruby Ruby – Railsbridge

Videos that Inspire Kids to Learn to Code

Code.org – What Most Schools Don’t Teach

Visual Programming Environments

Alice – educational software that teaches kid programming in a 3D environment
Blockly – a visual programming language from Google
Blockly Games
Kodu
Scratch
Scratch – Harvard Curriculum Guide
Scratch – Learn Scratch
Scratch – Scratch Ed
PythonTurtle
Tynker

Web Application Frameworks

Django – The Django Book
Node.js – The Node Beginner Book
Meteor
Ruby on Rails – Rails for Zombies

Web Development

Codecademy – learn basic web development, CSS, Javascript
CSS Tutorial – W3Schools.com
Twitter Bootstrap
W3 Schools
W3 Schools Color Names

On Friday, October 2nd we will be tending a booth at the St. Louis Science Center’s First Friday Event. Check it out here http://www.slsc.org/first-fridays . We will have table set up with some literature and some samples of what projects, programming languages, and fun activities the kids in our club will be doing. If you have any interest at all about who CoderDojo St. Louis is or about the CoderDojo movement in general please come down and see us on October 2nd. We will have sign-up sheets for those willing to help us by being mentors or volunteers and we will have the date of our first planning meeting by then as well – if not sooner. We hope to see you!