Color Coded – Piper

COLOR CODED

PIPER MAKE EDUCATOR RESOURCES SERIES

SENSOR EXPEDITION KIT

CREATE A SECRET CODED MESSAGE WITH COLOR

Intermediate

1 hr

Ages 8+

You will need a Starter Kit and Sensors to do this mission. Get yours here:

Piper Make Starter + Sensors Kit

CHECK OUT THE BUILD:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  • Use the color sensor to “read” and report color and map colors to different words/letters to create a “secret code” which can be shared.
  • Understand the coding elements of if/then statements and interface with the color sensor using different graphical views on Piper Make.
  • Understand the fundamental concepts of how color is perceived in the world around you.

EDUCATOR RESOURCES

  • You can share the mission directly to your Google Classroom after logging into your Google educator account in the top right corner of Piper Make.

Check out our easy assignment template that you can use to ask students to share their work by including pictures of their final circuits and code.

Copy the Assignment to Your Google Drive
Preview the Assignment

  • Useful vocabulary terms to use in classroom: color sensing, input, conditional statements, variables, mapping

TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS

Is the sensor not detecting color?

  • Ensure that the sensor is on! There is a small switch on the sensor that must be switched on for the sensor to work (you will see a white LED turn on when this is correct).

  • Ensure that you've plugged the wires into the right GPIO (take a look at the Digital View to see which pin you're affecting)

How does the color sensor work?

  • It emits a white light and then measures the red, green, and blue wavelengths that bounce back. Based on the amount of red, green, and blue light that bounces back, we can figure out what color the sensor is "looking at."

FINAL HARDWARE

In this lesson, students will connect their color sensor and use it detect colors in the world around them.

FINAL CODE

OVERVIEW OF STEPS