Course Launch and Diagnostic

Welcome to the Studio

This course runs a little differently than most. Most days won't be a long lecture — you'll get a quick intro to something new, then time to actually work, with support around you the whole time. Today's about getting oriented: meeting the room, getting your setup working, and giving your teacher a first look at where everyone's starting from. No stakes today.

Today's Plan

  • Meet the room
  • How this course runs
  • Get your environment working
  • Set up a work folder
  • "Make It Yours" challenge
  • Wrap-up & what's next

How This Course Runs

  • Most days, you won't be sitting through a long lecture. You'll get a quick intro, then work independently or in a small group while your teacher circulates to help.
  • This course has two tracks — Core and Extended — but which one you're in isn't about your grade level, it's about where you're starting from. That gets sorted out by the end of this week.
  • Help comes from a few places: your teacher, the people around you, and — soon — your own notes and documentation.
  • Be honest about where you're at. This week isn't about a grade, it's about figuring out how to actually support you. Overselling yourself just means less help later, when you might actually want it.

Check Your Setup

  • Open VS Code
  • Open or create a Python file (one ending in .py) — if VS Code asks you to install the Python extension, say yes. This might happen again later in the semester too, since these computers get reset sometimes — it's a quick "click install," not a real setup task, once you know the prompt to expect.
  • You might spot other tools on these computers, like PyCharm — for this course, we're sticking with VS Code
  • Run a simple "hello world" to make sure everything's talking to each other
  • Already comfortable with this? Help a neighbour who isn't — you'll be doing a lot of that this semester.

Set Up a Work Folder

Before you start coding, set up one folder to keep today's work in — this saves you from losing anything if you close VS Code without thinking about it.

  1. In VS Code, go to File → Open Folder
  2. It should open straight into your H: drive — your personal network drive, and the one thing on these computers that doesn't get wiped between sessions
  3. Create a new folder and call it something like CP11-12
  4. Open that folder — VS Code will now treat it as your workspace

This is just a placeholder home for now — and a bit of a hassle, since it only works from a school computer logged into your account. Next class, you'll set up a GitHub repo instead, which fixes that: push your work up, pull it down again from anywhere — home, a laptop, wherever. Today's workaround is exactly the kind of problem repos were built to solve.

Make It Yours

Not graded. Not a test. This just helps us see where everyone's starting from so we can support you properly from day one.

Create a new file inside your CP11-12 folder — something like makeityours.py — and start from this tiny script:

name = "Ms. Smith"
print("Hi, I'm " + name + "!")

Save as you go (Ctrl+S).

Take it as far as you want. Try however many of these make sense for you:

  1. Personalize it — swap in your own name and get it running
  2. Add more — a couple more lines about yourself (an interest, why you signed up, whatever)
  3. Make it interactive — use input() to ask for something instead of hardcoding it
  4. Add a decision — an if/else that changes what prints, based on an answer
  5. Add a loop — repeat something, or loop through a short list of facts about yourself
  6. Go further — already done all that? Try something you haven't been taught here yet. Impress us.

Used AI? Totally fine. If you used ChatGPT, Copilot, or anything else for part of this, leave a one-line note: what did you ask for, and what did you keep or change? No penalty either way — we're just starting a habit that'll matter a lot later this semester.

What's Next

Next class (0.2), you'll set up your GitHub account and get your programming portfolio started — the home for your work all semester. Hang onto today's script, you'll need it.