Zaina-Hinnah Malik, Molly Hyman and Hannah Woodruff (Year 5)

This week in Computing Club, we continued to learn about algorithms. An algorithm is a list of rules computers follow in order to solve a problem.

We used Lego to find out how good we are at giving clear and precise instructions. One of us had to choose six pieces of Lego in secret. We then had to describe each piece to our partner carefully so that they could go and select the exact same pieces we had. Then it got even more tricky... One of us had to build a model using the six pieces and then give precise and clear instructions to our partner so that they could build a copy of our model.

Our first attempts were not generally very accurate - our instructions were clearly not good enough!  With practice, we improved the accuracy of our instructions. Through playing with Lego, we learned that when you write an algorithm, the order of the instructions are very important. We also learned how computers might respond if you don’t give them clear instructions. You have to be very precise when you give instructions.