CoderDojo Roeselare developing their own apps.

With help from Mario Witdoek, ex-lead coach CoderDojo Roeselare.

In Roeselare, a group of youngsters called ‘de bende van Toeroet’ (the gang of Torhout) enjoys coding at CoderDojo. Simon, Thomas, Willem, Lucas and Roel (aged 11-14) have been attending CoderDojo for some years now. They started coding at CoderDojo Roeselare and doubled their fun when a CoderDojo opened up in Torhout and they started attending sessions there as well. They know everything there is to know about Scratch so Roeselare lead coach Mario introduced them to App Inventor. App Inventor is a block based coding environment developed by MIT that allows you to build your own apps. Thanks to the efforts of some CoderDojo coaches, App Inventor was translated to Dutch. 

Read our article on the translation of App Inventor here.

But ‘de bende’ wanted to push things a little further. So Mario gave them a challenge: if they managed to create a fully operational app combining all of their work, he vouched to get their app published on the Google Play store. The possibility of reaching everyone on this planet with their app appealed to these youngsters and they started working on their project.

It wasn’t long before they bumped into their first complications. App Inventor didn’t support the merging of different apps risking to send them back to the drawing tables. But de bende pursued and came up with a third party solution enabling them to merge their projects. After a year of hard work they finished their first app: Multi App!

Multi App

Mario kept his word and through CoderDojo Belgium HQ, he got access to a Google developer account. With this account, it is rather easy to publish an app on the Google Play Store. Just make yourself an app logo, take some print screens and fill in some information (stating you’re not a terrorist and all). Some bot checks your app for any irregularities and POOF: your App is online.

Like a real band of developers, the Toeroet gang started noticing some bugs after the first release of their app. So they created an update: Multi App v2, stronger & better. Look for it on the Play store, you will find it!

Encouraged by their success, the gang decided they will donate any gainings to a charity. What a Christmas spirit!

Do you have a team of real App Inventor wizards at your Dojo? Do they want to share their App with the world? Contact info@coderdojobelgium.be and we will work something out together.

Dowload the very first CoderDojo Belgium app here. 

Multi App v2