Google incubator's Grasshopper app teaches coding through mini-games for free
Google's in-house start-up incubator Area 120 has released an app called Grasshopper that teaches the basics of how to code JavaScript through a series of mini-games. The app is designed to tutor people who have never coded before and make programming fun and approachable to beginners. It believes that coding is increasingly becoming a necessary skill and should be known to everyone.
The app contains simple challenges, quizzes and puzzles
Log in with your Google account and walk through some definitions of coding. To get the hang of basic JavaScript, students solve simple challenges, quizzes, and puzzles that keep getting more difficult as you progress. You can take a couple of lessons every day at your own time and pace and set practice reminders so that you keep in touch with the new skill.
The app has three sets of lessons
The app starts with "The Fundamentals" that includes functions, variables, strings for loops, arrays, conditionals, operators, and objects. Later, the lessons involve complex functions, animations, and drawing shapes using the well-known D3 library. At the end, the app recommends Coursera classes you can take to learn more about coding and also offers an online playground where you can make your own interactive animations.
Track you progress and achievements on the app
It also features reward-based achievements, progress indicators, and coding streaks where you can track how many JavaScript keys you've used so far and how many concepts you have unlocked. The app is named after programming pioneer Grace Hopper.
What is Area 120?
Area 120 aims at employee retention and gives Googlers a chance to work full-time on their start-up ideas, for which they might have otherwise left the company. The internal incubator has released projects like emoji messenger Supersonic, booking tool Appointments, and YouTube co-watching app UpTime.
