Today’s Google Doodle is the first ever “coding doodle” and it is nothing short of adorable.
In celebration of 50 years of kids coding languages, the doodle teaches the foundations of programming with a fun game involving a pastel rabbit who says “doing” (like boing) and desperately wants some carrots.
No ad to show here.
Celebrate #CSEdWeek & 50 yrs of kids coding languages by checking out our VERY FIRST coding #GoogleDoodle!
→ https://t.co/Kr7pjrLXOr pic.twitter.com/V0aJFBBAM2 — Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) December 4, 2017
The doodle is based on the Scratch programming language for kids, and allows children — and unfamiliar adults — to program the rabbit across six levels, lapping up carrots. It teaches reasoning, logic, and more specific coding concepts like loops. You can find the game here.
“My hope is that people will find this first experience appealing and engaging, and they’ll be encouraged to go further,” Scratch’s director of communications, Champika Fernando, said in the doodle’s write-up.
The game, at the very least, has entertained some developers on Twitter.
Today’s “Kids” coding challenge Google Doodle is excellent. However… given my failure with Lvl 5, Should I just give up #webdev now?
pic.twitter.com/fmRDDld3NA — Ben Hutchings (@meredevelopment) December 4, 2017
playing today’s google doodle encapsulates my programming experience perfectly: if you don’t know how to solve a problem, try random things till it works, then walk away still having no idea why it worked
— xIceArcher | #ぐーりんぱ再投票計画 (@xIceArcher) December 4, 2017
The last challenge can actually be done in 4 blocks! pic.twitter.com/1weQPYrMJJ
— Anojh Gnanachandran (@ephemeralzero) December 4, 2017
