From today through December 14th, Code.org is running its annual “Hour of Code” event, in which educators around the globe leverage simple, hour-long coding programs to help people of all ages learn the basics of coding, or improve their existing skills. Since ROBLOX has a hand in both entertainment and education, we’ve decided to participate in this year’s Hour of Code by rolling out a series of fun Lua programming video tutorials — adding up to a total of 60+ minutes — over the course of this week. By following along with our Hour of Code, you’ll learn the fundamentals of programming in Lua and even how to create some exciting elements of a fast-paced platform game!

The Hour of Code is self-described as a “global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries.” The event features a number of official tutorials that can be hosted by educators, but we know our community is full of smart, curious people who like to figure things out on their own. So, we’re providing a little help and a small spark, and letting you open the doors to game development and engineering on your own accord.

Here’s part one, led by ROBLOX Studio expert and staff member Laker “UristMcSparks” Sparks. Follow along (we recommend you watch in 1080p for optimal text fidelity) in ROBLOX Studio on your computer and let us know how you did.

We’ll be publishing one video per day for the next three days to this YouTube playlist. Here’s the schedule of tutorials for the remainder of this week:

• Tuesday: UristMcSparks will continue this series and show you how to create a moving platform
• Wednesday: you’ll learn how to create a button that increases players’ walk speed when touched
• Thursday: we’ll wrap things up with a demonstration of how you can create a cannon that shoot flames (!)

After you’ve followed along and learned these things, you’ll have a foundation you can use to organize these components and put additional pieces in place, explore more development features on the ROBLOX Wiki, and ultimately make the game you’d like to play. We’d love to have you share what you make at the end of this week; don’t hesitate to post a link to your game in the comments or show us on Twitter @ROBLOX!

Take an hour or two out of your week to learn the basics of Lua scripting. It’s knowledge you can apply to ROBLOX, and even other programming languages and activities in the future.