💻 Week 01, Day 01 - Lab

Where Am I? Finding Your Way and Writing Code

🥅 Learning Objectives

By the end of this lab, you should be able to: i) Open and use the terminal in Nuvolos, ii) Navigate folders with pwd, ls, cd, and read files with cat, iii) Complete the zone-hop game with seven stamps in your scorecard, iv) Write and save a short script in nano, v) Know when to follow your class teacher and when to tell them you are done.

⏰ Monday, 13 July 2026 | Either 2:00-3.30pm or 3.30-5:00pm 📍 Check your timetable for the location of your class

In the morning, we discussed why it matters how we structure data, and why we stay careful with the transformations we run on it. Now we turn to the “how”.

This lab is about the terminal, an app you can find on any computer that lets you talk directly to your operating system, whether that is Windows, Mac, or Linux as on Nuvolos. If this is your first time typing commands in a terminal, it may feel strange at first, but trust me! Stick with it, and by the end of the course you will see how much more natural it becomes.

You will find all the instructions for today’s computer lab below. Remember to listen to your class teacher and feel free to work with the people near you and help each other out.

🛣️ Lab Roadmap

Everything you need will be on the Nuvolos machine. We will be playing a kind of treasure game we are calling zone-hop to practice with the essential terminal commands.

Part	Activity type	Focus	Outcome
Part I	Follow your class teacher	Introductions and Nuvolos terminal	Everyone can open a terminal
Part II	Follow your class teacher	Terminal commands	You can use pwd, ls, cd, and cat
Part III	On your own	The game	You will have collected seven stamps!
Part IV	Follow your class teacher	nano	First script saved and run
Wrap-up	Together	Debrief	Reflect on your new skills

👉 NOTE: When you see 💡 TEACHING MOMENT, watch and listen: your class teacher is showing something for the whole room. When you see 🎯 Action points, it is your turn to perform an action on your own.

🤝 Part I: Introductions and the lab environment (15 min)

First things first: say hello to your class teacher and confirm you can open the terminal on Nuvolos before we go any further.

Getting started in the lab environment

Your class teacher will demonstrate how to:

1. Log into Nuvolos and open the Terminal app.
2. Check that your prompt shows a path starting with your home folder or ~/files.
3. Explain what the $ at the start of each example line means (it is the prompt, not something you type).

🎯 Action points

1. Open the terminal yourself and run pwd once.
2. Say hello to your class teacher and the people near you.
3. If you are sitting with someone who has used a terminal before, pair up for the rest of the lab.

⚠️ Unable to access Nuvolos? Use this backup plan

If you have trouble logging into Nuvolos, you can still play the game using the computer in the lab room instead.

1. Download the zone-hop game (full folder tree for today’s route):

2. Open a terminal on the lab PC. On Windows, search for Terminal or PowerShell in the Start menu.

3. Unzip the game into a practice folder. In File Explorer, open Documents, create a folder named ME204, and unzip the download so you have ME204/zone-hop/ (with zone1, zone2, and the rest inside).

4. Open the game folder in the terminal.

   cd $env:USERPROFILE\Documents\ME204\zone-hop

   On Mac, use cd ~/Documents/ME204/zone-hop instead.

5. Tell your class teacher you are on the backup plan so they can check you are in the right place.

It is very common to run into login or setup problems on day one. If you spend time troubleshooting, you still learn how to ask for help and search for fixes.

⚙️ Part II: Terminal basics (25 min)

Your class teacher will walk through each command below with you step by step, pausing after every demo so you can copy the same move on your own screen.

Step 1: Where am I? (10 min)

Finding your place in the filesystem

Your class teacher will demonstrate:

• pwd (print working directory): shows the folder you are in now.
• ls: lists folders and files here.
• cd folder: moves into a folder (for example cd zone-hop).
• cd ..: moves up one level to the parent folder.

🎯 Action points

1. Run pwd and read the path on screen.
2. Run ls and note the folder names you see.
3. If zone-hop appears in the list, run cd zone-hop, then pwd again to confirm you moved.
4. Run cd .. to go back up, then ls once more.

Step 2: Read a file (10 min)

Reading a file with cat

Your class teacher will show how cat filename prints a file in the terminal. You will read clue.md files the same way throughout the game.

🎯 Action points

1. From ~/files, run cd zone-hop (or cd /files/zone-hop if you are elsewhere).
2. Run ls and confirm you see zone folders such as zone1, zone2, and so on.
3. Run cat README.md.
4. Read the output on screen. You do not need to memorise it: the game clues work the same way.

Step 3: Your scorecard (5 min)

Before the game, everyone needs a scorecard file in their home folder, and your class teacher will show you how to create it in the next step.

Creating ~/w01-points.md

Your class teacher will demonstrate how echo can add lines to a file. You will paste stamp lines into this file during the game.

🎯 Action points

Run these commands exactly (you can copy them one at a time):

echo "# W01 zone hop" > ~/w01-points.md
echo "" >> ~/w01-points.md
cat ~/w01-points.md

You should see a line with the title of the treasure hunt we’re playing, a blank line, and nothing yet. You will start collecting stamps soon now.

🎮 Part III: The game (40 min)

You are crossing London through a tree of folders on Nuvolos. You move with cd, read clues with cat, and run ls when you need to see what is in front of you. Each clue.md tells you the next place in plain English, and you work out the path yourself. Your class teacher will walk the room through the first two stops, so everyone sees the same pattern: read a clue, choose a folder, stamp your card. After that, the route is yours until you have seven stamps and can tell your class teacher you are done.

🎯 Action points

1. From ~/files, run cd zone-hop (or cd /files/zone-hop).

2. Follow the briefing at LSE:

   cd zone1/places/university/lse
   cat clue.md

3. Keep moving through the route. Use cat clue.md or glow clue.md at each stop. When you see ## 🎫 Stamp your card, paste the command from the clue into your terminal.

4. After each stamp, run cat ~/w01-points.md and check for another [x].

5. Wrong stop means this folder is not on today’s route. Go up with cd .., run ls, and try another folder. That is part of the game, not a mistake.

6. You need seven stamps in ~/w01-points.md.

When the game is complete and you have seven stamps, tell your class teacher.

🔧 If you get lost during the game

Run pwd first. Then use:

Where you want to be	Command
Where Nuvolos opened the terminal	cd ~/files
The game folder	cd /files/zone-hop
Your home folder (scorecard)	cd ~

To read the briefing again:

cd /files/zone-hop
cd zone1/places/university/lse
cat clue.md

📝 Part IV: Your first script with nano (20 min)

When your class teacher brings the room back together, you will write a short script in nano, the plain-text editor you use from the terminal to create or change a file without leaving the command line.

Opening, editing, and saving in nano

Your class teacher will demonstrate:

1. cd ~ to return to your home folder.
2. nano hello.sh to create a new file (or open an existing one).
3. How to move the cursor, type lines, and save with Ctrl+O, then exit with Ctrl+X.
4. How to run the script with bash hello.sh.

🎯 Action points

1. Open nano hello.sh in your home folder.

2. Type these three lines (you can change the greeting if you like):

   #!/bin/bash
   echo "Hello from ME204!"
   echo "Today I navigated London folders in the terminal."

3. Save and exit nano.

4. Run bash hello.sh and check the output on screen.

5. If something looks wrong, open the file again with nano hello.sh and fix it.

✨ Wrap-up (10 min)

What we did today

Your class teacher will lead a short discussion:

• What felt odd about the terminal at first?
• Which command helped most when you were lost?
• What do you want to try once we start coding tomorrow?

Great work this afternoon: you opened the terminal, crossed London in the zone-hop game, and saved your first script in nano. Tomorrow we will start coding properly.

If it all felt too odd today, trust me! Come back to this page at the end of the course and see how you feel about the terminal then. I think you will find that cd, ls, and cat feel much more natural once you have used them all the way through ME204. :)

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📎 Appendix

Useful links

• Nuvolos first-time guide
• Terminal cheat sheet

Command cheat sheet

Command	What it does
pwd	Shows the folder you are in now
ls	Lists folders and files here
cd folder	Goes into a folder (for example cd zone1)
cd ..	Goes up one level
cat file	Shows a file on screen (for example cat clue.md)
echo "..." >> file	Adds a line to a file (your stamps use this)
nano file	Opens a file in the text editor

🎁 Bonus: try the same moves on another machine

After the lab, open a terminal on a different computer and try the same folder moves there, whether that is the Windows PC at your desk in the library room or your own laptop. You do not need the zone-hop tree on that machine. A few folders on Documents or the desktop are enough to rehearse cd, ls, and cat. On Windows you may see dir and type instead of ls and cat, and your home path may not look like ~, so compare what changed and ask your class teacher if you get stuck.