Code Buddy: Secret Messages

Pick a word. Any word — your dog's name, your favourite band, something daft. Tell one friend and nobody else. Now type a message. Watch it turn into little symbols: stars, squares, moons, circles. To anyone who doesn't know your word it's gibberish. To your friend it's a message. HOW IT GOES 1. You both type in the same word. 2. You write something. It turns into symbols as you go. 3. Send the symbols however you like — a chat, a note pushed under a door, chalk on a wall. 4. Your friend types them in and reads what you said. FLASH IT ACROSS A DARK ROOM This is the good bit. Instead of sending symbols, your phone can blink the message out loud: the screen, the torch, beeps, buzzes, or all four at once. Your friend watches from the other side of the room — or the garden, or the next tent — and taps along on their phone as it arrives. No wifi. No signal. No internet at all. Just light…