Logical thinking
Read a rule carefully, trace a small example and decide what a correct result should look like.
AlgoPath
Preparing the next view…
Loading your Computer Science topics and activities.
Navigator + Pathfinder · The Lantern Isles
Think it through.
Light the way.
Carry a lantern across seven islands and help restore their lost light. Learn the Python behind Navigator and Pathfinder challenges, test a solution and unlock the next crossing.
Play in your browser on a desktop or laptop. Sign in to save your code and progress.
Inside the adventure0:57
- Building confidence
- 7 islands
- 44 Python activities
Related reading from our Python series
More ways to build your problem-solving skills.
Explore loops, lists and grids in our Python GCSE Core book. Its worked examples and explained answers offer extra reading for the Python skills you practise across the Lantern Isles.
Book 0210 chapters · 2026
Python GCSE Core
Solve problems with Python
Coming soon Python A level book
Print visualisation · Python GCSE Core
Published by Code&AI Limited under its AlgoPath Coding Academy imprint. Books and online course access are separate.
A strong core · Room to explore
Skills for this adventure. And the next.
For learners building their Python problem-solving skills through Navigator and Pathfinder coding challenges, with guided practice along the way.
Core skills
Python practice
Use slices, loops, functions and collections in focused tasks with guided practice.
Problem-solving
Break a challenge into smaller jobs, check the results and improve your solution.
Explore further
More topics you’ll meet along the way.
- String & list slicing
- Loops & accumulators
- Functions
- Dictionaries
- 2D grids
- Input validation
Seven islands · Forty-four Python activities
A new island. Another way to think.
Build from selecting items and repeating steps to dictionaries, grids and small problem-solving projects. Each island brings teaching, coding activities and guided practice into the journey.
- Island 014 activities
Cloudwake Harbour
Select items, slice sequences and transform words
See what you’ll learn
- Find an item by its position
- Take a slice with start and stop
- Step through and reverse a slice
- Challenge: Pig Latin
- Island 028 activities
Windmill Reach
Repeat steps, track totals and stop safely
See what you’ll learn
- Repeat with for and range
- Loop over values or positions
- Repeat while a condition stays true
- Stop on a sentinel with break
- Build a total or a new string
- Compare neighbouring items safely
- Challenge: Countdown
- Challenge: Stop at Zero
- Island 037 activities
Verdant Archive
Split input and build useful functions
See what you’ll learn
- Split input and convert each value
- Give a function inputs and receive its result
- Put an accumulator inside a function
- Turn scores into a list of grades
- Split text using an explicit separator
- Challenge: Cost of Petrol
- Challenge: Saving Up
- Island 048 activities
Copperleaf Market
Use dictionaries, detect duplicates and count frequencies
See what you’ll learn
- Keep a key and its value together
- Check a key before reading its value
- Add, update and remove dictionary entries
- Visit dictionary keys and pairs in order
- Build a dictionary from paired data
- Detect duplicates and keep first occurrences
- Count frequencies and find unique values
- Challenge: Pruning Flowers
- Island 054 activities
The Glass Gardens
Summarise lists and make sorted copies
See what you’ll learn
- Sum a whole list or a selected part
- Find the smallest and largest values
- Create a sorted copy
- Challenge: Chocolates
- Island 069 activities
Starlit Ruins
Explore 2D grids, nested loops and validation
See what you’ll learn
- Read a row and then a cell
- Build and edit independent rows
- Trace one loop inside another
- Visit every cell by value or index
- Search a grid and return at the right time
- Start a fresh total for each row
- Let the inner loop depend on the outer loop
- Challenge: Validate an IPv4-style address
- Challenge: Happy Ultrarunners
- Island 074 activities
The First Lantern
Combine small, testable jobs to solve a challenge
See what you’ll learn
- Break a problem into small, testable jobs
- Count scores above a threshold
- Check every five-item window
- Challenge: Magic Squares
Keep learning at your pace
Help when you need it
Watch the lesson, try the guided practice and ask the tutor about your code when you get stuck. Complete a coding challenge to unlock its crossing, then continue exploring the island.
Your virtual tutor’s voice and personal guidance are computer-generated.