Using the CodeHS Sandbox

Teachers and students can create and share Sandbox programs in the Sandbox IDE

Zach Galant avatar
Written by Zach Galant
Updated over a week ago
Banner: free feature

The CodeHS Sandbox is a place where you can write programs outside of the bounds of an exercise. In the Sandbox, you can start a program starting from scratch in any of our programming languages and create anything that you can imagine. 

Teachers can use the Sandbox to assign individual projects, midterms, and end of year assignments, or as a way to encourage students to work on their coding skills outside the classroom. Learn more about Assigning Sandbox Programs.

Creating a Sandbox Program

  1. Click on the Sandbox link in the top left corner of any page

  2. Type a name for your program > Create Program

  3. Select from the available programming languages

Creating a Sandbox Program from a .zip file

You can also upload a multi-file program from a .zip file, which will unzip and import all files into a new program:

animated .gif illustrates clicking the create program button, then selecting Upload from Zip from the drop-down menu

Viewing Student Sandbox Programs

Choose a student from the roster page, and then click Student Sandbox, listed under Teacher Links on the left side-navigation bar. 

animated .gif showing the flow to find the Student Sandbox

Please note, on the Free plan, teachers can only view student Sandbox programs one at a time.

Adding a Sandbox Description

From your Sandbox Program, navigate to the More tab in the right hand panel and select About. Here you can add a description to your Sandbox program that will show up when assigning a Sandbox program to a course. Learn more about Assigning Sandbox Programs.

CodeHS.me Homepage

Students can also create and edit their very own website, which is hosted by CodeHS, by clicking Edit Homepage. Every student can access and share their personalized web page by going to their username followed by .codehs.me. Learn more about creating your personal homepage.

Animated gif showing how to edit CodeHS.me homepage

Sharing and Embedding Sandbox Programs

There are many ways to share a Sandbox program, including sharing a link and embedding it in another webpage. Click here to learn more about sharing and embedding Sandbox programs.

Using Real-time Collaboration in the Sandbox

Multiple users can access and edit Sandbox programs together. This enables seamless virtual collaboration between students. Learn more about Collaborate.

Retrieving Deleted Programs

To retrieve deleted programs, navigate to your Account Settings from the dropdown menu in the upper left corner. Open the Code History tab and then open the Sandbox Trash. Lastly, click the three dots (...) next to the program and click Restore.

animated .gif showing how to retrieve deleted programs

Banner: This is a Pro feature

Viewing The Class Sandbox

With CodeHS Pro, you can view all your students’ Sandbox problems in one place. Simply navigate to your Sandbox and click View Class Sandbox! From there, you are able to easily filter and sort through student programs. To view a student's Sandbox page, you can select their name and press View Student Sandbox or you can click their name in the table.

Screenshot highlighting View Class Sandbox button


Class Sandbox is available as part of CodeHS Pro. To get CodeHS Pro for your school, contact our team at hello@codehs.com

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