And Upward!

So today we continued our illustration / character design sessions, looking again how different popular characters are created out of simple shapes, the amazing Phineas and Ferb are a perfect example of using shapes to differentiate characters.

Today we were joined by "Ron" who is an amazing artist, who worked on early Playstation titles in the design phase. He is also working with me on some new games, but that is top secret at the moment. It was great because he showed the students how he progressed from a simple idea to the finished piece, highlighting that these things don't just appear fully formed, they take multiple sketches and a lot of practice to get there. How they are made up of simple shapes and have features slowly added to them. We looked at how a design of a goblin might differ in a game for a older audience (more detail scarier) and a younger audience (simpler cute).

At the end of the session we drew slips of paper from a box and we had to draw whatever it had on them, I had a space man for first one and a pirate for my second, so I made a space pirate.

Next week, we will be adding more detail, inking them and scanning them in ready for colouring.

It was really nice having "Ron" come in and help out, I look forward to having more special guests visit in the future.

Onward!!!

So Creative Computing Club is back, and this month we will be looking at illustration on both paper and computer. Today we looked at faces (cartoon) and how they are made up of different shapes and how to divide the face for placement of all the different features. We also looked at how images are lightly sketched, retraced, inked with sketch lines finally removed. For a lot of them it was a bit of an epiphany as they thought so many of these images were just drawn first try without sketching. Taking them through the stages of simply sketching circles and slowly adding features allowed a  lot of them to achieve better results.

I also had to explain, they need to slow down, analyse the thing they are trying to draw, break it up in to shapes and in to areas. A good book for this Christoper Hart's Humungous Book of Cartooning it is excellent, the other book I talked about is The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation both of which are prized possessions of mine. They all agreed they learned something and can see how this will help with both the graphics work and game design. It was strange today though as it was a computer club without any computers.

Today was also the first session I had to charge for, I sent out the email the other night and was quite upset to do so. I think it is more to do with the fact I really think a lot of these things we are doing should be covered more in school (which is free) so I was reluctant to charge. I am after all an idealist, that is why I am here. The parents were completely fine with it and were surprised that I had managed to keep them free for so long, so because of the parents paying the fees and from the donations that we get from this site we should be fine to carry on. It also means I can spend more of my time on planning out cool sessions instead of worrying about getting funding.

Everytime

I am a bit upset, the successful after-school computer club I run has been turned down for funding, again (4th time), it is apparently too exclusive and only for the students I teach.

I teach kids, adults and teachers creative computing (programming, game design, animation, sound and electronics) all over the UK for both public and private companies, but this is what I do in Suffolk, for Suffolk (but if you can make it to the sessions and live outside of Suffolk that is ok too).

Earlier this year we were able to raise a £1000 pounds through peoplefund.it and get sponsors like YoYo Games, O'Reilly, Rapid Electronics, I Love Electronics, and Young Rewired State. This gave us enough funds to buy the insurance, electronic components, the LEGO and the animation cameras we needed to run the 8 week pilot course. It was a success, it was picked up by the BBC Radio and within hours we had a waiting list. We went from 8 kids to 20, and we now have a waiting list of over 80 kids. Kids are simply cueing to get in to these lessons.

We needed to expand, so I contacted a school I have worked with locally and cut a deal whereby I would come in and teach every now and then for free and they would let me use the room after school for the computer club. And it is perfect, it is safe, warm, well lit and it has computers that work, which now means students who don't have a laptop can also join in, making it more inclusive.

It is a success, so much so the parents have asked for schedule so they can plan their holidays around the club, students rarely miss a session and some travel up to 40 minutes to get to the one and a half hour sessions because they enjoy them so much. Feedback from the parents and teachers has shown me the work they do in the club impacts positively both on their school work and their sociability, with some of the quietest introverted students suddenly becoming mentors and helping others. Many of the students are now taking pride in their work because they can see their school work in more of a context of things they are interested in. Maths is now cool, we don't say that, but we know if we learn more about it our games, our robots, or hardware will become better.

These students are being prepared to be creative with computers these are the makers of the future, they are well beyond ICT/IT or whatever you want to call it, their level of understanding computers has taken them to the point of designing and thinking about prototyping new hardware. Making games instead of playing them all day, being creators of technology instead of just consumers of technology.

What the hell is it I am doing wrong? Why is something that is so successful and showing positive results, constantly being refused funding?

I don't want to charge the parents, I want it to be as inclusive as possible and many have to travel quite far to get to the sessions as it is.

These 90 minute sessions have to be explosive, they have to be fantastic, they have to be so good that the students are so enthusiastic about them that they interested enough to take part and they take a lot of planning. As it is, I have to give up Tuesdays (my entire Tuesday 8am to 8pm) to prepare and organize the club, and this is unpaid work.  I don't mind that, but having a some funding would mean I could do more, take time off to plan out more of the club, fill out more ridiculously huge funding applications.

In addition to this I am planning to set up 7 to 11-year-old computing club because, THERE IS A NEED FOR IT, so things are about to get even more hectic very shortly, but that is ok, because I know it is the right thing to do.

This year we plan to launch a weather balloon and collect data, and do a few fields trips to technology based companies to see the things they are learning and interested in, in action. I don't know how but I know we will.

I just don't know what I am doing wrong. If you do, please let me know.

***EDIT January 6th, 2013***

I have now setup a Paypal donate button in the right hand sidebar, anything you can donate will be greatly received to help these kids keep doing these sessions.

CCC Christmas Social

For the last two sessions of CCC in December we have decided to take it easy and play Minecraft, some learning and hacking of networks (to set up Minecraft LAN) has been going on too, but for the most part it is all about having a break before we start on the big project in the new year. Our upper atmosphere space probe.

Today, I brought in a simple prototype for some goggles that can control the direction of the mouse by moving the head. I built a simple game in Game Maker whereby you avoid bad guys chasing you and collect coins. The goggles cost £1.29, two infrared LEDs, 180 ohm resistor, 9v battery clip and 9v battery. Approx £5.00 in total. Really good fun.

The goggles worked great and I think this is something we will explore more later in the year with 3D environments, sadly for some reason it just wouldn't work with Minecraft though.

Next week will be even more relaxed as we will simply be having a gaming competition/xmas party, so lots of cake and games :)

Creative Computing Club - October 9th 2012

After a few teething problems with moving in to the new venue (i.e. setting up software, accounts all that kind of stuff) fortunately we have got down to some programming, we are a much bigger group now so it is both tricky and nice to take on the new challenge of delivering such technical sessions to a larger group. (see photo)

We are making a top down shooter kind of like a generic tanks game, but some of the students have come up with some very nice alternatives, we have a virus vs. bacteria type game, zombie apocalypse and a few airplane games too.

It is a good mix of different skill levels and ages, the youngest being 10 oldest being 15, some have loads of programming experience some of them none at all.

It was also nice to finally have everyone on the same page, and have everyone working on their own separate game but at the same time helping each other.

I got to see another one of those moments, when you see a student see his or her work come to life and start moving around the screen, they often take more ownership and more pride in their work. It's great and we have a lot more to come.

New start, new place new logo

I am quite pleased to announce Creative Computing Club has returned we are now based at Parkside School, in Ipswich and a sincerest of thanks must be said to all the staff for allowing us to make it our new home.

I have run many workshops with Parkside School and they have always been supportive of the types of projects I run. The main advantage of having the sessions their is that it comes with a full PC and Mac suite, so it doesn't matter if the student has their own computer or not they can attend, making the sessions more inclusive.

Our first session back was just to introduce everyone to everyone else, and outline the years curriculum we will be covering  Game Maker, Processing, Arduino, digital illustration, animation, sound and circuit bending, LEGO Mindstorms and a lot more.

We will also be building up to a big project but that is top secret for now.

Creative Computing Club and Young Rewired State

What we did.

I am really pleased that we have been able to setup a Young Rewired State center for this years festival of code, it is an intensive five days of coding to create new apps, games or webpages using open source data.

We ended up hosting it a Greenfinch Church, in Ipswich the Pastor and his wife are lovely and I am truly grateful for them to allow us to host it there, we could not have done it with out their help. 

 


The Creative Computing Club have met several times for the regular club but this was different as they had to work towards a specific goal and they had to work together, we were also joined by some new recruits who plan to join in with CCC in September.

I really noticed it on Tuesday, they weren't just learning to code, they were also learning to communicate with each other. They were learning about each others skills, strengths and learning how to delegate and at the same time be diplomatic, during this I just sat back and listened to them, I really wanted to see how they would cope and only join in if the needed me. They have done wonderfully well the group aged 10 to15 years old, it is a really difficult thing to do, to plan an activity together and be aware of each others feelings.

Originally we had two Olympic Games based on the BBC's athlete data, one Zoo game based on the London Zoological Data with two more games by participants who are just simply learning to code, but in the end the two Olympic games merged.
 

We had our work cut out for us, none of them have ever made any kind of webpage before, so it was a matter of teaching them some basic HTML first and then, making the games in HTML5 to upload.

The second wonderful thing that happened during the week was just how much they were helping each other, the level of peer to peer mentoring was incredible, they all love working with computers, but it seems they also like to help others. I was able to sneakily listen (and learn) how to mod a Minecraft skin, which I will impress my son with next week. I also got to hear an older brother take his sibling through the first steps of coding in Game Maker and have the patience of a saint while doing it.

We have worked incredibly hard, so much so by Wednesday I had to remind them to take lunch breaks, the hard work however has paid off as we now have four games made over the week, several new coders and now coders having experienced a second programming language in that week. Three of the participants could only stay til Wednesday which make their feat of programming two games in three days all the more impressive.



The Games

Miner Man

My by two first-time coders Miner Man is a two player underground adventure.The two man team had just three days to make it, very proud of them both.

http://pixelh8.co.uk/YRS2012/MINERMAN/


 Stick Olympics

Amazing Physics and using the BBC Athlete data, take a shot and see how well you can do. Choose from several of the top archers in this excellent group effort.

 http://pixelh8.co.uk/YRS2012/STICK/


Granny Zoo

Based on the the London Zoological Society and the idea of an imaginary zoo featuring some of the animals, this a top view interactive zoo adventure designed by a ten-year-old! Make sure you go in the Aquatic centre AMAZING? Works on iPad too!

http://pixelh8.co.uk/YRS2012/GRANNYZOO/

Cheese Man

Cheese Man is made by another first time code, get the good cheese and avoid the bad. This was made by a solo coder, with help from friends, brilliant stuff.

http://pixelh8.co.uk/YRS2012/CHEESEMAN/

By the end of close Thursday we all knew what we had to do, upload the info compile the games upload them, tomorrow on Friday we are going to take it easy, play games, eat cake. I am going to teach them some Xcode in the morning as they have asked to learn about iPad/iPhone development, so we will do that first, but that is it, it is time to relax.

Friday

I arrived bleary-eyed on Friday morning without a pack-up lunch but to several wonderful surprises, one being this amazing array of treats and two being the two wonderful cards the participants and parents had made for me. It was a nice chilled out day. We did a little Xcode development, and wrote up some short diary entries of the our week, it was great fun.

Testimonials

"I have really enjoyed this week at CCC because it has inspired me even more too make games and work with a team of people who are also interested in making games and programming, I have also found out that i'am very good with graphics and ok with code. I would also like to go to YRS next year and make even more games to a high standard, all of the team has worked well on the Olympic Game and i think that it has a very good chance of winning but we will just have to wait and see. My job for this project was to make the faces for the Bios and help out with the game graphics."

"I enjoyed my time working on the stick-lympics game, I made all of the bio's for all the athletes in the game, it was fun. I also enjoyed working with others because they bring different ideas together and makes everything easier."

"I’ve very much enjoyed this week doing the Young Rewired State and it has helped improve my knowledge in teamwork and organisation. I’ve also learnt to use HTML programming during this time and had a brief overview of XCode, which is used to create and simulate Apple product games that you create. Overall, I’ve had a great time and I’ll definitely be back next year for the next presentation." "I have had a lovely time as I have been drawing graphics for my brother who is the scripter for the game ‘stick—lympics’. My brother has been a real help when I had nothing to do he was their multitasking doing not just his game but helping with mine ‘build and mine’ which was very fun!!!

"I have tried to help others with ideas on what we could do and when I get home I have helped Ryan with graphics and ideas on ‘stick—lympics’. Many thanks to matt as when Ryan wasn’t there to help he was and without him we wouldn’t of achieved what we have"

"I have loved the time i have had at YRS im going to miss it so much and i have made A game with help from Tom and Henry and Matt special thanks to Matt."

So there you go!

I am really proud of all of the Creative Computing Club, they have done incredibly well, I look forward tomorrow and when we return in September.

Follow me on Twitter here @pixelh8 or the Creative Computing Club @CCCSuffolk here.