Game Development for Kids

Other Courses Ideas
#1

The existing courses are great but they can be quite challenging for kids under 13.

As a mentor at CoderDojo, I see a lot of kids aged 7-12 who are very interested in game dev, but struggle with the main engines particularly with OO programming. We have a lot of success and fun with engines such as Scratch and Stencyl, which use visual programming metaphors to assemble code out of blocks.

Parents are also very keen to support their kids in learning programming through game development, and are quite prepared to invest in Udemy courses in addition to the free instruction they get at CoderDojo. I’ve sent quite a few new students to GameDev.TV courses over the last 2 years. You’re welcome :slight_smile:

A structured course similar to the Unity course which targets kids 7-12 and takes them up through Scratch and Stencyl to build a half dozen polished games that they can build on would be a great feeder to the other courses, and from my experience would be very popular. This could perhaps even include Unity+Playmaker, continuing the visual programming theme, though I note that Playmaker has a cost associated (which again, from experience, parents are quite willing to pay).

Happy to discuss on Discord etc.

#2

I can’t believe how timely your post is @ninjachimp , as I was discussing this very thing with a very close friend this afternoon, who’s 11 yr. old son is interested in gaming, and has stated he’d like to learn how to create games. She told me she would like to find a way for him to learn coding, but I told her the courses here are for adults, so this proposal for a game development course for children is something I can definitely agree with.

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#3

My 9 year old is doing the unity 1.0 course but shes extremely bright, She found scratch a year ago and she breezed threw it and then they stopped her going because the volenteer only knew scratch.
Coding clubs locally are only as good as the volenteers that run them so there is a missing link between scratch and unity for example.

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#4

Yep my son did the Unity course at 10, but it did help that he had me to assist.

The kids without parents into gamedev or dev in general really struggle with the main engines. I have some kids at CoderDojo who don’t come along unless they know I’ll be there, because they can’t follow the Unity materials themselves without help.

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#5

I totally agree, I actually stretched myself too thin on the coding side of things so my learning progressed slower than my blender knowledge did. On the upside i am learning a lot quicker helping my daughter but i am also seeing a lot of key points where she struggles, some of which are basic PC operations or the curly braces.

I find i reset her code so its fixed with her there showing what i have done to fix it and then reset the code back to where the problem occured and have her watch along again. This seems to help but it does show that the engine is a little too advanced for her age.

I had mentioned a course before a while back due to the coding club stopping after scratch but failing to remember what i suggested as a next step between that and unity.
(There was something that was going to be collaborated on but i dont think it came to fruition)

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#6

I’m with you. My 9 year old daughter has been playing with scratch but I’m not sure I’d turn her loose on Unity or Unreal at this point.

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#7

I had checked CodeDojo yesterday after finding this Course Idea, but the closest location was in the next state, so not close at all.

I’m going to suggest to my friend to check out Scratch and see how he likes it, but you’re correct about clubs needing good volunteers/mentors, or they wouldn’t really be worth it.

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#8

So great to hear stories of how we shape our young minds and give our kids something different to get their teeth into :slight_smile:

Well here in the north of the UK. I’ve just sent off to update my disclosure scotland to a PVG so i can help volunteer at my kids Academy during my time off with some computing to bridge the gap with stuff they dont cover in the general sylabus.

Need to look at that coderdojo James sounds interesting.

Seems like maybe python might be my next step with the kids from scratch using some cheap rasberry pi kits… dunno

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#9

That was the equally gutting thing for her as they had a prize of a £5 raspberry pi to be used in the club the following year and my daughter won it but never got to use it.
I wonder actually if this is a job for @sampattuzzi as being the younger member of the team the kids may relate to him more (no offence guys) although if he can add/has another language under his belt i will be impressed!

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#10

I am a huge advocate for Girls Who Code. Unfortunately, I don’t have the skills or the time to actively assist the high school group in the small city I reside in other than financially. Having looked at the map for Girls Who Code, there is a lot of rural and small towns across the country, who do not have such programs or, even offer coding/programming to students in the smaller schools. I am sure need is abundant around the globe whether it is the Girls Who Code program or other such organizations.

It does look like there are some courses offered through Udemy for coding and a couple for creating games…looks like they may be using Scratch. However, I really would like to see Ben et. al to create something for kids in game creation and even in modeling because I trust Ben and his group of instructors to deliver understandable information. I am not sure I would start them out with Unity to begin with but maybe a set of courses that would lead to Unity later on.

Same goes for Blender, which appears to be coming out with something in the future called Blender 101…stripped down version of Blender. https://code.blender.org/2016/12/the-blender-101-project-and-you/ I wish there had been something like this when I was younger!

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#11

Thanks for the link to Code Blender, Morgaine. I found that very informative.

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#12

Thanks, Miss B!

#13

I’m flattered :smiley:.

Not sure what you mean about languages? Computer of Human? I do speak quite a few of both :wink:

#14

Computer :wink:
Although maybe learning another language with sam pattuzzii is on the cards

#15

Languages I speak in chronological order:

  • English
  • Italian
  • ActionScript (does this even still exist?)
  • C++
  • Python
  • ML
  • Java
  • Russian
  • Haskell
  • Objective-C
  • Javascript
  • C#
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#16

Boy does that bring back memories. Of course, it’s been a good dozen years at least since I worked in Flash. Now with Flash pretty much gone, so is ActionScript.

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#17

Thank goodness for that!

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#18

So Scratch/Stencyl could be lucky #13 Sam!

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#19

Yes, I’m so glad it’s gone, because I can finally watch videos on YouTube and other sites without my computer freezing up. :frowning_face:

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