Last week nine middle schoolers graduated from a summer program at CDIT focused on digital design. It was the first program of its kind, teaching the basics of PhotoShop, an industry standard in graphic design, and Scratch, a computer programming language developed by MIT to make coding accessible and easy to learn.
The graduates gave five-minute presentations explaining their final projects, most of them video games they created in Scratch. Playing the game briefly before the audience of about thirty family members and friends, they then explained the code upon which the game operated. The Tech St@rs showed how they pieced together different commands and created images, or costumes, to display in a chain of cause-and-effect events. The games varied in content, from classic target-shooting games to navigating a maze of "bad guys," to boxing matches.
"Superman went bad, so Batman has to hit him with Kryptonite batarangs," explained Tech St@r Kyle Lark in his presentation. His game featured Batman standing on the roof of a building. Players have to guide the batarang, Batman's boomerang-like weapon of choice, to hit Superman, who flies around at random on the screen. The background of the game was complete with the iconic Batman symbol and clouds--Kyle's creations--because, as he put it, "It's always cloudy in Gotham."
In addition to a new set of design skills, the graduates walked away with a refurbished desktop computer for completing the program. CDIT awards all youth graduates with refurbished computers. Many of the graduates discussed continuing to work on Scratch and Pixlr, the free version of PhotoShop, on their new personal computers.
Click here to watch a video of Tech St@r Jeremiah Dixon explaining the game he created. (The video was created by CDIT's summer Diginterns, a group of five high school students who completed the TTN: Media Making program and continued in CDIT's paid internship to create over ten short videos this summer.)
If you are interested in CDIT's free digital literacy programs for youth or adults, please contact di@pec-cares.org or call 267-777-5860.
The graduates gave five-minute presentations explaining their final projects, most of them video games they created in Scratch. Playing the game briefly before the audience of about thirty family members and friends, they then explained the code upon which the game operated. The Tech St@rs showed how they pieced together different commands and created images, or costumes, to display in a chain of cause-and-effect events. The games varied in content, from classic target-shooting games to navigating a maze of "bad guys," to boxing matches.
"Superman went bad, so Batman has to hit him with Kryptonite batarangs," explained Tech St@r Kyle Lark in his presentation. His game featured Batman standing on the roof of a building. Players have to guide the batarang, Batman's boomerang-like weapon of choice, to hit Superman, who flies around at random on the screen. The background of the game was complete with the iconic Batman symbol and clouds--Kyle's creations--because, as he put it, "It's always cloudy in Gotham."
In addition to a new set of design skills, the graduates walked away with a refurbished desktop computer for completing the program. CDIT awards all youth graduates with refurbished computers. Many of the graduates discussed continuing to work on Scratch and Pixlr, the free version of PhotoShop, on their new personal computers.
Click here to watch a video of Tech St@r Jeremiah Dixon explaining the game he created. (The video was created by CDIT's summer Diginterns, a group of five high school students who completed the TTN: Media Making program and continued in CDIT's paid internship to create over ten short videos this summer.)
If you are interested in CDIT's free digital literacy programs for youth or adults, please contact di@pec-cares.org or call 267-777-5860.
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