Posts Tagged programming
Videogame Abacci
Digital Media Academy News + Events | March 22nd, 2010 by Instructor
Videogame Abacci
By Oliver Barraza: 3D Game Design & Programming Instructor
Remember all those math classes you’ve taken, remember how fun they were? Yeah, neither do I. But imagine a class where you learn math while playing a video game. Did I get your attention now?
Videogame Abacci is Stanford Mathematician Keith Devlin’s theory of how math should be taught. Devlin says textbooks are quite possibly the worst way to teach math at a grade school level. People learn the best when they experience something in a real world situation as apposed to just reading it in a book. Devlin’s goal is to create a game like World of Warcraft, but as you play online with your friends your actually learning how to do basic algebra and geometry at the same time.
I’m sure by now you’ve said to yourself, “This guy can’t be serious, games about learning are for babies.” So lets use our mind’s eye to imagine one of these math based games. The kids are required to build a flying machine to help them get around in the world—lets pretend in this world there is no land, only floating cities. Now in order to build one of these flying machines the students must select the individual parts: Engine; Wings, Landing Gear; Propeller Prop(s), Machine Body; etc.
Now the game will allow you to use any parts you want without restriction, and when your done it gives you the stats of your flying machine: Weight, Max Thrust; Wing Span, Cargo Space Dimensions; etc. Now the kids can login to the game and try their airship, but without a knowledge of physics their sweet new airship will just fall apart or run itself into the ground.
This will encourage the students to go to their teachers, parents and older siblings with a desire to learn more about physics. Once they master the basics they will be building cooler and cooler flying machines to show off and battle.
As you can see this game model not only sounds fun but the reward for creating your own machine is even better when you do it yourself.
At the Digital Media Academy we take a similar approach. The pre-teen courses, 3D Game Programming and 3D Role Playing Games & Strategy, introduce the boys and girls to computer game programming in a way that doesn’t involve heavy textbooks. Using the Alice Object Oriented Programming system we teach kids and teens how to program by showing them how to create their own games and stories! In the process of creating their own game they are also learning the basics of videogame and computer programming.
Check this video out for a little more information on Alice.
All DMA instructors have real world experience to bring into the classroom. We teach the youth, teens and adults what we do every day in our industries. We give real world examples and talk about your favorite games.
Are your kids or you interested in video games or computers? Learn more about our Summer Camp, or Sign Up and join me at this year’s summer camp at Stanford University in sunny Palo Alto or any of our ten other locations.
And be sure to keep up with out blog, there is always new and exciting things being posted here!
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A Closer Look at MMF2
Digital Media Academy News + Events | March 24th, 2009 by Ben
Hi! I’m Ben Jaffe, one of the instructors for Digital Media Academy’s Adventures Program. I want to give you a closer look at Multimedia Fusion 2, one of the primary software packages we use in the class to create dynamic and exciting games.
There are several computer programming languages that programmers use to communicate with computers. Learning how to program is very similar to learning a new language. You also have to learn how computers “think,” so you can give the computer instructions effectively and efficiently. Teaching a programming language to 9-13 years olds would be difficult and possibly boring to many of the kids; teaching the main concepts is much more fun. That is what Multimedia Fusion 2 (MMF2) allows us to do! We can teach our students the main concepts of game design. If they pursue computer programming at a later age, they’ll already understand many of the concepts of programming from this class.
The window pictured below allows the students to visually lay out the graphical elements in the game. This is one of the two main windows in MMF2. This is where the students choose the graphics, design the game’s levels, and tell the objects how to move (bounce, walk/jump, etc).
In every game, there are graphics and objects that move around the screen. Normally, a programmer would have to write code to get an object to move in any way, but our students can focus on the concepts instead of grappling with writing code. In MMF2, there are several movement types to chose from. In this example, we’re telling the ball to bounce around like a bouncing ball.
The Event Editor is the other main window in MMF2 (pictured below). This is where you program the “brains” of your game. The Event Editor lets you program without writing a single line of code. Technically speaking, you are creating “conditionals” in this window. Whenever “this” happens, do “that.” For example, line number 9 says “If the number of lives reaches 0, then restart the application.” By creating lists of these conditionals, we can create complex and interesting games that our students can be proud of! Multimedia Fusion 2 games will run on any Windows computer.
I’m very excited to be teaching MMF2 again, and I hope I see you all at DMA this summer!
-Ben Jaffe
Flash, taken to the next level
Digital Media Academy News + Events | February 14th, 2009 by bfrazier
As an educator, I try to enhance my knowledge every year during the summer with workshops. Most of the time I only get a few bits of useful information, literally only a couple of items that I can use in my classroom. I was very fortunate to be able to attend DMA’s workshop on Flash. WOW! I have studied Flash for the last 6 years, but I gathered so much from this one single workshop – more than I have from all the other workshops I’ve attended in the past.
The instructor was someone who had real experience in both the artistic and programming elements of Flash. I bow down to Michael Clayton! More importantly, he explained very difficult concepts in terms that were easy to digest. Programming is the hardest part for me. He also provided me some tips on how to teach these concepts to my students.
We were a small class of students – from an 8th grade student to the graphics designer for a company. He skillfully assisted each of us where we were at in our Flash knowledge and opened the door to new possibilities.
I am not an artist. Stick people are my forte. Clayton gave us tips on how to take our Flash projects to the next level. Specifically, I had my students create caricatures of themselves (just like the picture above) as we learned to use Flash’s drawing tools. My students had such great success with this project! The Technology Coordinator for my district saw the work and was simply amazed at what they created!
The students were so proud of their work, sending their finished projects to their family members and posting them on their personal pages. We then created our very first podcast, with animated mouths, which I learned from my DMA course. I’m really looking forward to taking the workshop on Photoshop and seeing how I can charge my creative juices!
