Sape’s Blog

Yes, the posts are going from dasy to weeks. I was never tired after work, until I started the game academy. For some reason I expected the kids to be interested in making games, cool graphics (and HOPED they would be interested in programming).

I don’t consider myself an early starter with computers, Jeff was–he had a computer all his life (mostly those ancient punch cards)–but at 14 I was already familiar with Photoshop and started learn how to make my own websites. And that was all mostly self taught, with some guidance from my Graphic Fartist Uncle and Coding Ninja Nick. But maybe that’s the key. I had some friends and family to support me. Same with Jeff. I don’t think these kids have that positive support for “learning” or self exploration. In fact, I know they don’t.

These kids have had rough lives and broken families. It’s very hard for me to relate to that. My family is awesome, arguably the best in the universe–that even breeds some jealousy or envy with my fiance. I should ask her advice on how to relate to the kids better and adjust my expectations. I don’t want to give up on them, but I also don’t want to exhaust myself the point of never wanting to do this again.

I figured they would like this kind of instruction, as opposed to the more traditional lecture style. Hands on, a short demonstration and a chance to go play. Perhaps they are too young. Perhaps don’t know enough to be interested. Or just too distracted with their own issues. Seems like the only things they are really interested in are playing games and mysapce. The most popular exercise is Photoshop. They love taking their picture and composting it with their favorite celebrity.

We ask them to just look up when we are talking, they don’t. So we remove the internet, they still don’t. Then we close the laptops, they still don’t. We bargain, pay attention for 30 minutes or you can’t play XBOX, and they still don’t pay attention. I have always thought highly of teachers, wanted to be one myself. Now I admire them even more. I’d have to jump off something tall if it was 12 or more of these kids.

Jeff tried to teach them coding yesterday. A simple sub 20 line exercise in Flash. Half of them couldn’t even listen for 35 minutes. One of the kids kept putting his headphones on and I asked him to take them out. He got all pissed off, like I tool away his candy. So when Flash crashed, instead of opening it back up, he goes into Photoshop and does his own thing. That pissed Jeff off and he expressed himself, which I thought was justifiable, and stopped the lesson. I just didn’t care anymore so I let them do whatever for last 15 minutes before lunch (well, still no internet or XBOX).

Missy, the girl though, is “A joy to be around.” Girls do mature much faster than boys (if boys ever mature). I think she keeps Kody in line because Kody has a crush on her. So I don’t know what we will do today. Give them a break? Do individual lessons and more free time. Let them play XBOX all day so Jeff and I can sleep. All can feel all the educators out there, laughing. Touché right? I know my Mother is laughing… Hopefully soon, I can too.

Teaching 14-15 year old kids about 3D modeling and programming is quite draining. Thankfully, I got our intern, Justin, to give the coding lesson for tomorrow, so I get a break tonight (yet I am still up at midnight thinking about it).

Monday (Day 1), we had two new students and girls at that. One was on vacation and the other couldn’t get out of bed. After about 5 minutes, Sleepy throws the mouse down and says “This is stupid!” so Jeff said, “You can go home…” So I escort her out, asking her if she called her ride, but she doesn’t answer and just walks off. Thankfully she got home safely, but I was a little worried. The other kids are great though, and make each day worth while.

We have one girl, Missy, and each of the boys likes her a lil bit. They pick on her like any 14 year old would pick on a the cute girl in class. The all fight for her attention. Some more than others. Jeff and I have to try to moderate it though, because she is the only girl, and gets ALL the attention and she will get sick of it soon. Or not. I imagine that is how my fiance, Candace, was at that age… Cute, smart, soaked up all the attention from the boys…

The Twins and Del are learning a lot. Kyle really enjoys the modeling. If he continues to pursue modeling, he will be abel to choose any place to work. He is learning very quickly. He flew thru Jeff’s wheel tutorial. Kody, his twin, is also learning a lot, but hasn’t quite found his passion. Kody says he likes the coding but we’ll see. Del mostly just likes to play games. But he is also learning quickly.

I am trying to teach them programming, which they no nothing about, while avoiding the boring stuff (like that Hello World from orientation). If the end result doesn’t have that “Cool” factor, and have it with next to zero work, I tend to lose them. Yesterday they got to program for the 360 Controllers, changing the background color by pressing X,Y,A,B. They thought that was cool, but I don’t think they are learning the concepts yet. How can I teach them the concepts without lecturing too them? I was thinking of explaining variables and types like containers (i.e. you wouldn’t want to pour water in a paper bag, you need a glass cup (type) to store the water). Jeff and I were talking and had a good concrete example, using the kids as objects:

Boy Kody = new Kody();
Food Apple = new Apple(Sour);
Kody.Eat(Apple);
Girl Missy = new Missy();
Answer GoOut = Kody.AskOut(Missy);
if(GoOut)
    Kody.SetMood(Happy);
else
    Kody.SetMood(Sad);
print(Kody.Mood);
output >> Sad.

I think that will go well… I am getting a lot of examples from Microsoft® XNA Game Studio 2.0: Learn Programming Now! which is very good for beginners. Next week, rather than MasterMind, I think I will have them try to make Simon. Jeff will teach them to make the graphics for the buttons–we learned how to import a picture into XNA today–and I’ll teach them the more complicated than I thought code. I keep hearing Yoda, “You need to unlearn what you have learned…” Things I think will be simple, get complicated quickly. But I have confidence in these kids.

Well, I just finished the first 2 days of the Game Academy. We got to know the kids really well and gauge their level. It scheduled to be an orientation, to get to know the kids and let them get to know Jeff and I. But, after the first hour of intro, they wanted to get started! So we let them play with the Wacam Bamboos and with XSI. They all loved the modeling, couldn’t get enough. Although, there was one kid, who could not stay off MySpace. Boy I hate MySpace. But we told him he can go do that at the library, so he didn’t come back on day 2.

The mornings are for modeling and graphics with Jeff. They love that. Get to manipulate 3D objects and play with the tablets. Score! The afternoons are for coding with me. I lost them the first day. I did a simple “hello world” in Visual C# Express, but had them going thru the command line to run their exe (b/c if you hit debug it pops up and goes away). But this is the age of GUIs not command lines and I lost them. So I changed it up to make it more interactive with an Echoer. Whatever they type in, is echoed back to them. Then I created a little password guessing game, where they have 10 guesses and they really loved that! So the key is to make it as interactive, and the least amount of work for the most reward. I am going to try and have them create a MasterMind game, which I can’t seem to find in brick and mortar stores. Amazon it is then…

I will try to post up the lessons here as I go thru them (the ones that aren’t created on the fly). We weren’t planning on teaching too much but we had to adjust. I have a feeling most of the teaching will be ad-lib. So stay tuned for updates!