If you live in Melbourne and you’re looking for a way to keep the kids occupied, entertained and educated over the January holidays, you might want to check out “Invent the World”, a series of workshops aimed at 7-13 year-olds involving Raspberry Pi programming, Minecraft and tabletop gaming.
This post was originally published on Lifehacker Australia.
The courses, which range from $175 to $450, start on January 13 and end January 29. Here’s a breakdown of the four workshops available:
13 – 17 January 2014 & 20 – 23 January 2014
One of our most popular courses, Minecraft Challenge allows kids to explore the world of Minecraft in new and exciting ways. Kids will develop their planning and problem solving skills,
through engineering based challenges that require them to work together. This is a four-day course, with an optional fifth day of supervised ‘free play’.
20 – 23 January 2014
This course is designed to teach kids how to design and code their own video games. During the week, kids will learn how to use Scratch, an educational programming language, on Raspberry
Pi computers, which are designed for teaching programming in schools. Students will be able to take the computer and their game code home at the end of the course.
13 – 17 January 2014
This course shows kids how to build, code and control their very own Lego robot. Over the week, kids will be taught about engineering, basic programming (using Raspberry Pi computers), and construction, all while learning to work as part of a team. This is a four-day course, with a fifth optional day of ‘free play’.
28 – 29 January 2014
This course introduces the basics of tabletop role-playing games. We will help them create their own character, setting and stories, and will then play through the games as a group. Ideal for
creative kids who are interested in making their own worlds and stories. It is a two-day course.
If you’d like more details, hit up the website below, which also includes booking and contact information.
Invent the World [Official site]
Comments
7 responses to “Get Your Kids Into Coding And Roleplaying Games With Melbourne’s Invent The World”
Programming is fun. I recommend it to everyone who’s bored.
If it seems daunting or “I’ll never be able to learn it”, take up HTML first. No compilers, no setup and no time wasting. You can do it in Notepad from a fresh install on any OS and see your results as quick as you can hit F5.
HTML isn’t a programming language though, it’s a markup language designed to present and lay out information. HTML can run scripts written in languages such as Javascript, and pages can be generated via programming languages (e.g. ASP.NET, or PHP) but HTML itself isn’t one.
Well no, it’s not, but it is still nonetheless a good way to introduce someone who has no previous experience.
*Is a web developer. Knows this.*
It also gets people with no prior knowledge into the scene almost immediately and teaches them about the two most important fundamentals: Design and Syntax.
Scratch 2.0 is immediate, web based and possibly more relevent for beginning programming? HTML is a massively different paradigm.
I realise that this is a noble venture that needs much support, but $175 to $450 for the courses? Dang.
So full disclosure, I work for ITW.
In a perfect world, I would teach kids this stuff for free, but it needs to be sustainable. ITW’s prices are comparable to average childcare rates in Australia and middle of the range for school holiday workshops. Our staff ratios are way above average and we employ people who love what they do (and are great at it) and we aspire to pay them well so that they can continue to love it.
I’d be interested to hear what you would consider reasonable though 🙂
My corro/distance degree is worth $22K. Pretty sure it’s all UDK based.
i’d have killed for this when I was a kid
Kids! they need this for adults. i wish i could go. cause it sounds awesome