Games Archives - 15 eleven

15 Eleven Games Academy

Computer Games Design BootCamp

During EU Code Week, in November, 15 Eleven communications teamed up with the Galway Education centre, visiting a number of city primary schools to create an awareness about coding and sowing the seeds to encourage future generations of developers.

At 15 Eleven we are now taking it to the next level. During the mid-term break, commencing the 17th February we will be running a Games Design BootCamp in the Galway Education centre. We are collaborating with Troll Inc’s Darragh Lydon in delivering the weeklong event. Darragh is a games designer and programmer. Troll Inc are Derry based, four years in existence and they have developed the games Jellyflug , Finn Folktales & Terramentals to date.

The 15 Eleven Games Academy BootCamp will focus on introducing the budding young games developer to the fundamentals of game design. Using the Unity 3D game development engine, the attendees will be taken through a programme from understanding the basic principles to developing a basic games for themselves.

Places on this programme are limited and so early booking is recommended.

Venue; Galway Education Centre, Cluain Mhuire, Wellpark, Galway

Dates; Monday 17th February to Friday 21st February

Times; 9.30am to 1.30 each day

What to Bring; Laptop, lunch, your imagination.

Who should come? ‘early-mid teens’, 1st, 2nd, 3rd year & Transition Year second level students

Register

Please download a booking form available on www.galwayec.ie and return it to the Galway Education along with the fee.

Fee: €75

EU Code Week

This week has been designated European Code week or to give it it’s twitter hashtag #codeEU. Europe Code Week has been championed by Neelie Kroes, the Dutch politician who is the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda and is also a vice president of the European Parliament.

Ireland is leading the way across the EU when it comes to encouraging youngsters to take up coding and in Ireland Galway is taking a leading role. That Galway Education centre, with Bernard Kirk at the helm has been pivotal all week in promoting and organising a large number of events.

Computer programming is being heralded as the new literacy, yet it is still widely perceived as a skill that can only mastered with a computer science degree. With the wider availability of internet connectivity and freely available, easy to use technologies, this is no longer the case.

With that in mind, over twenty events have been facilitated across a number of city primary schools this week, with the objective of encouraging the 11/12 year olds to ‘give coding a try’. The response from the kids has been brilliant and it is also provoking a growing interest among teachers, who can see the value of young children experimenting with the basics of computer programming.

There are several ‘coding tools’ available today which makes programming a ‘fun thing’ rather than a chore. MIT’s Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge. MIT is the world’s leading university and as they put it “Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.”

The “Twitter Machine” has been hopping all week as the various schools have been tweeting their messages about their particular events. Local Galway politician and junior minister Ciaran Cannon is a keen tweeter and a strong supporter of all efforts to better equip youngsters to position themselves to cope with the ever changing technologies.

Bernard Kirk points out that while a lot of emphasis this week has been on the primary school students, coding is not a preserve of youth. “On Monday we had six and seven year olds involved and on Tuesday we had a groups of active retired teachers visit the Education Centre for some Scratch demonstrations”It is a certainty that a large proportion of the ‘working lives’ into the foreseeable future will be heavily influenced by computers with the consequent requirement for people to programme them. The conventional wisdom at present would tend to indicate that the work will be available and that is why educators like Bernard Kirk and the Galway Education centre see their work of encouragement with both teachers and students as critical future proofing.

Click below to see the Galway City Tribune coverage.

EU Code Week Claddagh NS