GBL for STEM

On Thursday 16th June 2011, I ran a workshop on creating video games as part of a STEM summer camp organized in Waterford Institute of Technology by CALMAST (Centre for the Advancement of Learning of Maths, Science and Technology). The group included 14 secondary schools students with no or little background in Computer Science. The workshop consisted of an introduction to GameMaker, a free 2D game engine, followed by a project whereby they had to construct their own game. The workshop lasted for 8 hours, with breaks in the morning, afternoon and for lunch. The workshop was organized around the them of pac-man. Students were introduced to GameMaker, including: graphical interface, designing a level, creating sprites, objects and rooms, moving objects, collecting objects, displaying score and lives, creating variables, modifying variables, conditional statements, etc. This experience was extremely inspiring.

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