Tech whiz kids in the
making?
Young siblings spend part of their year-end
holidays
at game programming boot
camp
IT SAVVY: Benedict
Lai and his sister, Seraphine, recently attended a four-day
programming course conducted by The Kid Coders.
TNP PHOTO:
ARIFFIN JAMAR
Report by CATHERINE ROBERT
He is seven years old and he has already created his own
computer games.
Benedict Lai, a Primary 1 pupil at St Joseph's Institution
Junior, spent 10 hours Over four days of his year-end break delving
into the complexities of computer programming language.
What Benedict can create on a computer screen with
a few mouse clicks and strokes on the keyboard is more than what
many people much older than him can achieve.
With his coding skills, he is able to create a
basic video game, a 35sec animation, or multiple choice computer
quizzes.
He learnt how to do this at the Game Programming
Bootcamp course run by The Kid Coders, an initiative that offers
coding classes to childien aged betWeen six and 16.
"Miss Juliana (the programming teacher) taught me
how to create a car game when I was in her class," Benedict says
shyly.
With a sheepish giggle, he adds: "l also created a
cat cartoon. It's called The Crazy Cat because it shrinks until it
disappears before it appears again."
His sister, Seraphine, nine, also attended the
course.
CHALLENGING
The confident girl who speaks well says: "The programming class
was fun. It was really interesting and challenging at the same
time."
Seraphine, who was recently accepted into the
Gifted Education Programme, adds: "I also created a car game that
involves collecting points as the vehide moves along."
Benedict and her sister are just two of millions of
youngsters aged between eight and 16 worldwide who are learning to
program interactive stories, games and animations using the free
programming language Scratch.
Launched in 2006 by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Media Lab, Scratch has become the standard tool for
teaching coding in more than 150 countries.
It has also been translated into over 40 languages.
The Scratch website has more than 7.2 million projects shared on
it.
Benedict and Seraphine's mother, Mrs Lai, a tech
marketer in her 40s, says she sent her children to the class
because she did not want them to "waste time at home."
She says: If I left Benedict on his own, he
probably would spend hours on his favourite game, Minecraft. He has
an obsession with it, so I sent him for classes. I would rather he
learn to be a creator instead of just a consumer of technology.
Mrs Lai's decision has come at the perfect
time.
NEW INITIATIVE
As part of the Smart Nation vision for Singapore, the Ministry
of Education is encouraging schools to join the Code for Fun
enrichment scheme next year. It, too, will be using Scratch. The
Lai children's programming teacher, Miss Juliana Ung, 29, the soie
proprietor of The Kid Coders, says of her students: "In boot camp
class, they dive into learning to create a game from the get-go.
That includes creating their hero, making it pick up fruit and
allowing the player to accumulate points."
Miss Ung adds that her course teaches students to
think like creators.
The Kid Coders also offers a course teaching teens
the ropes of the more widely used IT languages such as HTML or
Hypertext Markup Language.
Benedict and Seraphine hope to attend more courses
for the rest of their year-end holidays.
Seraphine says she knows that having programming
knowledge will help her when she enters the working world,
"especially when putting together presentations".
Benedict has other plans. With surprising
conviction in his voice, he says: "When I grow up, I'm going to be
a Minecraft programmer."
TECH GURUS ON CODING
Everybody should learn how to program a
computer... it teaches you how to think.
- Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple Inc
In fifteen years we'll be teaching
programming just like reading and writing... and wondering why we
didn't do it sooner.
- Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook
Whether you are trying to make a lot of
money or just want to change the world, computer programming is an
incredibly empowering skill to learn.
- Hadi Partovi, creator of code.org, a non-profit
organisation that promotes computer science to US
students
The programmers of tomorrow are the wizards
of the future. You're going to look like you have magic powers
compared to everybody else.
- Gabe Newell, co-founder and managlng director of Valve
Corporation, a video game development and online distribution
company
People, The New Paper On Sunday, December 7 2014, Pg 10-11