Animate it!

Last week marked the start of term two for the IT Tech Kids here at Addnet Digital. This term is all about animation – video animation, clay animation, stop motion. You name it, these kids are animating it. 

A new term for the ITkids at Addnet

Several of the kids have already started some projects on different kind of animations. Watch this space for their upcoming videos! 

Addnet Digital, which is made up of pre-high school and high school kids, has embarked on making a short film. After coming up with the story, the kids have been experimenting with the filming, lighting and different camera angles. The finished project will be posted on youtube and on this blog. It's a silent horror, so be afraid. Be very afraid. 

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Award Ceremony

This term our theme is audio and video. In the first session we focused on making a stop motion movie with stick figures.

We also had an award ceremony for the best Kodu game development from last term and the first prize went to...........roffle.......roffle........Joseph, who developed the game "Kodu Gauntlet". Nathaniel won the second prize for a game where a Kodu had to eat the fishes in a pond. The prizes were sponsored by Supervalue Supermarket on Lincoln Road, Addington.
Greg presents the winning game to you on youtube:



Building circuits with Arduino

Our newest toy is an Arduino which some students are already enjoying.

Greg worked with some of the kids on a circuit with the Arduino and a Sparkfun electronics kit. Arduino is open source electronics for creating interactive objects.

A bunch of very intent people building their first circuit

Making a little light show

 

Janet has been working with Addington Digital students on film making. Here they are learning about panning and lifting. They made the first shots of their short movie

Presentation time

We are nearly at the end of the first 12 sessions of the year and this was presentation time. The children are encouraged to show their work and explain what they've made.They are allowed to demonstrate how to make something and if it's a game, they show how to play it.

 

We had several presentations today. A couple of children wanted to finish their Kodu game first and so they'll get a chance to show it next week. 

 

Some of the girls have been making posters with Paint Shop Pro, slideshows with Microsoft PowerPoint  and Piper-Rose wanted to show her bookmark.

A field trip to Orion Health

Last Thursday we went on a trip to Orion Health. Since the beginning of this term we've been learning about programming. The kids learned to code with Kodu and Scratch. They learned how to make apps and had a play with Turtle, a learning environment for Python for children.
What could be better than visiting the professionals to see how real programmers work? So we did just that.

We had a 10-minute walk, then on our arrival, Michael from Orion was there to welcome us.

At the headquarter we found the programmers at work. Our curious kids had a closer look.

The children seated themselves around the boardroom table, where they learned about some of the developers' projects. We learned that design is as important as programming and that every project gets chopped up into manageable parts. Each team works on a separate project. The kids asked lots of questions and when Samantha wanted to know the names of the teams they took this on as a new idea and will bring it to the meeting next time.

 

Having had a productive time, we took a photo of ourselves and the programmers before we left.

Some houses the young kids have made in google sketch up.

Trimble Sketchup Work on PhotoPeach

 

 

 

The most popular software at IT Kids' Club is Trimble Sketchup, which Trimble took over from Google. Sketchup is a 3-D modelling application for professionals. Professionals? Yeh, that's what our kids are. We have a few specialists in the Club. These kids are keen to help others, as the adults are not as advanced as the children. Just watch the video and enjoy their great work.

They could easily compete with the professionals, don't you think?

Coding a game and an app for your mobile phone

The IT Tech Kids at Addington.net have dived straight into 2013, taking on a ton of new and exciting projects.

This past week, Levi, one of the students, has been involved in making a video of the game he made with Scratch. It’s a game he has been working on for three weeks, and this is the final result. He’s rated it an impressive 5/5. Check it out:

Our kids use Scratch/BYOB an extended version of Scratch. It is an easy to use programming language. The children can drag and drop blocks of code to build their game or story. It stimulates their creativity, thinking skills and of course it teaches them the basics of programming or coding.
 

The kids were also introduced to Thomas Suarez, the tech-whizz whose app-creating powers can’t fail to inspire. Thomas’s eagerness, interest and ability are a reflection of what kids are capable of if given the right opportunities. 

After watching the video, the IT kids are rearing to get started on their own apps, and have set their sights on the MIT App Inventor as their next goal. They are going to follow the first tutorial to make a cat which meows when you point to it with your mouse. This app will be shown on a simulator once finished.

The kids are also working with Kodu, so there are more exciting results to look forward to.
Stay tuned to see what the IT Kids will be coming up with next!  

Addington Digital muso

 

Asoono is a member from the Addington Digital group at addington.net.
He uses his lunch time at school for guitar lessons held by a teacher and also sometimes uses the Internet to learn new songs and chords to play for the group.
In this photo he is concentrating on the lessons he is watching on YouTube.

You can find out more about the Addington Digital group at www.addington.ithothouse.com/