Amazing 3D work from our young tech kids

We have done a lot of work in Trimble Sketchup. Here are some examples of the kind of work we have done. The children have learned to define the measurements of shapes, how to make certain shapes and how to put them all together to make towers, faces or caterpillars.
They have made pictures into wallpaper and some even have wallpapered a house from Google maps
onto their sketchup house.
The ITkids also learned to make lego bricks and build with them in Sketchup and many more skills.

Soon very soon we will be having our own 3D printer which will cutting edge tech available to our wizz kids.
The 3D printer was donated by Peggy Cameron a friend from Australia

Soccer re creation at IT Kids

Our new teacher, who is working on a PHD in education, had some commitments so we took over.
The children have been working very hard to learn 3D design and graphic design skills so we had
a free session were the kids could choose their own software to recreate a soccer game.



Some programmed our robots with 12 blocks and than played some games.

12 blocks is software setup to programme robots. Like Scratch it uses visual blocks you can drag and drop. The program also provides debugging tools which are very helpful. It also works with Arduino, Lego Mindstorm and Tbot to name a few.

One of the kids programmed it to defend the goal by moving up and down.
The other programmed it to move the paper ball into the goal.
They were also programmed to talk and said e.g." I am Persie" which is the Dutch soccer player.

One of the girls filmed the scene with our camera and together we put it on Animoto, which the kids use to make slideshows and video's

As one of the mentors is Dutch , there was support for the Dutch team as you see in this drawing
made with Paint.net. Unfortunately the Dutch lost in the semi finals against Argentina.

This game was created in Lego Digital Designer  and many games were created with the builder in Roblox, online software which you can build whole worlds and interact with others.

Kodu time

The IT Kids have been playing with Kodu Game Lab.

Kodu by Athashia

Angelo made a Disco Club game:

With Kodu kids can design their own 3D environment, fill it with characters and objects, and then control how everything interacts by programming objects or tweaking dozens of environment settings.
They can design an adventure, tell a story, or make an arcade-style game - wherever their imagination takes them!
Once their game is made, kids can share it and play together, or examine the design to find out how it was made.
Let's have a look at how Angelo's game in the video was made.

The maze-like environment is easily seen in this top-down view.

The environment's Sky and Lighting have been set.

The central pool and diving board, with kodu disco clubbers wandering about.

Programming or "Kode" for the wandering disco clubbers. Since there is no tile in the WHEN section, the tiles in the DO section will be executed continuously.

Kode for the disco wisps. In line 1, the wisp is told to glow random colors. In line 2, the wisp's glow turns off every 10 seconds. Immediately after this happens, line 1 triggers again, changing the glow color.

Kode for the Kodu DJ. He continuously plays the sound called "action".

The characters sitting at the tables are very happy to be there.

Kode for the pushpads. They explain what they're doing. Clicking on them with the left mouse button takes the player to a minigame in the next level (not shown).

Kode for the player usually has the most instructions. In line 1, we see that the player moves by pushing the keys W A S or D. Line 2 enables the player to Jump with the space key. Line 3 enables the player to push other clubbers away from them (to be used on boy kodus). Line 4 enables the player to chat by pushing the black button (to be used on girl kodus). Line 5 allows the player to express frustration, possibly at the rude actions of other clubbers, or perhaps at the DJ's choice of party music.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from IT Kids

Card Art

 

These are only two of the twenty designs Athashia created this term as the theme was card art. Athashia was therefore the winner this term with her stunning creations and she received a set of her work printed on cards with envelopes. The children created some wonderful art with the following programs: Picasa, Inkscape, GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, and the above images were created with Paint.net. We collected these designs in a folder and we use this card art to create more cards in the future.



Art cards made by our tech kids



Athashia's price. A set of 20 printed cards
with her art

We had a little end of year party at the last session. The children ate cookies and drank some juice and we talked about what they liked most this year. Google Sketchup was the most popular software this year followed closely by GIMP.

Fun with photos

At our computer Club we also had a photo shoot. We collected some props the children for the children to dress up and the photos were inserted in a template or online into photoFunia
Here are some results

 

 

Using Gimp

We practised using GIMP which is free Open source software. It is graphic design software, like Photoshop. It takes some practise but you can do really cool things with it when you get to know it.

We learned to cut out a picture with a white background using the magic wand in Gimp. 

We saved it as a paint brush and printed it.

 

 

We took it a step further and used the pictures they cut out, to past them on a background.

A term full of creativity

This last term we've been busy with graphic design which is the art of combining text and pictures. We were having fun being creative and in the process learn different ways of working with software like GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, Picasa, Publisher and Paint.net.

We learned to copy and past photos on a background and used the paintbrush and the paint bucket in Pain Shop Pro

 

Francesca's work

 

 

Jordan's work

Roberts work