3-D design with Blender

Last week, Garry taught us the basics of Blender. Blender is a free Opensource 3-D computer graphics software programme. You can creat 3D models with it. If you are an advanced user you would be able to make films and video games with Blender.

Garry showed our members how to creat a person in 3D. He started with a sphere and pulled out some arms and legs and a head. It was a steep learning curve as we had to learn a lot of new tools.
The kids also had a go at sculpting and modelling the head.

Several kids managed to create their first 3D model. This one even has eyes and a mouth.

 

 



 

Nathaniel took it a step further and created a monkey.

 

 

Next week Garry will show us the basics of animation with Blender



Parenting week

Addington.net attended the expo held at Addington School on Sunday 11 August, to inform the parents about what Addington.net can do for their children.

 

A demonstration of people engaged in Information technology at the Expo :)

 

 

At our Club we invited the parents during parenting week and the children had a go at teaching their parents some of the skills they learned at IT Kids Club.

 

We gave the parents and kids a break and shared some pizza with them which was kindly donated by Domino's Pizza.

 

After that the children took the opportunity to demonstrate the work they had done on the big screen

and told the parents a bit about it.

 

We don't know if we turned the adults into Wiz-parents but if so than they can come back in the future at night as we are setting up a Club for adults as well.

3-D design

Term 3 is all about 3D design. The major programs the children will be working with is OpenSim, Google Sketchup, Blender and some online programs.
The children have a lot of fun with OpenSim or OpenSimulater. This is a free open source 3D server. Children can use it to create a virtual world.
They can use the “sandbox”  Here the children create objects like planes, pets and clothing. They can also use coding to help them doing that.
Multiple users can enter the virtual world, develop their own person and interact with each other.
The objects the children have made with Google Sketchup or Blender can be loaded into OpenSim. The program has become very popular in our ITKids Club.

 

 

This 3-D world is a combined creation of the students 

Garry helping with OpenSim

All sorts of 3-D objects can be created in this virtual world

 

 

Frequently asked questions about OpenSim are here, if you want to know more about it

Dance video

We have been so busy that we neglected our Blog a bit so we have some catching up to do.
We want to show you a dance movie made in term 2. Three Students did some film work and cool dancing outside the IT Kids Club. The film was loaded on the computer and into Windows Movie Maker. The kids learned to split up the film, rearrange it, delete and copy parts. They added transitions as well. Levi made an intro and music was added to create a real Gangman style. An enjoyable result we think.