Where has this Academic Year gone! Day 2 of the Animex Academy Digital Leader programme took place over the last few weeks with each group coming to Teesside University to represent their schools. This week we time we started off by learning about problem solving and tenacity….otherwise known as trying to get connected to the wifi! Once the children had overcome that, we focussed on a simple coding task where the children created a short animation based on a tutorial. An Elf and a Wizard in a short story involving two scenes. The tutorial gives the children enough to get the story opening complete and then expand further their work….but it also contains a key skill that is often missed.
Creating a story through timings will take you so far but it it gets complicated quite quickly. Using triggers to cue up events is a far more logical way of working and also underpins lots of game play design: if this happens then x, y, z…..can all happen too simultaneously from one trigger command. I have worked with lots of children on this concept before so i was ready for the screwed up faces of confusion while I asked them hard questions….but within ten minutes? They GOT it!
The only ‘problem’ was that time was so tight. We included a tour of the amazing sound stage facilities on campus and Mark who supervises the facility brilliantly demonstrated lots of the cool tech that they have in there. Our next sessions are only a month away and it feels like we have barely got started but it is great to hear that many of the children are then going back to school and teaching the other children. Fantastic ambassadors.
