The Strategy of Coding

   Our campers have figured out that we like field trips.  We like them because they can meet the experts, and do things with real world applications.  That makes a bigger impression and ah-ha moments for them.  Today we are doing something new and different, which makes sense since this camp is something new and different.   

We travelled to Robeson Community College (RCC) today to meet Mr. William Stubbs who is in charge of the Gaming and Simulator program.  Our youth learned some cool applications to coding and that when they are in high school they can take classes to learn more and create some practical applications.  They also learned more about the design, animation, and production of these types of applications.  The highlight of the trip, besides learning about careers in coding, was having the chance to play a video game developed by one of the students.  Our youth were again inspired by our host to pursue and education in technology, and they were all excited about the possibilities.

After leaving RCC our youth travelled to Golden Corral for lunch.  They needed full stomachs to head up to Fayetteville to Just Claying Around.  Just Claying Around is a business that allows folks to paint pottery and ceramics and will fire it.  So you might be asking yourself what this has to do with coding?  That is an excellent question.  One of the things we have been trying to get across to our day campers is that coding is about patterns, textures, and variables such as colors.  What better way to show that then to create your own textures, patterns, and variables with a piece of art.  Each one of our youth created something special but also had to have some faith in following their instructions or the code that was given to them.  You see often paint colors don't look right until after tehy are fired so they needed to paint three coasts of something that may not have looked right but by the end of the firing process will be what they were planning in their heads...just like coding.

Special thank yous today to William Stubbs with RCC and Just Claying Around for allowing us to visit and have an unforgetable experience.

To see all the photos from today please click this link.