CODE4FUN: Programming Archives

Max Forbes, a CODE4FUN alumnus, won the Northern Beaches Youth Volunteer of the Year award

September 5, 2023 By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in Kids, Programming

We are very proud of Max Forbes, a CODE4FUN alumnus, who won the Northern Beaches Youth Volunteer of the Year award! As a CODE4FUN student, Max always has been showing his passion and dedication to coding and computer science. We’re absolutely thrilled to witness how he continues to pursue his passion, while generously sharing his knowledge with others. At Willoughby City Library, Max helps children in a free after school program to learn about coding, computer literacy and problem solving. Max’s dedication is not just inspiring; it’s a testament to the transformative power of education and mentorship. We couldn’t be prouder of his achievements and the positive impact he’s making in our community. Let’s applaud Max Forbes for his outstanding contributions and for being a shining example of how one individual’s passion can ignite the spark of curiosity in countless others!

CODE4FUN students meet Australian of the year Michelle Simmons and learn about Quantum Computer

September 5, 2023 By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in Kids, Programming

CODE4FUN students learn about Quantum Computing from Professor Michelle Simmons UNSW

A huge Thank You to the Australian of the year Michelle Simmons, Alison Taylor, Gabrielle Green and all the team at the Centre for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology UNSW for inviting CODE4FUN students to visit, learn and explore one of the best Quantum Computer Research Centres in the world.

What an exceptional opportunity the CQC2T Team gave our coding students to see potential future pathways with the coding skills they are learning now. No doubt that this hands-on experience of cutting-edge computer science and technology has widened our students’ understanding and inspired them toward the array of careers that are now open to them.

CODE4FUN students’ success in Australian STEM Video Game Coding Challenge 2021

December 17, 2021 By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in Programming

Huge congratulations go to three CODE4FUN’s students Nico, Luca, and Everest for their outstanding achievement in Australian STEM Video Game Challenge 2021. Two projects, created by these talented game developers, reached Semi-Finals, which is very exciting.

We all are super proud of these young programmers and cannot help but share their success with the CODE4FUN community. Well done to Nico, Luca, and Everest! Your passion and commitment to coding and your achievement, is very inspiring.

Nico and Luca have been studying coding with CODE4FUN for over four years, starting from block-based Scratch all the way to Pro Level, learning text-based Java and Python languages now. Everest joined CODE4FUN a bit later but has been progressing fast currently attending Pro level of Java course.

Please check out their games below:

Everest’s game:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/524038840/fullscreen/

Luca & Nico’s game:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/556696765/fullscreen/

We also wanted to share both teams’ thoughts on what they have learned while participating in this challenge:

Everest:

“The hardest part of my game was creating the game’s achievements. I started by thinking about what achievements to create and came up with the idea that I need to colour code them to make the game more appealing and engaging. So, I created several colour categories: white is for regular achievements, gold is for milestone achievements, while red is for negative achievements (such as getting eliminated 15 times). I also did a lot of research on the internet of what makes games fun and found out that boosters or power-ups were one factor that made games engaging. I am very thankful to my mentor Andrew Diggins for his support and professional advice during my challenge’s journey.”

Nico and Luca:

“As outlined in the competition guidelines our game is narrative-based and is rated E for everyone and as a result is absent from violence, coarse language, and other mature themes. Our video game took 4 months to complete and required us to work on it every day. When developing our video game, we found it difficult to create an entertaining game which satisfied the theme of scale whilst trying to execute our creative ideas in a workable and enjoyable way. To overcome this, we had to work as a team, accepting each other’s criticism and being open to each other’s ideas. Most importantly if it were not for Grigory Punanov, who was an amazing mentor we could never have successfully completed the brief within the time limit. The skills we have learned from Gregory and coding we are sure will carry us well into the future.”

CODE4FUN Teacher Won the Global Game Jam Sydney 2019

September 24, 2019 By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in Programming, Teachers

Huge congratulations to Daniel Welsh, CODE4FUN lead coding teacher, for winning the first place at Viva League Global Game Jam Sydney 2019, the professional game development competition.

The Sydney Game Jam was packed into an intense 30 hours where participants, who are generally made up of programmers, game designers, and artists, competed solo and in teams to create computer games within the time limit, and based on a chosen theme.

There were over 60 participants, who were eager to create and show their games to the Game Jam jury.

Daniel Welsh and his colleague Naomi Justin created a Wild West Cartoon game called “Billy The Kid” where the user plays for a goat character who is on a mission to investigate ‘goat milk affair’.

You can play this game via this link:

Pease click here to play: play the game

Well done Daniel and good luck in January with the International Game Jam, where thousands of game developers from all over the world will compete for the top prize.