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TechDev Academy

A Silicon Valley-based Startup Company founded by young entrepreneurs and professionals from different backgrounds including education, IT, science, business administration, and marketing in 2019.

Game Developer Kids: From Obsession to Coding

Game Developer Kids: From Obsession to Coding

Game Obsessed Kids

 

We, as parents, often become worried about watching our kids becoming obsessed with playing video games. But did you know that, if guided toward the proper direction, it could greatly help them to become game developer kids in the future?

It might sound surprising but according to statistical projections, by 2021, the global video game industry revenues are projected to surpass 138 billion U.S. dollars. And in terms of the PC gaming market only, in 2021, the worldwide value is projected to reach a whopping 45.5 billion U.S. dollars.

 

While these are just two of many projections on the game industry, we think they’re enough to understand that why we should not discount the kids’ passion toward games, at least for the sake of a possibly prospective career.

However, to direct the kids’ obsession with games toward game development, you need to follow some specific methods.

 

Why You Shouldn’t Discourage Your Kid from Playing Games

If you’re a concerned parent worrying about your kid spending lots of time in front of a screen, this section is for you as we’ve outlined the major benefits of gaming for kids.

 

  • As the game industry has been booming, in the future, there’ll be a far bigger gap between the demand and supply for skilled programmers and developers in the industry. Even today, there’s a significant shortage of suitable professionals in the STEM job industry. And those are the disciplines that revolve around the skills that game developers generally tend to be proficient in.
  • Though how much a game developer can earn depends on many factors like experience, skills, etc., in general, the amount is quite good. To help you get an idea, in 2018, the average annual salary of video game designers stood at $90,270. And can you imagine how much the developers, who create the next big thing on their own, can earn? It could be as much as 100 million USD in a year!
  • Game development involves much more than only technology. Apart from a robust background in computer science, game developers typically have a skill and passion for art and design, as well as, bringing creative ideas to life. Therefore, by stepping into the world of game development, kids not only get to nurture their passion for technology but other valuable skills as well.

 

Coding Games – The Best Way to Become Game Developer Kids

Coding games typically bring a fine blend of coding and gaming environments. Unfortunately, most people tend to overlook the coding aspect and think that kids’ involvement in these games will be a waste of time. If you too belong to this league, take a look at the following to understand why coding games are the best option to help kids become game developers.

  • Even if we manage to get kids interested in computer programming, it becomes really difficult to keep engaged for the long term. Coding games greatly help to overcome this obstacle. Since they let kids enjoy the fun involved in the game-making process, the little ones stay engaged willingly.
  • Keeping kids motivated for learning a new thing is another major issue frequently faced by parents and educators. However, game-based learning helps students to concentrate, retain knowledge, and perform better down the line[4].
  • Coding games enable kids to step into the inner world of a software program. Since they use real programming languages and associated tools during the process, they get to learn real, transferrable skills while building confidence.

 

Tips to Spark Your Kid’s Interest in Game Development

Parents can help their children through the transformation from being game players to becoming game developer kids. Here are some tips about what you can do on your end.

 

  • Encourage kids to assess a game from different aspects. It’ll help them obtain an idea of the elements that make a game fun, as well as, the elements that make it highly interesting.
  • Encourage them to get involved with coding games. Since coding covers a huge portion of game development, by learning how to code, kids can gradually step into the world of game development.
  • Storytelling is the thing that makes the complex process of game development somewhat easier. Therefore, it pays to teach your kids storytelling to help them get more involved in the gameplay.

 

3 Best Coding Games for Kids

The internet boasts lots of coding games for kids that can help the little ones get involved in creating fun stuff. Here, we’ve outlined the top three of them.

 

RoboZZle: This free online game lets users solve puzzles by programming a robot. Registered user, after completing a certain number of solved puzzles, can create their own puzzles and submit them for other users to try.

CodeCombat: With this graphically rich coding game, students get the chance to code with JavaScript, Python, etc. It also comes with lots of useful tutorials that help prompt the right code syntax.

Gamestar Mechanic: This game celebrates coding and game design by putting users in a sci-fi world. It lets kids create their own levels and unlock further elements that players can use for future projects.

Conclusion

These days, when most of us, especially the kids, are staying indoors all the time. Perhaps it’s the best time to direct your kid’s gaming obsession to game development.

Since a huge amount of free time for kids has become inevitable in most households, you don’t even need to think of helping them to take some time out for game coding.

If you’re worried about keeping your kids safe in the online world, you shouldn’t. Because many coding games come with lots of parental controls. It means that you can manage communications or turn off socializing features.

So, you can start by encouraging your kids to look at computer games from a coder’s perspective and letting them become game developer kids.

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JOHN H. FALK

Director of the Institute for Learning Innovation and Sea Grant Professor Emeritus of Free-Choice Learning at Oregon State University

 

Dr. John H. Falk is Director of the Institute for Learning Innovation and Sea Grant Professor Emeritus of Free-Choice Learning at Oregon State University. He is a leading expert on free-choice learning; the learning that occurs when people have significant choice and control over what, where, and when they learn.

Get your syllabus

Get your syllabus

 

CHRISTINE CUNNINGHAM

Professor of Practice of Education and Engineering at Penn State University

 

Dr. Christine Cunningham is a Professor of Practice of Education and Engineering at Penn State University. Her work focuses on making engineering more relevant, accessible, and inclusive, especially for underserved and underrepresented populations. She does this by creating researched-based engineering curricula for PreK-8 children and their educators. Her book, Engineering in Elementary STEM Education, describes her groundbreaking work. Previously, Cunningham was the Founding Director of Engineering is Elementary. Cunningham has received a number of awards; in 2017 her work was recognized with the prestigious Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education.

 

CHRIS ROGERS

Chris Rogers Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University

 

His research interests are:

Engineering Education, Robotics, and Musical Instrument Design

 

Education

Ph., D Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University

 

Biography

Chris Rogers earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University, where he worked with Professor John Eaton on his thesis on particle motion in a boundary layer flow. Rogers joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering in 1989. He is involved in a number of research areas, including particle-laden flows (a continuation of his thesis), telerobotics and controls, the slurry flows in chemical-mechanical planarization, the engineering of musical instruments, measuring flame shapes of couch fires, measuring fruit-fly locomotion, and engineering education (kindergarten to college). At Tufts, Rogers has exercised his strong commitment to teaching by exploring a number of new directions, including teaching robotics with LEGO bricks and teaching manufacturing by building musical instruments. His teaching work extends to the elementary school level, where he talks with over 1,000 teachers around the world every year on methods of introducing young children to engineering.

 

RumeysaDogan

RUMEYSA DOGAN

Co-founder and COO at TechDev Academy

  • Graduated from top-ranked business school with high honor
  • Worked in top global companies as Vodafone, Benetton Group, etc
  • Experienced in Product Management and Digital Marketing Analytics
  • Managed Entrepreneurship Club and mentored several entrepreneurs

 

 

ismail-marulcu

ISMAIL MARULCU

Co-founder & Chief Education Officer at TechDev Academy

  • Educator and Researcher since 2001
  • M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Boston College
  • Ph.D. in STEM Education from Boston College
  • Mentored more than 100 pre-service teachers, college students, and high school students

 

 

PaolaGomez

PAOLA G. GONZALES

Mentor & Educator

  • over 2,000 hours mentoring students and 4 years of teaching experience
  • spearheaded a nonprofit organization that provides mentorship to underrepresented students at the UC, Davis
  • an active member of the Surfrider Foundation

 

 

AyushKanodia

AYUSH KANODIA

Ph.D. Student in Computer Science at Stanford

  • Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science at Stanford Uni.
  • Worked as a software engineer for Google
  • Expert in the intersection of Computer Science and Economics.

 

 

KairatSabyrov

KAIRAT SABYROV

Ph.D., Data Scientist

  • B.S. in chemistry and physics
  • Ph.D. In physical chemistry
  • Data science instructor at Lambda School
  • Worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab at the UC, Berkeley

 

 

BAHRUDIN TRBALIC

Ph.D., Candidate at Stanford University

  • Studied Physics & Electrical Engineering at MIT.
  • Worked at MIT as a Medical Data Analyst and Product Developer.
  • The founder and lead developer of Expert Experiments.
  • Received the 2023 Robert H. Siemann Graduate Fellowship and 2022 NASA Astrophysics Research and Analysis Award.
  • Spearheaded STEM camps across Europe and Asia.
  • He has been mentoring students for years.

 

 

SHASHA ANRONIKOV

Researcher at Stanford University

  • Recent honors graduate from Cornell University with a major in biological sciences and a minor in business at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
  • Currently working at Stanford University in the Nolan Lab to conduct immunopathology research.

 

 

LISA WANG

BSc Harvard University Graduate

  • Studied Environmental Science and Engineering.
  • Cross-registered to Harvard Univ. and MIT.
  • An advisor to the Harvard Undergraduate Clean Energy Group.
  • Co-founder of Coolant, a company that builds software to unlock nature-based carbon markets.

 

 

SEMI HASAJ

MBA Data Scientist at C3 AI

  • Studied Data Science while obtaining his Master's of Business Analytics at MIT.
  • Studied Space Engineering in Toronto, Canada where he grew up.
  • He has spent years tutoring others because he loves to help people learn and grow.

 

 

SAMY AWWAD

Junior at Stanford University

  • Studying Symbolic Systems with a focus on Neurosciences and plans to be a medical doctor.
  • Founded ImmuniGlobal, a national nonprofit in vaccine education, and he was featured in Healthline magazine.
  • A published researcher in PubMed.
  • Honored by the CDC as a Flu Fighter during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Enthusiastic about empowering young changemakers.

 

 

HASAN TUNCER

Ph.D., Product Manager at Cruise

  • BSc. in Computer Science at Koc University, Istanbul.
  • Ph.D. in Computing and Information Scienves at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
  • Worked as a software engineering at Wall Street.
  • Product Manager for Cloud Services (at IBM Silicon Valley Lab), autonomous vehicles (at NIO, aka Chinese Tesla, Uber ATG, Aurora and Cruise)

 

 

RayYucel

RAY YUCEL

Ph.D., Data Scientist in Magnimind Inc.

  • B.S in Materials Engineering
  • M.Sc in Management
  • Ph.D. Candidate in Economics
  • Data scientist at Magnimind Inc.
  • Employs deep learning in finance and health care data

 

 

SofoklisGoulas

SOFOKLIS GOULAS

Ph.D., Senior Research Associate at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University

  • Senior research associate, Stanford Uni.
  • The use of data science and machine learning in economics
  • M.Sc. in finance and economics, Warwick business school
  • MS and a Ph.D. in economics, the Uni. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Worked at the Uni. of North Carolina and at the Bank of Greece

 

 

EnricoSantus

ENRICO SANTUS

Senior Data Scientist at Bayer

  • Senior data scientist at Bayer
  • Postdoc at MIT, in the group of Regina Barzilay
  • Experience in NLP in Oncology, Cardiology and Palliative Care
  • Experience in Fake News Detection, Sentiment Analysis, and Lexical Semantics.
  • Invited to talk at the White House

 

 

EMILY HALFORD

Data Analyst

  • Data analyst working in psychiatric epidemiology
  • Data Science&Mental Health Expert with the BBN Times
  • Master of Public Health, Columbia Uni.

 

 

RyanSpitler

RYAN SPITLER

Ph.D., Co-Founder and Deputy Director of the Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics Center (PHIND) at Stanford University

  • Faculty Member, Standford Uni.
  • Founding Partner at Boutique Venture Partners
  • B.S. in Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, UC, Santa Cruz
  • Ph.D. In Cellular and Developmental Biology, UC, Irvine

 

 

muratbaday

MURAT BADAY

Scientist at Stanford Uni, Founder & CEO at TechDev Academy

  • Co-founder of Smartlens, Magnimind, Wowso, Nanosight
  • M.S. in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh
  • Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Biophysics from the Uni. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Mentored and tutored over 100 high school students
  • Developed novel ideas and has over 8 patents

 

 

GyunelRashidova

GYUNEL RASHIDOVA

B.S. in Biological Sciences,
Research assistant at the Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioinstrumentation

  • iGEM alumni, received Gold Medal among 250 teams
  • Fellowship holder from Women in Tech international organization
  • Founder of social projects:
    “OncoSense” - fabrication of device for the detection of cancer biomarkers;
    “RemiSee” - promotion of a colorblind-friendly educational platform
  • AIESEC alumni, organized case competitions with over 300 participants
  • Organized iGEM Biohackathon and Summer Camp for high-school and university students to apply coding for solving real case studies

 

 

SoudehYaghouti

SOUDEH YAGHOUTI

Ph.D., Data Scientist at Megalab, Silicon Valley

  • Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Italy.
  • More than 4 years of experience in data-driven research on electrical network systems.
  • Collaborating with TechDev Academy for several years and taught students data analysis projects.
  • Collaborated with Stanford scientists on projects that aimed to automate medical diagnosis of diseases with the help of image processing techniques and AI.

 

 

AIZHAN IBRAYEVA

MSc Researcher at Stanford University

  • MS. Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University.
  • Did research at Stanford University, Aerospace Science Lab (Purdue), Rarefied Gas Dynamics Lab (Purdue)
  • Worked on projects supported by NASA.
  • Worked as Engineer at Silicon Valley Startup companies.
  • Mentored Students from top US school

 

The class has 5 available spots.
You can add the class during course registration!

 

June 1-5

Mon-Fri 2 hours of daily instruction and 2 hours of self-paced project development.

June 8-12

Mon-Fri 2 hours of daily instruction and 2 hours of self-paced project development.

June 15-19

Mon-Fri 2 hours of daily instruction and 2 hours of self-paced project development.

The class capacity is full.
Please try other classes!