First things first, let's all abuse Gary Patterson: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/322158537/fullscreen/
(I don't believe it will work on mobile, you need the arrow keys to play, and it is best experienced with the sound turned-up)
Now for the background, as some of you know, my wife and I purchased the Lubbock franchise territory for Code Ninjas recently. It's an after school center for kids (age 7-14 right now, hoping to expand to high school soon). It's all game based and setup like a martial arts dojo. They start out in white belt learning Scratch (the language I made the above game in) and move through different belt colors using our own Game Development Platform, Javascript, building assets in Roblox, and then moving into Unity3D for the higher belts. The black belt is a capstone project where the kid designs and builds their own game or app completely from the ground up and publishes it to the app store of their choice. There are also some robotics and electrical/circuitry-type projects that they will work through along the way. On hand are "Code Senseis" who are older high school/college kids to help them out if they get stuck (PM me if you know someone who would be good at this).
The program is drop-in so if you're enrolled you can just come by whenever we are open, no set "classes" or appointments or anything. We're also going to offer standalong camps during school breaks in robotics, drones, Minecraft, Roblox...things like that. We're going to have birthday parties as well as Parent's Night Out where you can drop them off on a Friday night and go have a date or whatever.
I love the concept and wish we would have had this when I was growing up. I think these are the kinds of skills that are going to be hugely important for these generations to have, no matter what job or industry they're in. I'm in accounting and I use coding every day dealing with complex Excel spreadsheets and if I was better at it, I'd be able to do a lot of stuff with databases and SQL that would make me better at my job.
Anyways, we're still finishing our buildout (66th and Milwaukee, across from the new CarMax) hoping to soft open in September. If anyone has kids in that range and wants the RRS hookup, PM me. My wife will be running the center day to day and I'm keeping my day job, so you don't have to worry about me corrupting your kids or anything.
If anyone is interested outside of Lubbock, there are about 150 open around the country and a bunch in the Texas metro areas (franchise is based in Pearland) so I could make an introduction for one in your area if you would like.
Also, shoutout to @bectio for navigating bankers, landlords, and franchisor requirements to get us an insurance policy that's up to all parties' standards and a a great rate on it too!
tl;dr just beat up Gary some more: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/322158537/fullscreen/
(I don't believe it will work on mobile, you need the arrow keys to play, and it is best experienced with the sound turned-up)
Now for the background, as some of you know, my wife and I purchased the Lubbock franchise territory for Code Ninjas recently. It's an after school center for kids (age 7-14 right now, hoping to expand to high school soon). It's all game based and setup like a martial arts dojo. They start out in white belt learning Scratch (the language I made the above game in) and move through different belt colors using our own Game Development Platform, Javascript, building assets in Roblox, and then moving into Unity3D for the higher belts. The black belt is a capstone project where the kid designs and builds their own game or app completely from the ground up and publishes it to the app store of their choice. There are also some robotics and electrical/circuitry-type projects that they will work through along the way. On hand are "Code Senseis" who are older high school/college kids to help them out if they get stuck (PM me if you know someone who would be good at this).
The program is drop-in so if you're enrolled you can just come by whenever we are open, no set "classes" or appointments or anything. We're also going to offer standalong camps during school breaks in robotics, drones, Minecraft, Roblox...things like that. We're going to have birthday parties as well as Parent's Night Out where you can drop them off on a Friday night and go have a date or whatever.
I love the concept and wish we would have had this when I was growing up. I think these are the kinds of skills that are going to be hugely important for these generations to have, no matter what job or industry they're in. I'm in accounting and I use coding every day dealing with complex Excel spreadsheets and if I was better at it, I'd be able to do a lot of stuff with databases and SQL that would make me better at my job.
Anyways, we're still finishing our buildout (66th and Milwaukee, across from the new CarMax) hoping to soft open in September. If anyone has kids in that range and wants the RRS hookup, PM me. My wife will be running the center day to day and I'm keeping my day job, so you don't have to worry about me corrupting your kids or anything.
If anyone is interested outside of Lubbock, there are about 150 open around the country and a bunch in the Texas metro areas (franchise is based in Pearland) so I could make an introduction for one in your area if you would like.
Also, shoutout to @bectio for navigating bankers, landlords, and franchisor requirements to get us an insurance policy that's up to all parties' standards and a a great rate on it too!
tl;dr just beat up Gary some more: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/322158537/fullscreen/
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