Global Kids Game Jam At Los Alamos Makers

Submitted by Carol A. Clark
on January 20, 2018
- 2:06 pm

Los Alamos Makers draws a crowd of all ages for its weekly community coding and Raspberry Pi club. Courtesy/Prisca Tiassé Yoder

Los Alamos Makers News:

The Global Kids Game Jam is coming to Los Alamos for the very first time! The Kids Game Jam is a free worldwide annual video game creation challenge among teams of children and teens.

The event is sponsored by the CoderDojo foundation, an Ireland-based “global network of free informal clubs for young people aged 7-17 to learn how to code and create with technology”. In order to help engage more children in coding activities, the CoderDojo foundation has merged with the Raspberry Pi foundation, the U.K.-based charitable organization that designed the Raspberry Pi.

This year, the Global Kids Game Jam will be hosted in Los Alamos Saturday, Jan. 27 by Los Alamos Makers.

“As children and young people are the greatest acquaintances and video game users, it’s fair to give them a chance to have fun, and create […]

Kids jammers will work together, creating, making mistakes, experimenting and socializing to create something unique that alone they would not be able to create. In fact, the jam is not a race against each other, but a challenge that is won TOGETHER !”, as described by the organizers.

Kids and teens will form teams of 3 to 5 kids maximum. There are two categories of participants: 7-12 years old and 12-16 years old. Each team must make a video game as complete as possible.

The Kids Game Jam starts with the announcement of the topic on Wednesday, Jan. 24. The theme is the same for all participants who have the weekend to develop a video game that originally interprets the announced topic. Once the topic is announced on Wednesday, Jan. 24, interested participants can work on ideas for a game but they are not allowed to work on the code prior to the coding event.

Kids Game Jam is not just a challenge but a fun opportunity to work together to create fun games.

No prior experience is required!

However, Los Alamos Makers has started a basic introduction to coding club for kids aged 7 to 12, mentored by James Wernicke and Dr. Andrea Albert (a volunteer from the Rotary Club of Los Alamos).

The club is free and meets at 3.30 p.m. on Tuesdays. Space is limited so please RSVP to attend. This week, kids were introduced to Scratch, a free introductory visual programming language developed at MIT.

Kids are encouraged, but not required to participate in the Tuesday coding club prior to the Game Jam on Saturday, Jan. 27.

Kids without a team are encouraged to attend the “Meet and Greet” session, the Friday before the jam at 6 p.m. to meet other participants, mentors and maybe form teams. The actual jam will take place all day starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 27.

The timeline is as follows: