Tag Archives: programming

The following post was originally published by the Children’s Media Association and appears here with permission. On June 3, 2020, The New York Times published an article titled, “Please Stop Showing the Video of George Floyd’s Death” by Melanye Price. Ms. Price made the case that repeated showings of this and other videos of African Americans being brutalized by police have not led to change and may be having unintended consequences such as “reinforcing pernicious narratives that black lives do…

Brooklyn Humphrey won the Best Middle School Unity game in the STEM Challenge last year. Here she shares her memories of what it was like to develop her first game, and what she is working on now. I never would’ve thought that I would win the STEM Challenge. I didn’t even think that I would make a video game in the first place, but now I’ve learned that anything is possible. Here’s a glimpse of my experience making my first video game.…

When Thariq Ridha, 14, learned about the National STEM Video Game Challenge from his parents, he was quick to confer with his friend Umair Zaidi, 16, about developing a game for the competition. Together, the Beaverton, Oregon-based duo developed B.L.O.B. (short for Big Lump of Blobs), a video game that won them the 2015 Team High School Open Platform award. B.L.O.B. players navigate the game as an ever-growing blob character—avoiding spikes, altering gravity, and completing each level by reaching a…

Having grown up as a gamer, Gabriel Rocero, 17, jumped at the chance to enroll in the video game program at his high school. “I’d always dreamed of making my own,” explains the Temple, Texas resident. When a teacher informed him about the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge, he decided to submit his game In Search of Purpose, a school assignment that quickly evolved into a personal passion. Gabriel’s game, which features a robot on a mission to discover…

When 15-year-old Thomas Cannon began to feel limited by the customization options available while playing his favorite video games, his solution was simple: He would learn to program and build his own characters and stories. The San Jose, California-based student first heard about the National STEM Video Game Challenge when he was in fifth grade, and created a gamed called Dr. Duckenheimer for the competition. When he didn’t win with his first submission, Thomas continued to hone his skills and…

Back in 2009, an interest in animation led Litchfield, Ohio native Zack Harmon, 17, to start experimenting with interactive design in GameMaker. Over six years later, his passion for programming has evolved into a self-proclaimed addiction—and resulted in an award-winning video game. Zack’s game, Gongbat, features an ancient creature that battles evil by harnessing the power of sound, and took home the High School Gamemaker award in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge. “The entire game was created over…

At 13 years old, Ethan Pang’s path to programming was surprisingly simple—he enjoyed playing video games, became interested in writing code, and decided to combine the two by creating a game of his own. After watching a handful of videos made by a programming professor on YouTube, Ethan began developing his own games. When his mom suggested entering the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge, Ethan used GameSalad to program a side-scrolling puzzle game called Science Survivor, which won him…

John Ripple, 14, and John Korhel, 14, share a common love of math and video games. Building on their mutual interests, the Parker, Colorado-based friends produced The Cube’s Journey, a platform game that follows an artificially intelligent cube’s journey to freedom—battling enemies, avoiding traps, and collecting gold bars along the way. Together, they won the Team Middle School Open Platform award in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge. John Ripple’s initial inspiration for learning to program came from seeing…

Matthew Bellavia, 14, is a long-time player of console and PC games, so it was a natural fit when he started learning programming back in sixth grade. After experimenting with building basic games in Scratch, the Sammamish, Washington-native started using GameMaker as a way to combine a drag-and-drop interface with the ability to develop new code as a way to generate more complex games. Utilizing his knowledge of geometry and physics, his video game Gravity Galaxy won the Middle School Gamemaker…

Like most 13 year old boys, Cole Nutgeren has diverse hobbies and interests, like playing the piano and fencing. But unlike many kids his age, he takes a systems thinking approach to everything he does and likes to think about the building blocks that make these systems run. It is this approach that helped him design the Best Middle School Scratch game for the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge award. Cole was immediately hooked on Scratch when a friend…