Welcome!
We’re back for 2020 and we’ve had a great group of Ninjas in today – including some new faces which is always great. Great also to have Joel join us as a new mentor, who along with Tiago, Ed, Jane & myself have been providing great support to the young coders in and around Harrogate!
More sessions
We’re really enjoying the Sunday sessions at the Everyman and have decided to offer 2 sessions here every month for 2020 – so we’re now here every 1st and 3rd Sundays from 10am-1pm.
Book your free place here: coderdojohg.eventbrite.com
Projects
There’s been a lots of hard work going on today using Scratch, Python, Pygame, Unity, Unreal Engine and more! We’ve had Ninja’s getting stuck into Scratch and Pythin for the first time, some interest in the BAFTA Young Games Designers awards, VR game development, research on wearables, game making and website building.
Long term projects
Whilst we’re happy for Ninjas to come along to our sessions and work on whatever you want (many like to start something new each session), we also encourage our Ninjas to work on something longer term. It can be hard to finish something off when there is so much to learn, so having an idea and planning a project, setting goals and objectives is also something we can help with – something that can be easier with help from our mentors.
Coolest Projects
Run by CoderDojo there are several Coolest Projects events around the world, but the UK one is held nearby in Manchester – the next one is April 2020 so now is the time to get planning and coding! It would be great for some of our Ninjas to take part (we’ll certainly provide help & support to you) and I’m planning to attend expecting that some of our mentors to attend.
Find out more here: coolestprojects.org
BAFTA Young Game Designers Award
Another excellent opportunity – especially for those who really want to enter the games industry. Entries for this year need to be in by 13 March 2020 but it’s worth keeping an eye on this and thinking about entering for 2021. You can also find some of the BAFTA team locally at the Yorkshire Games Festival givin careers advice and informative talks (see below).
Find out more here: ygd.bafta.org
Yorkshire Games Festival
We’re fortunate in Yorkshire to have the annual Yorkshire Games Festival. The 2020 even runs up to the weekend of 6/7 February which includes the Let’s Play Family Event which is worth a visit for anyone wanting to get into the games industry – they have demos and talks from various people who work in all sorts of roles within the games industry (not just the coders).
Find out more here: Yorkshire Games Festival
We’re on GitHub
We have a git repo which Ninjas and mentors are welcome to join and contribute to and get help from our mentors by raising issues (asking questions).
Our Github repo is: harrogatecoderdojo
You can get help here: help-me repo