Project Crunch, and AceEdventure Game Studio! Sprint 2 Week 5

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One week before Exhibition Day. Preparation, anticipation, and lots of debugging. The lure of giving up. Tough, hard work. How shall we start such an intense week?

Inspiration from the real world—an Eagle-led trip to ACE-Edventure Game studios! Real game makers, real designers, a real award-winning game that many Eagles have played before last Sprint.

  • Trip to Ace Edventure Game Studios
  • Project Crunching
  • Other highlights

Really, most of the time the Eagles had been making their games. So, this blogpost is lighter in content :))

Trip to Ace Edventure Game Studios

A Middle School (MS) Eagle, Esabelle organized the trip to Ace Edventure Game Studios. She corresponded via email to Ms. Erica, as well as the community.

You might think… Eagle-led organization? Here’s her email that kicked off all these two weeks ago!

Dear Miss Erica Tham,

Greetings from Acton KL! Sorry for not keeping in touch any sooner after the Science fair at Jaya One. Thank you for making my experience and visit an informative and enjoyable one 🙂 I hope all is well on your side.

Good to hear that you met up with Mr. Jia last week. He mentioned about a visit to Ace Edventure Studio as part of our Programming Quest. Thank you in advance for having us! My teammates and I are thrilled!!!

I will be organizing the visit. So, I would like to confirm a few things ahead.
1. Can we visit on the 27th, Monday or the 30th Thursday? 1.30pm-3.30pm works 🙂
2. We usually do research before each visit. Can you suggest a few links and videos?

More information about us. We are 21 Eagles, 10 Middle Schoolers (11-14 years old) and 11 Elementary Schoolers (7-10 years old). One idea is to do a tour first, followed by Q&A with members of your team. I would suggest the Q&A to be done in two separate groups ( Elementary Schoolers in one group and Middle Schoolers in another) as our interest might be different. We are keen to learn from different team members, such as the graphics designer, game programmer, script writer and also yourself!

Thank you for making time for us. Please don’t hesitate to contact me for more details. Hope to hear from you soon.

Warm regards

Esabelle 🐱

After confirming the details, she had to correspond with our parents and Eagles. There were some struggles in coordinating transport, potential miscommunications, and managing expectations. These are opportunities for growth. Nevertheless, the Eagles did arrive the studio on Monday and had a blast!

The Eagles were excited to meet the team. Ms. Erica greeted the Eagles, showed the working spaces of the studio and did a Q&A session with the MS Eagles. Finally, she treated the Eagles to pizza!

Idea board. Wow, lots of ideas for one game!
Woah, their artists are so quick to produce these works.
Guess who’s this?

Some Eagles were planning way ahead…

The plan is to get their autograph, frame it, and sell during CBF!

CBF = Children’s Business Fair, likely in early August 2018.

Erica sharing challenges of making a game.

During the trip, many Eagles were very intrigued by the artist compared to the programmer.

“Programming looks so difficult. Look at all the lines of alphabets. Wow.” — when they saw programmer work.
Animations look so cool!

“Minecraft must have taken a long long time to make.”

Eagles realized that there are so much more behind the games they play. We are truly thankful to Erica and her team for hosting us! Also, thank you to Esabelle for the courage to grow!

Thank you for having us!
pizza time! Does the face mean something?

Project Crunching

This week, the Eagles were all struggling and chasing deadline to create their own games. Debugging, getting their code right, or translating their ideas into a working product… is tough work.

Many Eagles helped each other, with Dr. Ewe (our MS Guide) as their special project consultant. His experience over the last five years, tinkering and bringing maker’s education were most valuable. We were surprised by how Eagles exchanged various game creation tools. Piskel App, Game Maker studios, Unity, and all sorts of software were used. Some Eagles even mastered these tools via shortcut keys and collaborated through the practice of pair programming.

Maybe time is of the essence. Every Eagle wanted to adapt.

Pair Programming in action. Better with a 22″ monitor.
Dreaming up a Sprite. That’s those “character” that one take control on in a game!
Scratching out a Bug. “Where is the bug?”
“Don’t give up yet. Keep debugging”

Programming might be the ultimate training of grit!

Other Events This Week

Recommitments to Intentionality

As the workload increases, the ES Eagles realized that how being unintentional has affected their work. Especially during a crucial week like this. They decided to make a commitment to focus. Let’s see the result of a renewed commitment next Wednesday!

PE

MS Eagles had been increasingly taking harder challenges. They qualified for their McDonald’s treat. They had to work out how their agreements, which translate each minute into a ringgit cash amount. It’s real world Math with real treats—mental calculations involving fractions before getting that McFlurry.

1 minute is RM1. 10 seconds is not 10 cents is it? How do you quickly calculate this?
Meeting on House Move!

We ended the week with a meeting among the community on the move to our new home in Taman Paramount. We are truly excited as this will be a huge space upgrade!

Getting ready for the meetings. Bean bags to the studios!
Eagles, parents, guides all discussing the potential of our new home!

Let’s all do our very best to the last week of the Sprint, because there is a bright future with a big space to look forward to!

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