Parent Teacher Magazine Union County Public Schools Sept/Oct 2016 | Page 15
Summer camp turns video game vision into reality
Above: Dylan Hatley, at right, a rising eighth grader at Piedmont Middle
School, and his teammate, Richard Skpowski, a rising ninth grader at
Weddington High, work on a storyboard for the video game they are
designing during a July summer camp.
Right: CATA’s summer campers Kira Polchow and Nick Koehler, both rising
ninth graders at Marvin Ridge High School, work on their drawings of the
NPCs (non player characters) that will star in their video game.
“There is so much more to
the game than just powering
it on and going through
the experience. Somebody
had to think out that entire
experience ahead of time.”
Summer camp instructor Scott Bryan, at left, discusses video Kira Polchow, a rising ninth
game strategies with Bryson Prince, a rising ninth grader at
grader at Marvin Ridge
CATA.
High, decided to take the
Dylan Hatley, a rising eighth grader
camp hoping to improve her
at Piedmont Middle School, is designing
drawing skills in creating characters for video
software that will save the world – at least in
games and animation. The programing was
the video game he’s creating.
another thing that made the camp appealing.
Dylan and about 17 other UCPS students
“Learning how to program stuff is really
from middle schools across the county spent
interesting to me, especially when it comes
the week (July 25-July 28) in a summer camp to games because people really love games,”
at Central Academy of Technology and Arts,
Kira said. “I hope to walk away with the
learning software development and game
confidence to build stuff, like the games, and
design.
share what I’ve done. One day, I want to
“I like video games a lot,” Dylan said. “I
work for an animation company. I hope to
play them a lot. I’ve seen Microsoft making
work with computers and technology.”
games and I wanted to try it, too. My game
Bryan said students didn’t need to have
will be an adventure where you start off
knowledge of any particular software when
with nothing. You have to survive the night,
they entered the classroom. They used a free
find different NPCs (non player characters)
‘game engine’ called Unity, which is software
to interact with, and finally find someone to
specifically designed to create and develop
save the world.”
video games.
Instructor Scott Bryan’s goal was
Unity gives students an environment in
for students to walk away with a basic
which they can load objects, set up rules, and
understanding of what it takes to design and
interact with those objects, he said.
create a video game, to be able to plan that
Bryan said in game development, usually a
game effectively, and to have the ability to
team of developers works out the details by
use the tools at their disposal in order to
making sketches, refining those sketches and
make their game vision a reality.
making the needed changes.
“The purpose of the camp is for students
“They put all these things together before
to learn the thought process that goes into
they even start to create the game,” he said.
the games that they are playing,” Bryan said. “Once they start making the game, they have
to collaborate with each other to create a
shared vision of what the final game is going
to look like. “
For this reason, Bryan thought it
important students work in two-man teams
in order to experience that collaboration.
After Kira’s teammate, Nick Koehler (also
a rising ninth grader at Marvin Ridge High
School), finished sketching his character that
he planned to use in the game, he continued
with the storyboard that outlined the game’s
activities.
“I’m here because I thought software
development would be interesting,” Nick said.
“I hope to understand how games are made.”
Dylan’s teammate, Richard Skpowski (a rising
ninth grader at Weddington High), hopes to
take some of the game design knowledge
with him to the workforce.
“I like to play video games and wanted to
learn more about designing them,” Richard
said. “I think this class will help me because I
want to get a job video game designing.”
Career and Technical Education director
Robert Filter said summer camps are offered
to whet middle school students’ appetite for
the courses taught during the school year.
“We try to provide an introduction to
the academies to rising eighth and ninth
graders,” he said. “It gives the students an
insight into the programs so when they see
their registration card the following year, they
will be familiar with and look for that class.”
The four-day camps, taught from 9 am to 3
pm, cost $40.
--This article was provided by the Union
County Public Schools Communications Office.
Parent Teacher News • Sept/Oct 2016 • 13