Game programming drew a crowd
The first KoduKohinat event was organised on 26 August on TUAS’ campus in Salo. The size of the crowd exceeded the organisers’ expectations. School-aged children and their parents took part in the first event that presented the world of programming.
Text: Johanna Stenroos-Vuorio, Communications Officer
Approximately thirty children and adults attended KoduKohinat. The event included a presentation of the basics of Kodu programming, creating a small game together and then building whatever the attendees wanted to build.
The teaching session was organised by students from the Idea-Miilu cooperative from TUAS’ BusinessAcademy. The students have their own company and they have sold their business idea to Microsoft.
“The event’s popularity took us by surprise, because more people wanted to attend the teaching on the three evenings it was organised than we could receive”, says Kenneth Sundberg, PR Officer of the Kodu team.
The event received very good feedback all round and many were thankful for this kind of an event. The evening was quite a success, as those who came to study programming put it:
“It is fascinating to see how creative children are when you let them build these games. At school they don’t get to be this creative”, said a father of three.
“The best thing is to be able to plan and decide what kind of games you make yourself”, a girl said.
“These are the things that create sparks for new Rovios”, a mother concluded.
Time will show if the attendees continue, for example, with studies in the field at Turku University of Applied Sciences.
Everyone can create an own game
Kodu is a visual programming environment developed by Microsoft. The game programming takes place in Kodu’s visual programming language, with the help of which anyone can create their own 3D games.
“With Kodu, you can construct a traditional ping-pong game as well as a complex strategy game. The idea behind Kodu is to teach the philosophy of programming, problem-solving and logical thinking”, says Kenneth Sundberg from Team Kodu.
In addition to Salo, KoduKohinat will this autumn be organised in six different cities all over the country. Kohinat is implemented in cooperation by the Idea-Miilu cooperative from Turku University of Applied Sciences’ BusinessAcademy in Salo and Microsoft.
