On January 17 and 18, juniors and seniors from the Little Rock School district participated in a video game development workshop at the Metropolitan Career-Technical Center in Little Rock. The workshop aimed to increase students’ exposure to relevant technology tools and languages.
The workshop was an extension of the Intro 360 class, a project collaboration between the Emerging Analytics Center (EAC) and the Metropolitan Career-Technical Center.
The Intro 360 class was launched in the Fall of 2022 to give high school students exposure to development tools and languages to create virtual reality 360 tours. Like the EAC’s 360 projects, the class centers around software like Unity, Visual Studio, and Google Drive. Regina Howard, lead technology educator, and Kimari Watson, EAC researcher, outlined the Intro 360 class and workshop.
For the workshop, students were tasked with creating a remote control car game. Students worked on the following game development skills: game-level design, software engineering, and project management.
Students designed unique layouts and color schemes for their race track and racing car. Students also experimented with C# code to add different functionalities to their game, like adding physics elements to create car movement. Students programmed their game to work with both mouse and keyboard and console controllers. Throughout the workshop, students slowly built upon their changes by following Agile methodology. In the end, students had a working game that they could customize further after the workshop.
For more information about EAC 360 projects, visit The Emerging Analytics Center Project 360.
