who are approaching important decisions about their education and career opportunities. We’ve reached almost 250 pupils since then and have rolled out to more students since Easter.
Primary school kids are typically obsessed with Minecraft, Pokémon and Roblox. What can Knockout City help them understand that other games can’t? CB: Our number one objective is to inspire young, curious minds and encourage them to engage in science, technology, engineering, art and maths. The mechanics of video games are a powerful platform for us to do that because it invites them to explore new skills in a format already familiar to them that they love playing. To be successful, we knew we needed a game that could
be easily broken down into simple steps just as easily as it could capture the imagination. Knockout City is all about playing dodgeball – it’s a game school kids across the UK are familiar with, and crucially, it lends itself to offline and online exercises that simplify some of the basic coding principles to even young kids. The premise of our workshop is to challenge kids to
think about what it would take to make Knockout City a single-player game. We aim to empower students to think about how they
What stage are things at? CB: The primary school programme was launched at a school in Salford, Manchester and is now available on Digital Schoolhouse’s online resource hub for all schools in its community. The programme provides a creative computing workshop for teachers where pupils work with family favourite video game, Knockout City, to explore what it takes to teach an AI to play dodgeball. By breaking down simple instructions it engages primary school students with the basics of coding. In partnership with EVERFI we began
rolling out our cloud-based education course – ‘EA Play to Learn’ - across the UK for the first time in February. The co-developed course showcases STEAM skills through an engaging format that mirrors how these skills would be applied in a real-life game design team. The free course is accessible to EVERFI’s UK network of educators and aims to bring to life what a ‘real life’ career as a game creator looks like for students aged 11-14,
32 | MCV/DEVELOP May 2022
would instruct an AI to play dodgeball. That means starting with an offline game of dodgeball that burns some energy while encouraging them to think, in very granular terms, about all the steps needed to play the game successfully. Where do I look? What action do I take next? By the end of the lesson, each student can use their experiences playing dodgeball to plan and create their own algorithms and put them to the test in-game.
How has the program been received so far? CB: The launch in Salford gave us the rare opportunity to see first-hand how students and staff alike react to the materials provided – and it was heartwarming to hear their feedback. We had kids telling us they wanted to become developers and artists as they left the classroom - there’s no better result!
What is the challenge in bringing Play to Learn to the UK? CB: Having run the ‘EA Play to Learn’ programme for seven years now, EVERFI have helped us take our educational efforts from strength to strength. The co- developed course showcases STEAM skills through an engaging format that mirrors how these skills would be applied in a real-life game design team. The free course is accessible to EVERFI’s UK network of educators and is targeted at secondary school students aged 11-14.
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