Dear Parents,

Registrations for our Spring Semester have started!

What “Under the GUI” offers:

• Weekend Programming Classes in Game Development or Computer Sciences for ages 7 & up!
• Semi-private classes; maximum 6 students per instructor
• Laptops, equipment, and digital storage provided
• One-hour weekly lectures plus homework assignments, bonus tutorials, online student help and assistance through the UTG community forum
• Exclusive invites to special events and workshops with community partners such as Microsoft, the Richmond Public Library, and more!
• No coding experience required!

 

For those who enrol with us and register before December 31st, we have a $50 bonus for you!

Registrations will close after the second week of classes, in Feburary 2019.
For payments on site please check the dates available below.

If you have any question, please contact us via email or phone, and we will be happy to help !

 

[maxbutton id=”4″ url=”https://underthegui.com/register/” text=”Register Now” ]

Under the GUI Student Makes Augmented Reality (AR) App Using Yu-gi-oh Cards

Marcus Gilbert – Grade 9

Marcus is an Under the GUI Academy student in the UN502 Unity class learning about Augmented Reality.

Marcus is thinking of creating an augmented reality card game using holographic images that will animate and attack other cards just like the real Yugioh series. His app makes use of the computers cameras and projects a hologram of an image whenever it sees a specific Yu-gi-oh card. Marcus’ favourite thing about coding at UTG Academy is making the app itself, and being able to apply his knowledge to other games like Dungeons and Dragons.

Marcus found the hardest thing about programming is figuring out the bugs that could come up and how to overcome those bugs. His advice to overcome these difficulties is to:

“Read what the bug was, and ask lots of questions and learn about the errors itself!”

Our young coders are truly becoming the wizards of the future, they can do anything.

---

Learn more about our school coding for kids in Vancouver, and Vancouver Island. Kids learn in all technology sectors including Robotics, Engineering, Coding, and Animation.

We also have Tech summer camps happening throughout Vancouver.

Our coding & animation summer camp teaches Python and app development. This is intended for students who have no prior knowledge of Python and is a good introduction to real programming concepts and goes beyond the drag & drop coding interface. At the end of this camp, students will have created their own versions of their favorite apps that they can share online!

Our Robotics summer camp program will teach the basics of Arduinos, Raspberry Pi’s and making electronic circuit prototypes. From blinking LEDs to complex flying robots, this camp will teach students how to connect components on a breadboard and do basic Arduino programming to control them.

Our Engineering Olympics summer camp will introduce students of all ages to the exciting world of Engineering through a full week of competitions and engaging activities. Activities and challenges will include Giant Catapult, High Egg Drop, Popsicle Stick Bridge, Robotic Arm Transporter and more.

Condensed Courses:
During the Fall and Spring Semesters, limited registration for Condensed courses will open for those who missed our regular semester registration. The condensed course will be pro-rated and teach the same curricula as the regular semester but without work periods. The Condensed course will require more commitment during the week in order to finish the course project within a shortened period. Condensed courses are not guaranteed to open and will only open for registration based on interest and availability.

Policies and Conditions:
Learn more about our classroom policies, cancellation policies, absences and payment options here: 2018-2019 Policies and Conditions

 

[maxbutton id=”4″ url=”https://underthegui.com/fall-registration/” ]

Michael Allan has been with UTG Academy for over 5 years and is now working in academic units in a range of different fields and technologies. Michael has dabbled in everything from mobile development to full virtual reality projects with UBC.

In 2017 Michael Allan was nominated to take part in the Immersive Technology Lab at UBC. At ITL, Michael had the opportunity to work with Dr. Ray Hsu and the HR Macmillan Space Center on the Rover VR Project.

“If you get code to work really well and look really nice, I think it’s more interesting than the game; just to look at all the intricacies.” – Michael Allan

Michael has an incredible academic aptitude for technology, and uses his abilities to help educate others working as one of our youngest teaching assistants UTG Academy.

When Michael is not attending school or working as a T.A., Michael’s ambitions stretch beyond academia supporting the PixelPAD team whenever he can find the time.

---

Learn more about our school coding for kids in Vancouver, and Vancouver Island. Kids learn in all technology sectors including Robotics, Engineering, Coding, and Animation.

We also have Tech summer camps happening throughout Vancouver.

Our coding & animation summer camp teaches Python and app development. This is intended for students who have no prior knowledge of Python and is a good introduction to real programming concepts and goes beyond the drag & drop coding interface. At the end of this camp, students will have created their own versions of their favorite apps that they can share online!

Our Robotics summer camp program will teach the basics of Arduinos, Raspberry Pi’s and making electronic circuit prototypes. From blinking LEDs to complex flying robots, this camp will teach students how to connect components on a breadboard and do basic Arduino programming to control them.

Our Engineering Olympics summer camp will introduce students of all ages to the exciting world of Engineering through a full week of competitions and engaging activities. Activities and challenges will include Giant Catapult, High Egg Drop, Popsicle Stick Bridge, Robotic Arm Transporter and more.

Eyad Alwan is a Grade 6 student at Under the GUI Academy currently working on puzzle platforming app where you play as a ball and you have to try to collect yellow orbs.

Since Eyad’s started at UTG, he’s worked on all sorts of games from RTS games like Clash of Clans to now a platforming ball!

Here’s what he has to say:

What was the most difficult thing about programming?

(The most difficult part about learning programming is) remembering different lines of code, remembering what it all does, and how to put it all together. But it’s really satisfying learning how to get it all to work together.

How did you learn to program?

I got better at programming after learning how to solve my own errors. I found it very satisfying finding the errors and fixing them. Also, normally when you try to change something an error will pop up, when you fix one error, you get another one, and learning how to fix them all helped me become a better programmer.

What’s your favourite thing about coding?

I really enjoy seeing the final product, seeing the final app finished is really fun. It’s also really satisfying resolving all the errors that come up in my program.

I really like sharing my games with friends and family… It’s fun getting them to play my hard work!

Eyad says he continues to work on his game at home and will hopefully be done by the end of the year!

---

Learn more about our school coding for kids in Vancouver, and Vancouver Island. Kids learn in all technology sectors including Robotics, Engineering, Coding, and Animation.

We also have Tech summer camps happening throughout Vancouver.

Our coding & animation summer camp teaches Python and app development. This is intended for students who have no prior knowledge of Python and is a good introduction to real programming concepts and goes beyond the drag & drop coding interface. At the end of this camp, students will have created their own versions of their favorite apps that they can share online!

Our Robotics summer camp program will teach the basics of Arduinos, Raspberry Pi’s and making electronic circuit prototypes. From blinking LEDs to complex flying robots, this camp will teach students how to connect components on a breadboard and do basic Arduino programming to control them.

Our Engineering Olympics summer camp will introduce students of all ages to the exciting world of Engineering through a full week of competitions and engaging activities. Activities and challenges will include Giant Catapult, High Egg Drop, Popsicle Stick Bridge, Robotic Arm Transporter and more.

Under the GUI Student creates Augmented Reality App Using Vancouver Public Library VPL Card

Kai (11 years old)

Kai is an Under the GUI Academy student in the UN502 class learning about Augmented Reality. This is a prototype of an Augment Reality app Kai is making. The app makes use of the computers cameras and projects a hologram of an image whenever it sees a Vancouver Public Library card. Kai is unsure what the final app is going to look like, but for now he says he just enjoys learning about how to program.

When I was 11 I spent most of my days playing games rather than making them – now kids are creating virtual reality VR apps I could I only dream about when I was their age.

---

Learn more about our school coding for kids in Vancouver, and Vancouver Island. Kids learn in all technology sectors including Robotics, Engineering, Coding, and Animation.

We also have Tech summer camps happening throughout Vancouver.

Our coding & animation summer camp teaches Python and app development. This is intended for students who have no prior knowledge of Python and is a good introduction to real programming concepts and goes beyond the drag & drop coding interface. At the end of this camp, students will have created their own versions of their favorite apps that they can share online!

Our Robotics summer camp program will teach the basics of Arduinos, Raspberry Pi’s and making electronic circuit prototypes. From blinking LEDs to complex flying robots, this camp will teach students how to connect components on a breadboard and do basic Arduino programming to control them.

Our Engineering Olympics summer camp will introduce students of all ages to the exciting world of Engineering through a full week of competitions and engaging activities. Activities and challenges will include Giant Catapult, High Egg Drop, Popsicle Stick Bridge, Robotic Arm Transporter and more.

First of all, what is Arduino? 

“Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs – light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message – and turn it into an output – activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online.” In other words, a little programmable robot.

For those who are familiar with programming, it uses a simplified programming model based on the language C, which isn’t the easiest programming language to learn as a beginner, but there are hundreds of resources and tutorials online that will help you figure it out together.

 

So, why should my child learn Arduino?

Kids are naturally drawn to hands-on activities. Getting their hands on anything they can, try to take it apart and find out why things are they way they are. Kids can also be impatient and want (almost) immediate results. Robots can do just that. They can excite kids in a way “Hello World” can’t compete with, and kids can learn the power of cause and effect through robots and immediate results. Because Arduinos are super fast at prototyping and amazingly powerful, kids are able to hook up LED lights in matter of minute and control their behaviour. Teaching complex technology to children can be, erm, difficult but with a robot, kids are able to see, hear and touch their robot and learn directly by programming it, turning an abstract idea into reality. 

Arduino kits are ideal for kids because of it’s easy-to-use for beginners, yet flexible enough for advanced users. Breadboards lets you connect software and hardware together neatly, easily and temporarily. It lets kids experience and try things out without worrying about damaging expensive circuitry or computer parts. It also allows them to create and recreate robots to their imagination by connecting and reconnecting components.

 

Learn Circuitry (hardware) and Programming (software) together.

Kids can learn circuitry without understanding the complex theories behind electronics to start building their own robot. Explaining components and wiring can be done easily using diagrams and metaphors. They will also learn about common components for simple robots such as batteries, resistors, LEDs, transistors, current (voltage), loops and much more!

Programming an Arduino is as easy as it sounds. All we need to do is download the Arduino software, plug it into a computer, and write a few lines of code. The code is what determines the effects of the robot. For example, controlling the frequency of a blinking LED light or how fast a motor spins. Kids will learn how to set-up a robot, control it and compile code themselves.

 

Challenging your kids to question and think critically.

Working with robots will, to say the least, open up doors to a lot of questions. Each time they connect a component, kids will want to know why and how. This can open up discussions to a million different questions that can be explained in a million different ways. Kids can express their interest, curiosity and imagination.

 

How can my kids get hands-on experience with Arduino kits?

Under the GUI offers “Robotics, Circuits and 3D Printing” summer camps that give kids the opportunity to build their own robots by using Arduino kits. Camps are small-sized and provide hands-on experience for kids to learn about breadboards, circuitry and step-by-step processes to building a robot.  Kids will feel accomplished each day by adding more and more complex instructions to their robots! Best of all, they get to take their kits home with home after each camp!

Hurry! Spaces are running out quick. For more information about camps, visit: www.underthegui.com/camps/

Under the GUI also offers camps in “Coding & Animation” and “Mechatronics & Engineering Olympics” for kids ages 6 – 14.

 

 

Welcome to Highlights Under the GUI, a new series of blogs that will follow our students here at Under the GUI to better understand what they are learning through the classes and to follow their progress as they delve into the world of coding and electronic design.

Our first interviewee is David who is 13 years old. David has been with the us for about 3 months and is currently working on a game he calls “Tomato Mountain.” David has spent a month on the game and it is still in its early stages. The game is a “top down” style of play much like Pokémon and David describes it as “tomato guys on a riot.” The coding language that David used for this game was Java, which is one of the many languages used and taught at Under the GUI. David uses the program Game Maker in the creation of “Tomato Mountain”, a basic program that many of the students use in the early stages of the program. Game Maker breaks down the major parts of the game in to five sections and I had David break them down to me in simple terms.

“Sprites are the animated images shown in the game, the things that move. Then there are Objects, things that you can code to an image, to a sprite. Background is the… background of the game and you should know what Sound is. Rooms is where everything is placed.”

David estimates that the game will take about another month before completion and he hopes to add attackers to the game and also more rooms (levels).

I also asked David what he liked about the program and what he hopes to gain from it. David likes that he is able to “do cool things with the computer” and more specifically that it was “practical learning to use computers to be helpful for things tedious to do by hand.” In the future David hopes to become more familiar with the program Game Maker and to better understand how games are made. Eventually, David hopes to be able to understand the deeper complexity of bigger games!

 

 

 

Welcome back to Highlights Under the GUI! This week we interviewed Arjun. Arjun has been taking coding lessons from the team for a couple of months and is currently in the early stages of his first project. The game does not yet have a name and Arjun has already encountered a few bugs. We asked him a few questions to better understand the debugging process and his thoughts on it.

So you started with three bugs. What were they exactly?
“My first problem was that the origin wasn’t set correctly, which meant that my character would randomly sink into the ground and I would need to jump to get out. My next one was that when I jumped right there would be a spin, but this didn’t happen when I jumped left. The third problem was that the attack was buggy and would repeat the same sprite. And…. now it moonwalks.”

So how did you fix these problems?
“Well, I had to check the common factors to find out why they were happening. Sometimes the parameters were not set properly, other times it was centering, or the variables were not correct. For the sinkhole problem I had to reset the origin, and for the jumping problem I had to double check my events and make sure those were ordered properly.”

You have a new bug to fix now, the moonwalk – is debugging annoying?
“Kind of, but you get over it. I enjoy the challenge and that I’m doing something new.”

As you can see, debugging can be a tedious task in the coding process. On a scale of 1-10 on how fun it can be, with 10 being the most fun one could ever have, it is usually not a 10. That being said, this process is crucial for the development and improvement of general critical thinking skills. Our kids are able to realize the problem at hand, assess the causal factors associated with the problem, and appropriately apply a solution.

As we grow older, we begin to realize that many problems will have to be solved without the aid of others. By allowing our students to individually reflect on their problems, they are better able to tackle other problems that arise in other facets of their life. Also, the early development of being able to think critically about problems will prove to be useful once they grow older.

Additionally, the sense of accomplishment that occurs after our kids fix their coding bus is rewarding. This sense of learning is what we at Under The Gui strive for, and wouldn’t trade for anything else!

 

The holiday season is a time of receiving, but more importantly a time of giving back to the community to those who are less fortunate. With this in mind, Under the GUI took part in a charity event on the 21^st of December. The Winter Gala event was organized by the SDC (Social Diversity for Children) Blue Ribbon Foundation, an organization that seeks to empower children with disabilities while connecting them through “cross-compassionate” programs with the wider community. As a non-profit organization, Blue Ribbon Foundation depends on the donations and events such as the charity to fund and support programs that give better opportunities for all youth. This year’s highlight event was held at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel.

The keynote speaker was Spencer West, a man who has overcome his own personal physical disability and uses it to inspire others to do the same or join the journey to help others overcome. As an Ambassador for Feed the Children, Mr. West has spoken in a multitude of events. The message this year was “Empowerment and Redefining the Impossible,” a passionate and touching message of how we as a community can support our neighbours to surpass their current limits and to lead extraordinary lives. The proceeds of the fundraiser went to fund programs that sought to meet Blue Ribbons’ goals of developing opportunities for those who face greater challenges than we do on a regular basis.

We are proud to have been one of the diamond sponsors of the event along with other companies such as WestJet. The donations of Under the GUI were made with the hopes that new and greater opportunities will be created for all youth, no matter their backgrounds or limitations.

In addition to the monetary support, Under the GUI also supported the charity event by running a booth for the enjoyment of attendees. The booth displayed the cutting-edge technology of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset developed by the company Oculus. The headset is a major advancement in the technological field that allows the user to view the virtual world almost to the same extent that we can see the world on a day-to-day basis. Under the GUI used the Oculus Rift to simulate a roller coaster ride, which the viewer was able to experience. Many came to try out this incredible piece of technology, and were left amazed with the realism they experienced.

The booth was run by some of Under the GUI’s best and brightest – Michael and Jackson, who are fourteen and fifteen respectively. Michael and Jackson have been students at Under the GUI for a little under a year, and have a very strong understanding of coding and the methodically logical processes needed to problem solve and develop games and programs. The boys operated and demonstrated the capabilities of the hardware and programming using the skills that they had learned from their classes and did an astounding job. Big props to them for representing us!

We’re fortunate to have been part of such a great cause towards the empowerment of children with disabilities, and wish the foundation luck in their future endeavours!