BECOME A FRANCHISE

Join us for an all-day event where you will work with a team to build your very own app!
Under the GUI will be sponsoring this year’s Richmond Youth Hackathon, where kids will work with instructors and volunteers to learn about about App development and game programming.
Students then join their team to create a game that will be showcased later in the day. The students at the hackathon will be encouraged to use the PixelPAD Python and PixelPAD Blockly to create their apps!
Reserve your space at the library’s website or contact Launchpad at (604) 231-6475
Did we mention that it is totally free?
Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops, but we will also have laptops available. Lunch is not provided ! so make sure to bring your own lunch as this will be a full day event!

Click here to sign up with the Library!

Jamie Chang the founder of Under the GUI Academy talks with Ali Pitargue of BCIT on the importance of Coding at a young age, and discusses coding education from an international perspective.

Transcript:

Welcome back to For the Record on Evolution 107.9, my name is Ali Pitargue and on this edition we will look into kids learning how to code computers. Now the network information and technological age is ever evolving, and for many young people, from this generation and beyond, tech is embedded in how they live their lives. Given, this many are making a compelling case as to why young people should move beyond using technology to applying and developing them. Apple CEO Tim Cook, even made comments last week calling a 4 year degree in coding old and traditional. Now my guest today, Jamie Chang, is the founder of Under the GUI, or “Under the G – U – I” which stands for Graphical User Interface. They are an academy that teaches, computer coding, and STEM skills to kids Grades 1 – 12. Through their curriculum kids learn how to program video games, apps and software. Jamie thanks for speaking with us today.
You’re welcome. Good to be here.
So, Jamie my first question for you is, do you think coding literacy is an essential skill to have for young people?
Yeah, definitely. When you ask about whether or not it’s going to be an essential skill for young people. I think the question at its core really is a question of jobs in the future, or the majority of the problems people are going to have to solve in the future. I think the majority of jobs at least in the near-term future, like the next 5, 10 years is definitely going to be related to software. Even if you in particular, aren’t working with code, you’ll be working with other people who are coding. Someone that’s also vying for your position, that does know how to code is going to have that slight edge, so definitely, I think it’s going to be at least in the near term future, a really essential skill for young people to learn.
What are the advantages of learning coding and computer programming at a younger age?
Are you familiar with schemas?
Not really, but go on elaborate on it.
So, schemas are like this mental model in your brain, like a concept or a digital model in the brain, very abstract concept. There was a study done recently, on kids that grew up with Pokémon, and kids that never watched it. Did you watch Pokémon as a kid?
Yeah, quite a lot actually! I played all the games and everything.
That’s great! So they did a study on kids like us, who grew up with Pokémon and kids that didn’t grow up with it. They looked at the brain, and they showed an image of a Pokémon, they showed an image of pictures, and random animals, and for us, who grew up with it, there’s actually an area of the brain that lights up. So there’s this physical manifestation of this schema in the brain, model of this Pokémon there, and for others it doesn’t. The people that didn’t grow up with they don’t have it light up. It’s really fascinating because what it’s saying is the brain has created this physical area that helps us categorize Pokémon really fast – because what that does, is it allows us to do higher level functions; bringing it back to computer science, or math or Science, or STEM skills, it’s the same idea. If you can do a whole bunch of rote math skills, 2+2, 3×3 and put that away and create schemas for that, and it’s super effortless for you to do 3×3, and you know immediately that’s 9 without doing any computation it frees your resources up to do higher level thinking. For other people, it’s a really hard task to do, but for you it’s effortless. If you learn science and technology at a younger age that’s what it’ll allow you to do. That’s not to say if you’re older, you can’t – it’ll just take you longer to build those neural connections, to make it more effortless.
What do you think needs to be done in the Canadian Education system in order to promote Coding skills among young people?
The VSB is doing a good job in trying to modernize technology, and modernize the curriculum. They just put one a few years ago. They put out a new ADST curriculum, called the “Applied Design, (Skills), and Technologies.” and I think they did a phenomenal job at it, because right now, stuff you’re learning today is going to be very different than the stuff you learned 20 years ago. The smartest kid in the room 20 years ago knew all the, knowledge, the facts. They’re like “The capital of the country is Ottawa!” and now; we can just pull out our phone and say Ok well, I knew that, it’s on my phone. So what they’re trying at the VSB is learning more about more modern skills, rather than learning about the facts and the figures, and more about problem solving and in this case coding.
Let’s talk about Under the GUI; in what ways do you encourage your students to innovate?
For us, we want to teach kids the skills for them to elaborate on their own. So for us, we create games in classes or apps in classes, but these apps can easily be used for other things. For example, we had this girl; she was 8 years old at the time. She was making this asteroid shooter, and she went home and came back with an app that was completely different from what I was teaching her in class – in fact it had no images, it was just sounds. It was still an asteroid game, apparently, but there were no images, I couldn’t see anything it was just a blank screen. So I asked her, why is it blank? I only hear sound effects, is it a bug? And she said No, no, this is for my friend, who’s blind – I wanted to make a game that we can both play. And I thought that was a very good example of how you can apply the skills you learn in school, and modify it at home that can be helpful to everyone.
We had another girl, who made a silent alarm app. If you need an alarm to go off, you press this button and it’ll send a text message to everyone.
We had one more kid, where he was accidentally satirical. He was fairly young, so he doesn’t understand all the politics that’s going on, but he made a game about Donald Trump, it was really funny because it was the Universe version of Donald Trump, where Donald Trump was building this asteroid belt, and that asteroid belt represented the wall, and your job was to gather aliens from one planet to another but Donald Trump stops you – because he doesn’t want you crossing the border. It’s not really Donald Trump either, it’s like the robot version of Donald Trump, and you gotta blow him up, so you can bring these immigrants across. It was hilarious, because, I don’t think he fully understands the politics behind it, but these kids are gathering what they know and putting it into their apps and their games.
Jamie, you did mention a couple of girls in your class. I’m curious about the diversity of your students; by in large as of today, computer programming is still largely a male dominated industry. I’m curious how does Under the GUI encourage all kinds of kids to learn these skills?
We have multiple locations in Canada, and in Asia, and it’s interesting to see the demographics of each region. So you’ll notice in our North Vancouver location, there’s actually more girls than there are boys in some of the classes. I don’t know why. I don’t try to encourage one way or the other, I just open the classes up and anyone who wants to join can join, and we find that there are a lot more girls that are interested up in the North Vancouver location. In Asia, it’s definitely true that there are a lot more boys and it may be partly due to the way the genders are divided there, but in Canada it’s fairly even. But I find that it’s interesting as an observer, rather than someone that pushes one way or the other.
What have been the biggest challenges in running the Academy?
Parents. One word… (laughs)
In what way?
I was listening to a podcast with Elon Musk, and he has solved some really cool problems, like Solar City. Solar City does solar panels, they’re trying to put solar panels on tops of buildings to create energy – and he (Elon Musk) says that the majority of problems they’re trying to solve at Solar City, aren’t sexy. They’re not the super sexy, let’s optimize the solar cells, or work on the technology, or see how much power we can generate, it’s really about landscaping the tops of buildings, it’s really about managing the managers of buildings, and negotiating, which is like the unsexy work that comes with saying you’re dealing with solar panels and that you’re changing the world. It’s the same idea when I started this academy, initially I thought I’d do the really fun stuff with the kids, but really, most of the stuff I’m doing is navigating parent questions. I had a parent ask “Why aren’t you teaching kids punch cards?” and this is really old technology – “there’s a lot of value in that.” and I think they’re right, there is some value in learning how to code on punch cards, but we have to draw a line between, where we no longer have to learn this technology, and we have to learn this newer technology. Navigating those kind of questions, has been the hardest part, teaching the kids, doing all that, that’s super fun, the other stuff not so much (laughs).
Jamie, just my final question for you. What are some further goals for the academy in the future?
We’re taking the stuff that we’re doing in our after school program, in the 7 years we’ve been doing this, taking all that content and putting it online and providing that for the (public) schools. We developed our own website called PixelPAD.io you can go for free, public schools can go for free, where we take all the stuff we’ve learned over the years and put it onto the browser. So as long as you have a browser, it should be able to work.
I see! We look forward to checking that out! We have come to the end of it, that’s I have for you Jamie. Again, I’d like to thank you for talking with us today.
Yeah, you’re welcome.
And this has been For the Record on Evolution 107.9, I’m Ali Pitargue, thanks for listening!

Our coding instructor in Burnaby demoed some of the VR games our students made and brought prizes to draw!

1st place: a full semester at Under the GUI Burnaby Coding Camp free!

The second prize is a free one-week Coding and Robotics Summer Camp at Burnaby!

The third prize is a Bluetooth speaker!

The Virtual Reality (VR) games were all developed by Under the GUI students, aged between 13 – 17 years old.

The patrons at Crystal Mall all enjoyed the immersive environment providing and amazed at the level of knowledge Under the GUI kids had to create these games.

If you are interested in our Richmond Coding and Tech summer camp programs, check out our programs here!. Under the GUI Academy is providing three types of summer camps programs at Richmond this summer, see details below.

This summer, our Richmond Summer Camp is going to provide weeks of awesome science, technology, engineering and coding camps (STEM)! Kids learn in all technology sectors including Robotics, Engineering, Coding, and Animation.
Here is a glance of what our summer camp programs look like:

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.

Contact Lucy at 778-829-9310 for questions about our Richmond summer camp programs or if you are interested in the Richmond Public Library’s code club, make sure to sign up now!

Under the GUI Richmond has partnered with the Richmond Public Library this summer and is providing a series of free coding for kids workshops for kids 9 – 13 from May to August! Where kids will learn how to code from one of our mentors at Under the GUI Academy

The students at the workshop will get a free PixelPAD account which is a platform that uses Python to teach kids how to code. . Reserve your space at the library’s website

here!

These series of workshops are working with students to develop the skills necessary to culminate in a competition or “Richmond hackathon” at the end of August, where students are challenged to create an app within 6 hours in a team of 3. Last year Under the GUI students had the privilege of attending the very first Richmond Public Library’s Youth Hackathon, sponsored by IGG and UTG Academy, and we’re hoping this year is going to be bigger and better !

If you are interested in our Richmond Coding and Tech summer camp programs, check out our programs here!. Under the GUI Academy is providing three types of summer camps programs at Richmond this summer, see details below.

This summer, our Richmond Summer Camp is going to provide weeks of awesome science, technology, engineering and coding camps (STEM)! Kids learn in all technology sectors including Robotics, Engineering, Coding, and Animation.
Here is a glance of what our summer camp programs look like:

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.

Contact Lucy at 778-829-9310 for questions about our Richmond summer camp programs or if you are interested in the Richmond Public Library’s code club, make sure to sign up now!

 

As Under the GUI is growing, and opening new schools every year, it is essential for us to maintain our quality. Therefore, hearing from an internationally famous institution how much they appreciate the quality of our students, is an amazing thing to hear! We are very happy to announce that Vancouver Film School has recently partnered with Under the GUI, now offering scholarships of up to 5000 dollars!

 

 

These scholarships are for the Game Design, Programming & Digital Design program offered by Vancouver Film School, of which you can read more on their website. For inquiries about Vancouver Film School, please contact Gija Williams, Director of Admissions, and let her know you / your child has followed Under the GUI classses!

Here’s how it works – for any course UN401 and higher that a student has completed at Under the GUI, they will receive a $500 tuition credit towards the Game Design, Programming or Digital Design program at VFS. This means that most of the cost of any Under the GUI course is covered by VFS if a student decides to attend Vancouver Film School.

*Scholarship is specifically a VFS tuition reduction, and will be applied as a tuition credit when a student enrolls in a qualifying VFS program.

If you would like to hear more about this scholarship, give us a call or send us an email at contact@underthegui.com and we’d be happy to let you know more!

 

 

If I had told my parents, that I would grow up and make games for a living and teach others how to do the same, they probably would have laughed it off, indulged me a bit and not believed me. Actually, scratch that, I wouldn’t even have believed it myself. Yet, that’s what I do!

A little bit about me, I’m an aspiring Technical Artist, a full time Game Developer and an Instructor at Under the GUI (UTG). I have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, a diploma in Classical Animation and a Masters in Digital Media. What all of this means, is that I live and breathe games. It’s where I get to be creative, technical, logical and artistic.

If I had to be honest with myself, I never saw myself working with children. When I got the opportunity to work at UTG, I had no idea what to expect. After a phone call, a few emails and an interview, I found myself in the following weekend teaching 4 classes and 2 curriculums. I was blown away by what I experienced and found myself wanting to teach even more. Contrary to the dry, boring classroom environment that I expected, there was a space where children were allowed to have fun while learning. Not only do we make games, but they take it and make it their own, giving it a creative flavor that only children can provide.  It’s an amazing feeling to go to work on a Saturday morning and teach kids that are so passionate, smart, and eager to learn.

Teaching has always been an interest and calling that I’ve wanted to explore. Helping students, realize their passion and nurturing their interest is a very fulfilling experience. In the past, I have mentored as an Academic Guide at UBC’s Extended Learning and been an Instructional Assistant at the Centre for Digital Media.

It’s a great feeling when you have the opportunity to give back to society by nurturing young minds, exercising their technical and problem-solving skills while expressing their creativity. They help me connect with my inner child and remind me, why I fell in love with what I do every week.

About me : 

Rahul Kukreja
Instructor @ Under the GUI

 

As a software engineer myself, but also as a manager & teacher for a long time, I realised that understanding code comes in useful all the time, not just while writing software.

 

In modern life, getting around technology is (nearly?) impossible. Yet most of the people using technology, have no idea of what’s going on behind their keyboard or screen. Understandable, and of course you don’t necessarily have to to understand code in order to use a computer. Similarly I use my fridge every day, but I don’t actually know much of the chemistry and technology inside of it, and I don’t really feel the need to know either.

Still, I strongly believe that everyone could benefit from learning how to code. Just to be clear, I definitely do not think everyone should become a software engineer, in fact that would be quite terrible. Learning how to code is similar to learning how to play the guitar. Not everyone that does so will eventually pursue a career as a professional guitarist, but everyone will gain some insight into the world of music, with all of it’s benefits. When we talk about coding, I can think of three main benefits: preparing for your career, being able to understand and create structured information, and having fun while learning the rules of math and logic.

 

Image result for learning guitar

Career

From a career perspective, understanding what code can do, can help you considerably, from automating your own work, to looking at processes from a logical perspective. Even by only knowing the basics, it is quite easy to see the ability of computers, as well as it’s (current) shortcomings. For me personally, understanding code, and therefore the potential of software, has helped me so much in my career. As a project manager, and as a teacher, I was able to automate almost half my job, leaving the much more interesting half, where I actually needed to apply my skill set. This is a good reason why employers will see this as a great perk on any resume – which you can read more about in this article from Laurence Bradford

Life

But it’s not just important to understand code to progress in your career. Whether it is the start of uncovering the secrets of the universe, or simply gain a new perspective, it will definitely change the way you think. As programming is pure logic, it provides you with a beautiful, objective and non-judgemental reality. Especially in a world where we are overloaded with information, often not knowing which of it is real, code can be refreshing. It is much easier to agree on the validity of functional code, as opposed to the validity or origin of a story. Besides logical and unbiased, (well-written) code is also very structured. I often compare the structure of code to the structure of an organisation, where every part of the code has a job, some parts of the code manage other parts, but all parts are essential to the final objective. Having some experience with this world of logic and structure, can provide great perspective on the world.

hand glass line training brand font drawing diagram can marker control mark school shape presentation leave skills career logistics knowledge pedagogy mediation organization chart business administration work organization information logistics work process flow of information production planning organizational structure information management business informatics

Fun

And not the least, coding is fun! I often surprise people when I tell them that when I was growing up, I was never the biggest fan of physics and math classes, nor did I excel in either. My main struggle was that it was hard for me to understand at what point this theoretical information would come in useful. Calculating the length of a side of a triangle never seemed like something I would need in my day-to-day life. Only when I started writing code, in my case for games, I found great motivation to figure out the mathematical formulas that would allow my game to work exactly as I envisioned it. Suddenly there was an intrinsic motivation to understand it all, rather than just the right or wrong answer on a math-test. To me, code is the bridge between logic and the ability to create anything.

 

To finish with a quote from Stephen Hawking:  “Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn!”

 

Are you/your children interested in learning how to code? Check out Under the GUI’s classes here or contact us for more information.

 

About me:


Ivo van der Marel
Chief Technical Officer @ Under the GUI
Although he has been working with Under the GUI since 2014, he has only joined full-time in 2018, and he is now overseeing most operations of Under the GUI Canada.  On top of that, he works as a freelancer and he is still a mentor at Vancouver Film School.

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” ]

Who is Jade Piramide?

Jade is a 15 year old grade 9 student at Under the GUI Academy and has been learning to code ever since he was 12 years old. When he first started learning to code, Jade created apps and games using the language Lua with the “Love2D” Game Engine.

In the last few years Jade has joined UTG Academy to further his knowledge in computer science and is currently learning Unity and C# in our UN402 class.

 

What is Jade’s current programming project?

Jade’s current project is developing an algorithmic maze generator implemented using two algorithms:

  1. Recursive Backtracking algorithm
  2. Kruskal’s algorithm

After creating Perfect Mazes, Jade also created another path-finding algorithm to solve such mazes.

The Purpose of Generating Mazes

Jade has always loved mazes and has always tried solving large mazes in his head. With this new algorithm, you can create mazes however large you wish, and together with his friends, the gang has managed to solve only a few of his algorithmic mazes by hand.

It took them 2 hours to solve a 50U X 50U Recursive Backtracking maze but the Kruskal’s maze was just too complicated for them to solve.

Jade enjoys maze generation because it teaches him a lot about technology and computer science, data structures and optimizations. He believes learning these topics is crucial to computer science because it allows handling of data more efficiently and that, is what he believes computer science should be.

Why does Jade like studying at Under the GUI Academy?

“I really enjoyed learning at UTG Academy it’s really friendly and the students have the freedom to go in-depth and explore more knowledge later on. It makes it really easy to learn”

“like, the first course I attended here, I had no idea how to use Unity at all, and now, I can say I am a Unity Master!”

What is the most difficult part about coding for Jade?

“It is less about “coding” but more about designing it so that it becomes modular, and easy to expand on – the architecture of it… because without that it’s very easy to create a system that fails and sometimes that in the middle of a project you realize, you’ll need to tear down the entire thing.”

Jade’s Suggestions for beginner programmers 

Coding might be hard at first, but once you get into it, and it becomes very addicting, and you get every caught up easily in coding so I would encourage people to code because it is a very important life skill to learn especially since now the technology is advancing fast.

 

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.

Andrei Sova is 12 years old and in grade 7. He has been studying at Under The GUI since Oct 2016.

Recently, Andrei participated in the Astro Pi annual science and coding competition. For the first time kids across Canada were invited by the European Space Agency (ESA) to launch their code into space with Astro Pi’s Mission Zero! Student-written code ran on the International Space Station (ISS) for 30 seconds. Andrei and his teammate designed a piece of code to measure the temperature in space!

He said, “I am among the first Canadian kids to run a code on the International Space Station!.”

1. Why do you like coding/programming? How many years have you been learning this?

I like how certain characters, letters, and numbers combined in a certain manner can create something new and unique – like a video game or a software program, that we use every day.

I got my first computer when I was 5, not a toy 😀

My dad is a software engineer, he codes for a living, so I have always been close to programming. My dad also teaches me about programming. When there is something interesting in his work, he says, “Hey Andrei, come and see this!”

I really start programming just before I was 9 years old. Back then I was a big Minecraft fan (I still am). There is a feature in the game called command blocks, and this is how I got started. Then, when I wanted to learn more, I came to Under The GUI.

2. What is the most interesting and the most difficult part about coding?

The most interesting and satisfying part is seeing the final product. It is really satisfying, after lots of time and hard work, seeing the final product, and seeing people enjoying your final product. The most difficult part, I have to say, is debugging. You have to find where all the errors are and fix them, but it is definitely worth.

3. What do you like best studying at Under The GUI Academy?

I really like the calm atmosphere here. And the knowledgeable instructors, they are always ready to help and support you.

4. Could you introduce the current project that you are working on?

Currently, I have a project, it’s a video games website that I have been working on for a year and a half now. At the beginning are going to be five games and later I will add more. (The screenshots are the games that Andrei is working on)

5. I have heard from your mom that you are putting up a website and selling your games! What is the plan? Why are you doing this?

Right now, three video games are in different development stages and two are completed. After they are successful I will add features that you are going to pay for. I’m doing this because I love coding, I love video games, I love having the latest technology and that costs a lot of money! In the future, I want to be like my dad, a software engineer creating software…because I love coding!

 

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.