Translator: Elibeth Marisel de León Monroy Reviewer: Ilse S. Úziel I have two passions: first football. I am a super fan, let's see if you can guess the team.
(Laughter) I am of course, a Real Madrid fan. I am also a goalkeeper at the Villanubla football club. My other passion are computers, video games and programming, which is what I am going to talk about today.
During playtime, we kids go crazy about Wii, PSP and Nintendo. We always try to play a little more by finishing our home works faster by cleaning up our bedroom, whatever it takes in order to pass the level, or to beat our previous scores. One day I thought: What if instead of just playing, I could create my own screens, heroes and bad guys, punches, pirouettes and extra lives?
Unattainable? No, no. A child my age can do it!
While new technologies are everywhere, and grownups use them for their stuff, such as computers in the cars -- although my parents still get lost -- cell phones, checking up emails, shopping, going through the internet; children use them to play. Because we are children, and that's what we like the most. We all know that for us children, it is second nature to handle those tech devices that many adults -- Maybe because we're not afraid to touch, to try things out and see what is in there, or even break them, because parents can later fix everything up.
(Laughter) This childlike curiosity helped me create my own games. I realized that I could learn by playing and play while learning. I could experiment, create, share, understand and reason how things are made, and then use that with everything else I was learning.
Turns out that all that learning is what adults call Creative Computing. I was once told that programming is like a play. We have a scenario with our actors who will interact upon our instructions.
We can disguise them to create animations or add up images, sounds, etc. You probably think: this sounds good, but a little kid, alone in his room, programming -- Not exactly social. Well, there is more to it than that.
It's an open, public community worldwide, where we can belong and where we can publish our programs, or download programs and play with them, see how they were made, modify or improve them. Nowadays, this community shares more than 10,000 programs, in a community of children, grownups, and professors of colleges, institutes and universities. As I became more and more passionate, I made new friends with whom I shared creations, then I thought that if I taught my schoolmates they could also enjoy as much as I.
Besides, programming helps me learn in a very fun way what we were learning at school. It was an aha moment. Last year, when we were learning about human bones in class I came up with a Q&A game, this is it: (Video) I'll show you the game I created to learn the human skeleton bones for a class I had last year.
In this game the human body asks you where the bones are. I'll click the green check I'll display it full screen, and it asks you where the jaw is? you have to answer with the right number if it is 10, 11, 1, 2 or 3.
I answer 10 which is the right one and it says "Correeeect! " but if your answer is wrong it says: "Wah, wah, wah". I recorded and added every sound to the game, I added right and wrong answers.
The program scores right and deducts wrong answers so I can now play and compete with my friends, to see who knows the human bones better. (Applauses) I had so much fun programming the game and it became so helpful for my learning, that I asked my teacher if we could use it in class. I wanted to show everybody, and so I did.
We picked a day for me to show my classmates all those projects, I showed them how they were as capable as me to do the same. Of course, they loved it. Children and teachers liked it so much, that this year we founded The Programming Club "El páramo de Villanubla" a group of 26 children, so far, who enjoy programming individually or as a team.
Now I am working on a game about space (Video) I am going to show you the game I created with the video sensor, about planets and the solar system. You have to head punch the planets so they don't fall into the sea. I switch to full screen I added right and wrong answers, and here is the sea.
The planets start to fall, You aim the camera towards you so it follows your head movements to head punch the planets on the screen, if you hit them, you hear the name and the planet shape switches into a label on the screen. and it scores points for every head punch. But if you fail to punch the planet, you hear them fall into the sea and a point gets deducted from the score.
Well, I think you get the idea. (Applause) Isn't it cool? And knowing that I did it, makes it better!
Besides I'm going to show it to the 5-year-old kids at school who are learning about the solar system, and I bet this game will help them learn better. This makes me even happier, knowing that my games are not just fun, but useful. Yet, it's not the first time I program something for the little kids at school.
Since my parents noticed that I liked it and I was doing well at school, when I turned 7, I got a present. When I first saw it, I was like, What is this, some cables? And they told me: "With this you'll do magic.
" They were right, I'm going to show you. It was a Makey Makey board. By connecting it to a computer, you can plug cables to anything as original as gummies, play dough, fruit, pencils, water or just by touching them, make programs and games work as if it is magic.
I told this to Marga, the teacher of the 4 year olds at my school and she asked me if we could do a special project about music and orchestra instruments. Both teachers and students would make instruments with cardboard and foamy. meanwhile, I had to build the necessary programs so that the instruments would come to life and sound real.
So I told this to Juanje, a friend of mine, and we both started working. For us this was an interesting project but it was challenging: because little kids were supposed to listen to us, and we are children too! When everything was set, we gather all the kids and showed them the sound of their instruments.
We even taught them that they too had music within. It was mind blowing! Little kids were great.
We organized groups so everyone could play their instruments. We were truly seen as magicians who had used some cables and a computer to impress both adults and kids. Well, do you want to se how we did it?
I'm going to show you I brought some of those instruments. By the way, I want to thank my school for letting me show you a bit of that magic, something any kid can do just with a little of imagination, cables and a computer To play this super piano made by four year olds, I have to remove my shoes. My feet are clean, eh!
(Laughter) Let's see if you know this song. (Music) (Applause) Now I'm going to show you how water makes more sounds than those made when it comes out of the faucet. This song is dedicated to my grandma because next week is her birthday (Laughter) (Applause) (Music) (Applause) I will now need four volunteers.
Here and now we are going to hear their sound. Let's see, the four guys over there. (Laughter) (Applause) Pick this one.
You pick that one. Let's hear what instrument you sound like. (Noise) Wow!
you sound like a noise! (Battery dish) You sound like battery dishes You have no sound. (Laughter) (Drm roll) You sound like a drum.
And you, let's see what do you sound like. (Neighing) Oh we have a horse! !
(Laughter) (Applause) I hope you enjoyed what I brought to you. See how I was not fooling you? You can imagine, create and share just with some cables, a bit of imagination and a computer.
Try it out kids! Stop just being gamers, and become creators of stories, game programs and musical projects. Our imagination is the limit.
But go beyond! Show it to the world, upload it to the web for others to see, and more people can play, but knowing that we as kids, can decide too how we want things done. And I ask all the parents that please help us put together programming workshops at schools so every kid can learn this.
It is important for your kids. (Applause) Never forget that nothing is impossible, It's all up to our effort and desire of self-improvement, even if we are young, we have a lot to teach in return. Thank you so much for your attention, see you soon.
