Year 7 and 8

Term 4 is all about movie-making for our Year 7 and 8 students. Students have been learning about cropping video, adding music and audio, titles and credits and editing timelines. They have used all these skills to make fun animal videos.

Year 8 students have also built on their skills, adding transitions and special effects such as green-screening to create their music videos. We are also working through 3D Printing some of the fabulous artwork from the end of Term 3 in Year 8.

Student Reflection – 3D Printing

During Term 3 this year, I designed a watering can for my poor, thirsty indoor plant using the 3D printing program, Tinkercad. My inspiration came from my cat, Buffy! Buffy is the queen of my room, so when I was designing my watering can I really wanted to somehow incorporate her. 

My watering can is made to look like Buffy! It is white, with a cranky face on it to represent Buffy’s signature expression. Buffy’s tail is at the back, as the spout. I am particularly proud of the ears, which are just an outline, so that they also serve as handles! 

When I first started using Tinkercad, it really annoyed me because I couldn’t figure out how to edit the shape, size and place of all of the shapes. When I got the hang of it became much easier. I really enjoyed making this watering can, because I love to get creative and make things that I will use for a long time yet!

Eloise Holborn
Year 8

Year 10 Programming, Gaming and Web Design

Sadly, we are coming to the end of our Year 10 PGW (Programming, Gaming and Web Design) elective. Year 10 students this year have learnt the basics of the programming language, Python, and used it to create applications and artwork (as showcased in the recent Art and Design Exhibition)! They have used Microsoft Arcade, Microsoft Makecode, Micro:bits, GameGos and MeowBits to create a wide and eclectic range of games from scratch. Topics included quiz games and traditional board games with hi-tech programmed dice, ‘Flappy Bird’ variations, soccer themed games as well as arcade style games.  Now they are putting the finishing touches to their websites coded with HTML and CSS.

You can play some of the Arcade games here:

Kaitlyn with her game inspired by the book ‘Hell Followed with Us’:

Niamh with her game inspired by ‘Regular Show’:

Ella with her game inspired by ‘Stranger Things’:

Helaena with her game inspired by ‘Adventure Time’:

Student Reflections

Here are some Year 10 students to tell us what their favourite parts of PGW has been:

My favourite thing I have done for PGW is making a board game. I was able to use what I had learnt with my coding and creativity to create something original. For my underwater theme, I incorporated the Micro:bit as my dice. In web design, I have enjoyed learning the ‘ins and outs’ of how websites are created and getting the opportunity to create my own.

Roisin
Year 10 

My favourite thing about Year 10 PGW was learning to code with multiple coding languages on various software and platforms. I also liked how this subject had aspects of design that allowed us to be creative. For my game, I created a beach themed board game called ‘Treasure Island’, where the players would roll an electronic dice by pressing an arcade button and the number of steps they could move would show up on the electronic face of the Micro:bit. Something that I like about web design is having the chance to be imaginative. Currently, we are making our own websites on a chosen topic. I love how we get to experiment with different codes and create different aspects that all come together nicely.

Jess
Year 10

I really enjoyed the PGW elective this semester. I thought it was a great mix of topics, all with pros and cons. Personally, my favourite topic was web design. I had not done anything of the sort in previous years and was fun to learn. Another reason why I liked this subject was that we were all able to have freedom in what we created for our assessment tasks and were able to be creative. For my gaming project, I made a soccer game using the Micro:bit. This was a fun task as it included programming as well a craft as we had to physically construct our game using cardboard.

Overall, this was an amazing subject and I would highly recommend it for anyone who wants to either persue STEM in the future or even if you just enjoy coding.

Caitlyn
Year 10

PGW was a really fun elective. My favourite part of this elective was the gaming part. We had to design a game, build it and write the code for it. I coded a ‘Flappy Bird’ game and made a mini arcade out of cardboard to go along with it. Despite the struggles I had with the code, I really enjoyed the creative aspect of the project. We had a relatively small class which was nice and we all got to know each other in this creative, fun and inclusive space. I enjoyed this class so much. It has influenced me to choose the programming elective next year for VCE.

Zali
Year 10

STEM

Australian STEM Video Game Challenge

Congratulations to our four Year 8 students who have made the Semi-Finals of the Australian STEM Video Game Challenge with their ‘Celestial Chiefs Network‘ game. The judges remarked on how fantastic their artwork was.

The four students are:

Belinda Gledhill
Amelia Meure
Sia Seguel and
Eloise Holborn

You can play their game here.

STEM Competitions

Currently, we have two STEM competitions happening

Moonhack
A programming competition for Years 7 and 8

Grok Web Design Competition
Using HTML and CSS for Years 8 to 10

The STEM Room has been open at lunchtimes for students involved in the two competitions and it’s not too late if you’d like to join us! Keep an eye out on SIMON or email Ms Donoghue for further details!

Adrienne Donoghue
Learning Leader: Digital Technologies