Those who know me well, know that I have three simple goals in life to accomplish:
- Own a business
- Be successful
- Teach others to be successful
Oh yeah and make sure to have fun doing each and every one!
I consider number-two on the list to be already accomplished, while one-and-three follow closely behind. While my two business ventures are coming along, I’m treating number-three to some extra special attention this month and in April.
When I put the third item on the list, I didn’t mean that I want to teach older folks how to make more money before they kick-off, but rather the younger generation. From my perspective, today’s kids are not given the room to really go for their biggest dreams. While I have no problem with realism, I do have a problem with people being told they HAVE to do something, before they can accomplish their dreams. Now, I do understand that if you want to be a doctor and that is your dream, then a decade of school will be in your future. But, if you’re the type of kid who wants to be his own entity in this world, you’re usually scoffed at and told to grow the hell up.
That was me.
I wasn’t told this by my parents, but rather my educators; not all, but some.
Last year around this time, I was invited to teach my trade at a job fair taking place at a middle school ran by the local school system in Albuquerque. This invite was temporary and to be honest, it was a fill in position. Nevertheless, it was a chance to attack the third item on my list. My friend and colleague, Josh, came along to help me teach these kids what it was to be a graphics artist in the real word. Also, what it was like to wear many hats, such as web designer, programmer, project manager, etc.
You can imagine the kids were bored.
I received high marks for my presentation and a few kids were genuinely intrigued. This is (what I had been told by some of teachers I truly trusted) what it was all about. I don’t know what those few kids will grow up to be, but I hope, if anything, they will drive their own dreams and not somebody else.
A year went by and I was invited back, this time as an actual instructor. The woman, who is a good friend of mine, running the job fair asked this time if I would teach video game design. Some of the qualifying questions I got revolved around my experience in the trade, which is nil. I am a programmer, but not a video game programmer. Either way, programming is programming and I accepted the task of teaching these kids how to build some games. This is really awesome; I get the chance to teach these kids how to succeed in not only programming, but how to be versatile in your trade.
The marines have a saying; you adapt. You adapt and you succeed when the job demands it. This is a perfect example of adapting; entering and the will to succeed in something I believe in.
I’m pretty happy about teaching these kids again this year. Being that I’ll be doing video games, I imagine that I’ll have classes of 60-80 students, for a total of 6 sessions. Over the course of the day, I should be able to reach around 300-400 students.
Josh will be coming along for the ride too and this year, we’re coming up with something totally awesome. We’re creating a game, built within Garry’s Mod, a game that uses the Half-Life 2 engine, Source, that acts pretty much like a toy-box for everything Half Life. Garry’s Mod has the ability to be modded with different game types and weapons, making it the perfect platform to do a quick game to show to these kids.
Our game? We’re calling it, Chicken’s Revenge.
The game has no point what so ever, thus it is classified as a death match type of game. You have two weapons; a chicken cannon and egg grenades. The chickens explode with a burst of feathers and the eggs do this neat Easter thing, shooting off fireworks that remind you of chocolate bunnies. The egg thing is going to be interesting to program, but hopefully it will turn out like I say it will.
We plan on releasing the source code to any kid who is interested. In addition to the code swag the kids can go home with, we also want to play test it, in class. We’re going to be taking two machines, one hooked up to a projector and the other sitting still, allowing for anyone to step up and take some one-on-one action with either Josh or myself. We think it’s going to be a big hit.
Other than that, we are beginning to play-test the game this weekend. We need to make sure the game is absolutely stable, because we don’t want it to crack under the pressure of eager kids.
I hope it comes out great!