Code {STEAM} seeks sponsors for game design camp

Every Thursday for weeks, students in the Code {STEAM} program have gathered in the Lodi Public Library’s Computer Learning Center to undertake an adventure: designing their own simple video games.

Soon, those games will be published on the library’s website, and the students will go on to other activities.

Code {STEAM}, however, is just getting started. This summer, a new batch of students will have the chance to design games — not just the platformers similar to “Mario Bros.” that the students in the Thursday workshops have been creating, but “choose your own adventure” games that are much more complex.

And they’ll be published not just through the library’s website, but on the Google Play store, where anyone who wants to will be able to download them.

“They can pull that up anywhere in the world,” said Yvette Herrera, the director of Volunteer Services at the library.

Code {STEAM} Tech Camp, which will span four hours per day, four days a week from June 7 to 29, will up the difficulty level from the Thursday workshops.

“There’s going to be a more in-depth process, Herrera said.

While students in Code {STEAM} have been getting an introduction to character design and world building, Tech Camp will take story design to a new level. Jateen and Claire Bhakta will help campers design and plan story plots and map out where players’ choices will take them.

World design and story boarding will also add to the “art” part of the STEAM acronym — “science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics,” Herrera said.

Students will learn how to

code their stories into apps that can be played on phones and tablets, so they meet the standards set by the Play store, she said.

“It’s going to be intensive, but valued,” she said.

Because Tech Camp will be so intensive, the library has decided to limit this initial session to 15 students. They’re taking applications, because students will need to have some basic computer skills — especially keyboard skills — and be prepared to commit to the camp schedule, Herrera said.

“The Friends (of the Lodi

Public Library) have agreed to pay for it, but I’m hoping for sponsors to off-set those costs,” she said.

Right now, the Friends pay for nearly all of the library’s programs. They raise money via donations from the community and the donated books they sell in their sales.

Tech Camp will cost approximately $6,700 for the library to host, Herrera said. That includes T-shirts for each child, external hard drives where the students can save their work and even work on their games from their home computers, the cost of publishing each game to the Google store, snacks for each day’s session, and a stipend for the two instructors.

While the Bhaktas have been offering the once-a-week Code {STEAM} workshops as volunteers, a summer camp is too time-intensive to ask them to do it for free, Herrera said.

Finding businesses or individuals willing to help sponsor the program will help free up more money for the Friends to use on other library activities, she said. Sponsors can also opt to have their names printed on the back of the kids’ T-shirts.

If the program goes well and there’s community support, the library would love to bring it back in the future. It could even become a cornerstone of the new Teen Scene area.

“For the library to be able to offer a camp, especially a tech camp, is awesome,” Herrera said. “I am so excited that (library director) Dean Gualco supported taking this for a spin.”