Coding for Noobs

A project that teaches Game Design fundemental through a fun game by team Coding for Noobs

📢 About

The objective of the workshop is to teach the students about basic Game Design concepts such as If Statements and Arrays through the use of a fun platforming game that they can interact with the backend of.

This workshop has participants play the platforming game allowing them to explore the game at their own pace. Seeing how the game changes with each time that they play. As well as allowing them the time to create their own maps and explore how the code actually works if they want to.

💡 Project Information

• Difficulty Level: Beginner
• Target Audience: Middle School and Non-Stem Students
• Duration of Workshop: 1 Hour
• Needed Materials: We will need multiple computers capable of running the code for our game, and we also need enough Makey Makey parts to make keyboards or controllers for each computer.
• Learning Outcomes: The primary goal of this project is to teach participants about the many aspects of Game Design, such as Boolean Variables, If Statements, and Arrays.
• Your Main Technology Our main technologies will be Processing, an IDE we will create our whole game on, as it provides easy ways to visualize the game.
• Technology Ambassador Program (TAP) is a project-based class that provides a collaborative environment for students to work with their fellow classmates on a semester-long project using technologies of their choice. TAP strives to increase participation in IT through numerous outreach activities and workshops that are designed to showcase the creative and fun side of technology.

commer.done.mp4

✏️ Team: Coding for Noobs

(From left to right: Ron, Richard, Sidibaba)

• Ron Henry
• Richard Kotwa
• Sidibaba Simpara

🎓 Advisors

• Dr. Wei Jin
• Dr. Xin Xu

📃 Project Description

Code Cave Diving is a simple game about someone diving through an underwater cave. The person travels through a randomly generated map, trying to reach the end while avoiding deadly spikes.. The game is played using a Makey Makey controller. This game is created to teach about the many aspects of game development, such as If Statements and Arrays. The sections of our project are teaching Makey Makey, If Statements, Booleans, Arrays, and image importing. We are using Procesing to create the game which is simple free, free and easy to make graphics with which encourages the audience to try it out.

📝 Publications

1. Sidibaba Simpara, Richard Kotwa, Ron Henry, Dr. Wen Jin, Dr. Xin Xu. Code-Cave Diving, Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges: Southeastern Region (CCSC:SE), November 7-8, 2025, Macon, GA
2. Sidibaba Simpara, Richard Kotwa, Ron Henry, Dr. Wen Jin, Dr. Xin Xu. CREATE Conference, November 21, 2025, Georgia Gwinnett College

👐 Outreach

1. TAP Expo, October 9, 2025, Georgia Gwinnett College: to promote the IT field and encourage college students to sign up for TAP.
2. Class Workshops, November 4, 2025 (two in one day) and November 14, 2025 Georgia Gwinnett College: to promote the IT field to non-IT students.
3. Super Saturday Series (S3), November 15, 2025, Georgia Gwinnett College: Promote IT and STEM career to middle school girls and boys

🔎 Similar Projects

If you're interested in more workshops that utilize Processing, check out Fruit Rain!

If you're interested in more workshops that utilize Makey-Makey, check out Space Mechanic!

💻 Technology

• Processing is the IDE that we will use for this project. It is very similar to Java in many ways but allows for much easier visualizations through draw commands and the image command, allowing us to import sprites into the game with ease.
• Processing is only the framework for the game, which showcases some other technologies to learn, such as If Statements and Arrays. Which generates the layout of our maps according to a few rules, allowing every single playthrough to be different.
• We chose this technology for the workshop because it is not only easy to make a game with but it still provides a challenge as none of us knew it prior to the project, and it still provides interesting puzzles to solve as we develop our game.
• Makey-Makey is a hands-on hardware kit designed to transform everyday objects into interactive touchpads.
• Developed as an educational tool to introduce users to fundamental concepts in electronics and programming.
• Functions similarly to a standard computer keyboard or mouse, allowing users to control digital actions through physical inputs.

Usage

1. Press the Left arrow key to move to the left.
2. Press the Right arrow key to move to the right.
3. Press the Up arrow key to move up.
4. Press the Down arrow key to move down.
5. You may also replace the arrow keys with a Makey Makey.

Short Demo Instructions

1. Download the zipped file.
2. Unzip it, then drag the “Makey_Makey_Platformer” folder into your Downloads folder.
3. Open Processing. Download processing here!
4. In the top-left menu, click File > Open.
5. Navigate to your Downloads folder and open the Makey_Makey_Platformer code file.
6. Once it opens, click Run (top left) to start the game!

demo-howto.mp4

Workshop Instructions

Click here to view workshop walkthrough powerpoint and learning objectives for the workshop TAP_Workshop.pptx

Click here to view the workshop video walkthrough [Workshop Video](https://github.com/media/videos/Screen Recording 2025-12-09 232327.mp4)