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About Kodu Kup Belgium
The Belgian school – middenschool GO! Geel – organizes cognosco in the first and second year of secondary education. Students who enroll are expected to study various subjects individually, in pairs or in small groups. The main idea is that they learn by doing. The school thought the Kodu Kup challenge is the perfect way to develop their coding skills and all other 21st-century-skills like creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, media literacy, information literacy and problem solving. The teams were encouraged to participate in Kodu Kup by their teacher, Fatiha Baki. Before the students could start creating their game, they had to design it. This design had to consist of content planning, outlook, storyline and game options. Once all that was done they could start creating their game. Then all students were asked to play the game they had created. After that they could play the games their classmates had made. This was a much needed test phase to ensure everything functioned the way they had imagined it to. All students also rated and commented on the games they played. Once the test phase was completed students discussed which improvements could be made to their games. Eventually the students embedded these improvements. All this process was a great way to enable all students to work together and objectively analyze their “competitors” games.
Meet the Team!
Roan Kenness, 13 Years Old
Wouter Lenaerts, 13 Years Old
Nicky Verdonck, 13 Years Old
“Hi, I’m Wouter and I’m from GO!Geel. I’m 13 years old. I really had fun making our Kodu game. I was always motivated when I had to work on our game. I always worked on it with a big smile on my face. The game is all about defeating the hostile aliens and to defeat the leader. I really like kodu game lab. I’m really happy with the outcome of the game Mission to Mars. I was quite surprised that we won. But I also loved winning of course! We entered the competition because our teachers were really enthusiastic about the whole thing.Now let me tell you a bit about my teammate Roan. He is a very good friend and a great person to have in our team. I couldn’t picture myself winning without him. And if anybody wants to know more about the circus, Roan is your guy. “
”Hello. My name is Roan. I’m from GO! Geel. I am 13 years old and I’m one of Belgium’s finalists. I am really happy that I can go through. We were first told that one group in our class won. I expected it to be the makers of Call Of Codu. When we learned that it was our team, Wouter and I were extremely happy. Nicky even cried because she was so happy with the result.Nicky is one of my teammates. In her free time she practises jujitsu. She is the one who designed the cover of our game. I think she did a great job.”
“Hello. My name is Nicky and I’m 13 years old.When I heard about the game I was really excited. I got even more excited when I heard about the prize. That really sparked my imagination. The result is the great game I made together with my teammates Roan and Wouter. My teammate Wouter sometimes comes across as a game nerd but when it comes to computers, he’s a genius. And he is only 13. The game is about defeating the basis and the big kodu but on your way there are enemies attacking you. To increase your powers you have to look for the red apples and eat them!”
Project: Mission to Mars
The game is all about defeating the hostile aliens and to defeat the leader, but on your way there are enemies attacking you. To increase your powers you have to look for the red apples and eat them!”.
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Fatiha Baki, STEM teacher: Kodu shows my students they need a lot of the 21st-century-skills to create a game. Kodu enabled them to practice and experience programming. The games they were to design had to fit one of these themes: Retro Arcade Game, Water Awareness or Mars Exploration. We’ve found the Kodu Game Lab environment to be very user friendly. Once the game world has been created, new items can easily be added.
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Bob Roefs, Math Teacher: “Learning how to code an the Kodu Kup are important for young people because they learn by doing. It doesn’t matter who you are; you win because you learn new things!”
