Welcome
Announcements
We will have our next meeting on November 7, when we will transition from Mario Builder into Nintendo's Mario Maker for the Wii U. For more information, please see our course calendar below.
About Us
Who are we? Formerly the Computer Explorers Post 725, CompCADEMY is an educational body dedicated to introducing computer science-related subject material not typically covered in a traditional high school classroom. This class is devoted to the use of computers and now, by popular demand of our students, also focused on the design and development of video games and computer programs.
What do we do? Using open source software and selected freeware, we explore the worlds of video game design, web design, computer programming, and audio and video editing. Students with a penchant for playing games, drawing, composing music, and storytelling are encouraged to join us in developing their own games and software. In recent years we have placed greater emphasis on web design using HTML5 and CSS through the use of the free, open source, and cross-platform Brackets source editor. Other fields of interest in this curriculum Small Basic mini-language and, even more recently, languages of the Microsoft .NET family, such as Visual Basic and C#. We also hold lively discussions of our favorite video games, yielding better ideas and examples upon which we can create in our own projects. The Software We've Used page provides a list of topics frequently discussed in this course throughout the school year.
When and where do we meet? We meet on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays monthly throughout the school year, excluding national holiday weekends. We hold our meetings between 9am-11am at ITT Technical Institute at the White Oaks Mall. If you need directions, click here.
Course Calendar
To see notes for a listed class session, simply click on its name below.
- 21 November 2015: first-nighter
- 05 December 2015: Small Basic
- 19 December 2015: Small Basic
- 02 January 2016: no class, campus closed
- 16 January 2016: Audio/video conversion
- 06 February 2016: Web design with Brackets
- 20 February 2016: Web design with Brackets
- 05 March 2016: Exploring computer hardware
- 19 March 2016: Building a computer
- 02 April 2016: Computer programming with VB.NET
- 16 April 2016: Computer programming with VB.NET
- 07 May 2016: RPGBoss game engine
- 21 May 2016: Video game music remixing
Tentative meeting dates are highlighted in bold italics.
