Code Team (Warm Up )

Code Camp

Jessica sat on her bed and stared at her room one last time realizing she would not see it again for two weeks. Jessica had
been accepted to the University of Georgia's summer camp for game design. As a middle school student, she was one of 28
students in the state invited to live on campus and take classes on how to create and program video games.
She did not know how to describe her emotions, caught somewhere between being excited and scared at the same time. She
could not wait to work with the teachers to learn how to program games for consoles and tablets; however, she had never
been away from her family for more than a weekend. The idea of meeting all new people, sleeping in a strange bed, and
eating at a college cafeteria all terrified her. What if she were the only girl in the program? What if she did not get along with
the teachers or other students? What if she did not understand the lessons?
She laughed at that last thought. She had been writing game programs since she was in the fourth grade. Her mother had
signed her up for Scratch programming at the local high school. In those classes, she had learned to program robots, create
basic platform games, and render complex 3D graphics. She had worked closely with her mom to learn the advanced math
she needed in order to design video games. She knew that she was more than prepared for the classes. They would not have
accepted her otherwise.
“Jesse,” came her father's voice from downstairs. “It's time to go.”
Jessica slowly stood up, pulled her suitcase off the bed, and put it on the floor. She picked up her backpack that held her
laptop computer and tablet, threw it over her shoulder, and headed down the hallway and out to her car.
It was a long drive from her home to Athens. After three hours in the car, she was happy to finally be on campus. As she
walked into the dormitory where she would be staying, a college student wearing a “Camp Code” T-shirt greeted her. The
counselor introduced herself as Yolanda Harris and welcomed Jessica to camp. Yolanda handed Jessica a packet with all the
information she would need to get started—including a map to her room, the class building, and the dining hall; a lunch menu
for the week; and a list of all the others participating. Jessica quickly thumbed through the packet and was quite pleased to
see that eleven other girls were enrolled in the program. She looked at the room assignment and saw that she was going to
be in room 207 with Tiffany Smith.
Yolanda then handed a clipboard filled with paperwork to her father, who smiled and said Jessica should go on and find her
room. He promised he would bring her suitcase up to her room after he finished filling out the forms and said Jessica should
go on up without him. As she entered the room, she found Tiffany sitting at a desk looking at code on her computer. Jessica
recognized it as a Scratch program for making a maze game. She and her father had designed a similar program the year
before.
“I loved that game, but I never could keep the doors from the bottom of the screen from leading the top,” Jessica said. “I
always want to shut them off to make the game harder.”
Tiffany jumped in her seat a little. Jessica had surprised her.
“Oh,” Tiffany replied. “That's a great idea! It should be a simple border code. You know, make a wall instead of a door,” she
continued as she began typing.
Jessica looked more closely at Tiffany's code. “Oh, I really like the color scheme for your maze. And I never spent much time
on my avatar. Yours is much more animated than mine. I usually just use a picture.”
“A picture?” said Tiffany. “Oh, that would be so cool. I could use a picture of my dog as an avatar. He could be trying to find a
bone or something. Can you show me how to do that?” Jessica pulled a chair over from the other side of the room and sat
next to Tiffany, and the two began to work on the program together.
Soon the girls were so focused on their program that they didn't notice when Jessica's father arrived with her luggage.
Both girls jumped when her father said, “Well Jesse, I guess it's time for me to go.”
Jessica stopped and gave her father a quick hug before turning back to the computer screen. She was not sure what the next
two weeks held in store for her, but she knew she was at the right place. She could not wait for classes to begin the next day.
This was going to be a great camp.