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A new technology course at Pratt Community College will provide students with an introduction to the elements necessary to build a video game and simulations.
It will also provide them with a chance to use the newest technology, Kinect on Xbox 360, a no-controller game system that uses a camera and infrared to recognize up to six different players at the same time, said course director Mark Newlan, PCC INT instructor and Program Director.
The new two-unit course, Introduction to Game Theory, will be available in the spring semester. Evening classes will run from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday nights, Newland said.
Most of the course hardware is in place including a large LCD monitor. More components are expected by the end of the week.
“We have a lot of cool technology coming in,” Newlan said.
Many students have expressed in interest in writing video game programs. Newlan wanted to bring the students the foundations of all the elements necessary to write a gaming program.
“This course is strictly an introduction to building video games and simulations and also getting to play the games,” Newlan said.
Programming is a major interest area for students and the college decided to create a program that would help fill that interest and at the same time show students what it really took to write programs, said PCC Vice President of Instruction Jim Stratford.
The course has been under development for about two months and has received Kansas Board of Regents approval. The college hopes that the new class will also become a new recruiting tool to bring more students to campus, Stratford said.
The newest gaming systems are highly complex and it’s no longer a programmer sitting up at night for several days writing a program.
“Those days are gone,” Newlan said.
As a demonstration of the extensive work to write a program, Newlan spent 20 hours writing his own version of the first video game Pong, a very rudimentary game with a ping pong ball and a paddle icon the only moves up and down. As part of the course work students will get the chance to play Newlan’s version of Pong as well as the state-of-the art Kinect.
Pong is a very simple game but the programming involves a lot of elements including geometry, physics, trigonometry audio, video and more. And that’s just for Pong.
A new technology course at Pratt Community College will provide students with an introduction to the elements necessary to build a video game and simulations.
It will also provide them with a chance to use the newest technology, Kinect on Xbox 360, a no-controller game system that uses a camera and infrared to recognize up to six different players at the same time, said course director Mark Newlan, PCC INT instructor and Program Director.
The new two-unit course, Introduction to Game Theory, will be available in the spring semester. Evening classes will run from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday nights, Newland said.
Most of the course hardware is in place including a large LCD monitor. More components are expected by the end of the week.
“We have a lot of cool technology coming in,” Newlan said.
Many students have expressed in interest in writing video game programs. Newlan wanted to bring the students the foundations of all the elements necessary to write a gaming program.
“This course is strictly an introduction to building video games and simulations and also getting to play the games,” Newlan said.
Programming is a major interest area for students and the college decided to create a program that would help fill that interest and at the same time show students what it really took to write programs, said PCC Vice President of Instruction Jim Stratford.
The course has been under development for about two months and has received Kansas Board of Regents approval. The college hopes that the new class will also become a new recruiting tool to bring more students to campus, Stratford said.
The newest gaming systems are highly complex and it’s no longer a programmer sitting up at night for several days writing a program.
“Those days are gone,” Newlan said.
As a demonstration of the extensive work to write a program, Newlan spent 20 hours writing his own version of the first video game Pong, a very rudimentary game with a ping pong ball and a paddle icon the only moves up and down. As part of the course work students will get the chance to play Newlan’s version of Pong as well as the state-of-the art Kinect.
Pong is a very simple game but the programming involves a lot of elements including geometry, physics, trigonometry audio, video and more. And that’s just for Pong.
The complexity of writing programs like Kinect goes far beyond math and science and includes drama, textures, colors, script writing, graphic arts, audio, video, anatomy, kinesiology and much more. It also covers project management, sociology, and business marketing, all necessary elements to produce and market a new video game.
This requires dozens of people. It’s like making a movie or putting on a play. It takes a lot of people to make it happen and this course helps students understand what is needed and gives them the elements necessary to get to the point they can write a game, Newlan said.
Besides the necessary basic elements to write programs, the new course also gives the students the chance to use the Kinect system.
The no-controller system actually puts the player in the game using an infrared camera system that perceives each player movements and incorporates those movements into the game.
