Recent Events

Recent Events
Keep Calm and Try Coding

Keep Calm and Try Coding

On July 1, students in London braved the early hours on a lovely Saturday morning created asteroid-like games at the ServiceNow office. Check out their projects on the Scratch studio here – https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/33571759

Scratch Out Poverty 2020 – Home Edition

Scratch Out Poverty 2020 – Home Edition

On Saturday, December 19, SPARK and ServiceNow teamed up for the 8th annual “Scratch Out Poverty” charity event, this year benefitting the Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego.

This year things were a bit different, with students and volunteers convening online on Zoom instead of in person at the ServiceNow offices. That did not stop nearly 40 people from joining the event this year.  Check out the games the kids built here!  Thanks to all the volunteers that helped make this event possible.

Scratch Out Poverty 2020 - Home Edition

Scratch Out Poverty 2020 – Home Edition

5th Annual Programming League

San Diego, CA – What happens when kids spend 4 weeks during the summer creating video games instead of playing them?

The 5th annual programming league.

This weekend, 7 teams of students from around San Diego County converged at ServiceNow to demo games built using Scratch in just 4 weeks.  Some teams had worked together before, and others were formed during the league with students who had no prior coding experience. Teams presented their creations in the “shark tank” before a panel of volunteer judges.  The games were amazing, but don’t take our word for it – check them out HERE.  After the presentations, the teams had to hack together a list of 20 challenges to score more points.  Everyone got a league t-shirt, lunch and some teams got movie tickets for their efforts.

Special thanks to Stave who sponsored the league, and ServiceNow who graciously hosted the league – both for the 5th straight year.

LEARN MORE about the Programming League.

Asteroids at ServiceNow

Over 50 kids and parents descended on ServiceNow in San Diego to learn one of the classics.. Asteroids.

Using MIT’s Scratch, kids got an inspiration to programming by building a working version of the game in about 90 minutes!  This event was led by Brenden Owen, an intern at ServiceNow and Computer Science student at Point Loma Nazarene University.   Using ServiceNow’s Visual Task Boards, the kids built a back log of “must have” features and created unique takes on the classic.  Check them out and play them on Scratch HERE now.

 

Scratch Out Poverty v6.0

Scratch Out Poverty v6.0

ServiceNow is not only a great partner helping inspire the next generation of programmers, but also giving back to help address the community’s more immediate needs.  The 6th Annual “Scratch Out Poverty” event raised donations for the San Diego Food Bank, the Jackie Robinson YMCA holiday toy drive as well as for us here at SPARK.  On a Saturday morning, it is not always easy to get out early, let alone to a class.  But the 30 or so students with their parents that met at ServiceNow were eager and built working games using MIT’s Scratch programming environment during the 2 hour workshop.  The event was taught by volunteer student instructors from Point Loma Nazarene University (Brenden Owen), UCSD (Jake Garnier) and The Cambridge School (Braydon Owen).  Check out the games they built HERE.  If you were not able to attend, be sure to sign up on our INTEREST LIST to find out first about our next event!

Scratch Out Poverty 2017

Scratch Out Poverty 2017

San Diego, CA – The Next Generation of Programmers stepped up to learn how to program in Scratch while also helping “Scratch out Poverty” at ServiceNow! SPARK teamed up with ServiceNow for the holidays to support the Jackie Robinson Family YMCA and the San Diego Food Bank, while also providing opportunities to kids who might not have the chance to learn computer programing. Over the 2 hour class, students built a version of the Brick Breaker game.

See what they made HERE.

Programming League 2017

Programming League 2017

SPARK Programming League, Sponsored by STAVE

San Diego, CA – An amazing turnout of new programmers teamed up to build their very own role-playing game (RPG). Each team set out to complete programming goals to earn points to win the competition. They used their presentation skills to show off their newly coded software to a panel of judges. Later, the teams participated in a fast paced event, known as a Hackathon, where they had to build the classic video game Pong in 45 minutes. The teams put their heads together in an effort to accomplish an impressive amount of progress in a short amount of time. To wrap up the day, SPARK celebrated the occasion by giving out pizza, soda, and awards to all the teams.  LEARN MORE about the Programming League.

You can see what they made HERE.

 

4th Annual “Scratch Out Poverty” Programming for Kids Charity Event!

4th Annual “Scratch Out Poverty” Programming for Kids Charity Event!

On December 16, 2017, ServiceNow will host our 4th annual “Scratch Out Poverty” charity event where our student instructors will help kids code a brand new

Young Codin’ Rebels at UNLV

Young Codin’ Rebels at UNLV

Las Vegas, NV – On Saturday, May 21, a crew of UNLV student volunteers and UNLV staff gathered for the 1st annual CreatorCon for Kids.  Thanks to our sponsors at Linium and Serendipity, this event was offered for free and all participants got “i create my own games.” shirts.

Check out the games they built here!

Up Early to Program at Serra High

Up Early to Program at Serra High

San Diego, CA – On Saturday, April 16, students from Serra High School got up bright and early on their weekend to join us and build our favorite arcade game, Asteroids, in a 4(!) hour programming class. They made their very own versions of the game and got to share it with the world!

Click HERE to see the projects created at this event!