coderdojosv / minecraftmods Goto Github PK

Happy New Year!  I hope you guys have had a great holiday
FYI: I’ve started putting together some sample code in a Github repository.  Nothing ready for prime-time, but just so you can see that progress is being made.
https://github.com/dhuntley1023/ForgeMods
Any thoughts on the below?
David.
Sent from Windows Mail
From: David Huntley
Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎January‎ ‎3‎, ‎2014 ‎3‎:‎39‎ ‎PM
To: get2greg
Cc: Brian Skinner
Hi Brian,
Sorry to delay in getting back to you.  Been crazy with the holidays.
I’d love to try to help out putting something together for Minecraft modding, but you should know that I’m not a modding expert.  That said, I think I have enough experience and/or motivation to at least stay ahead of the curve for a basic set of introductory classes. 
My experience is with creating mods using Forge (www.minecraftforge.net).  This seems to be the modern-generation modding framework that many mods are moving to.  One challenge right now in term of putting together a class is that Minecraft and Forge are both going through some pretty significant changes as they move from the 1.6 to 1.7 MC versions.  I’ve been playing with the pre-release 1.7 Forge the past couple of days and it’s not at all ready for prime-time yet.  I expect it’ll take a month or two to solidify.  It’s even somewhat difficult to verify how compatible the 1.6 mod code will be with 1.7 because the 1.7 Minecraft method names have not been remapped to their unobfuscated forms yet.  (i.e. with 1.6, a core Minecraft method of “setBlockHardness()” for example right now looks like “funca45675_a()”.  Everyone has a vested interest in ensuring as much compatibility as possible, so I think it should work out ok, but it will take a bit of time for the devs working on that to crank out the changes.
I predict that from an intro-class perspective (creating new blocks, items, crafting recipes, some simple world mod, etc.), that the actual mod code will be largely the same, and that the biggest difference will be in dev and tool environment setup.  Forge has moved to a new, gradle-based build system so the setup is different.
Based on the above, my recommendation would be to start development on core curriculum materials using 1.6, and to then convert it to 1.7 prior to delivering the class itself.  This would put it out a few months.  What do you think of that?
A Minecraft class will also have some other complications:

    Environment setup:  To start modding, you first have to install and configure several pieces of software: JDK, Eclipse Java development environment, Forge, etc.  This is not hard, but it’s the kind of thing where if one person mis-types something in a path, or misses a step, then it will derail them and there will need to be some debugging done to get it working correctly.

    How have you dealt with this kind of situation in the past?  One possibility that might be good would be to send out instructions in advance of the class, and then to hold a “Session 0” as a drop-in class for people that need additional help getting their machines setup.  Alternatively, we could just do this as part of the first class… but would need some experience mentors available to help people when they get off-track.
    Java experience:  To your point in your previous email, Java coding experience will be required.  Fortunately, for the basic stuff I think we’d cover, students won’t need to create new code from scratch using any really tricky concepts, though they’ll be exposed to some of them through the Forge framework.  For example, Forge uses annotations and reflection to gather meta-data from the mod to simplify linking it in to the minecraft core.  So we’d have instructions that say “Create an annotation that looks like this.. XXXX”, which is easy for students to follow, but would get complex if someone wanted to drill down onto what was actually happening there behind the scenes.

    Net: I do think that we’d want to cover some basic Java concepts for the students, but I’m undecided yet on what needs to be covered as an independent “intro to Java” kind of session (or part of a session), vs. an approach where we do something very straightforwardly at first, and then introduce key Java concepts as we go along.  (e.g. If we provided a template for a base mod, we could have kids adding new blocks very quickly without having to have them create a new class, for example.  We could then introduce that concept later.

    Question: Have we had Java classes in CoderDojo before?  If so, what levels were they targeted at and what did they cover (can you point me to materials for one?)    One approach we could take would be to say that taking the Java course is a prereq…
    Mentor experience:  A lot of adult mentors have work experience with various language, web development, etc., and can easily drop into a course and help kids out when they have questions.  I’m guessing that relatively few of them will have had experience doing Minecraft modding, which will limit their ability to effectively answer questions or help kids out when things fail.  If we want to do this really well, I almost think that we need to get all the materials out to the mentors in advance, and get their commitment to actually do the work themselves before the class.  I’d even go as far as to say that we should have a special mentor-training session prior to the class to allow people to ask questions as we go along.  If we can’t effectively get the mentors up-to-speed, I think we’ll have to limit the number of kids we include in these classes.

    What do you think?
    Curriculum development/tuning:  I’m going to reach out to the group you pointed me to below, and also to people online that have done some good tutorial development to see if there are some existing curriculums that we can lean on.   

    Also, I do see this as a multiple-session thing.  We can try to design the sessions to keep them as independent as possible, in case people miss, but that’s probably not going to be completely possible.  For people that miss, I think we can provide a template project that they can use to start the next session that will provide the base they need to proceed from.

    Do you have other people with experience that are interested in developing a class?  I think it would be interesting to bounce ideas around with someone…

    Also, what age group would you see doing this class?  I have a 9-yr-old that I do modding with, but she really can’t do it independently.  How much do we need to target ages and curriculum so that kids are able to do the work with minimal assistance?  Or, is it ok to say that we expect that parent assistance will be required?  The challenge with creating mods is that ground-zero still assumes that you have some development experience (experience w. dev environments, languages, etc.).  I know we could develop a class that would let kids do some basic (and interesting) things if they follow the instructions we provide, but they’ll need to fall back on some real development skills if they go off-roading…. and I don't think that many pre-teens would have that level of experience.  (I may be wrong here… you’d know better than me.)
    Github:  I have a Github account.  Are you putting all CoderDojoSV materials in a single repository, or have class developers all created their own.  How can i get involved with the other mentors/class developers?  Are there aliases or other means you use to communicate?

I’m sure there are things I’m missing.  I’m interested in any and all thoughts at this point. 
Looking forward to working with you,
David.
Sent from Windows Mail
From: get2greg
Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎December‎ ‎30‎, ‎2013 ‎6‎:‎27‎ ‎PM
To: David Huntley
Cc: Brian Skinner
FYI…
David,
Might be too easy for you and your daughter, but curious what you might think of it.  Assuming they will do hacking of Java code?
Let me know if you have any ideas in mind for a CoderDojo version, and if you are thinking of a one session or multi-session model.
Hope your holidays are going well.
@Brian, perhaps one of our first 6 week sessions should be on Java, then follow with a Minecraft modding session??
Marcy
Begin forwarded message:

    From: get2greg <[email protected]>
    Subject: Fwd: Invitation: Minecraft Modding Workshop - Afternoon Session
    Date: December 30, 2013 10:58:20 AM PST
    To: jamie heston <[email protected]>, aileen mosig <[email protected]>
    Begin forwarded message:

        From: Devoxx4Kids-BayArea <[email protected]>
        Subject: Invitation: Minecraft Modding Workshop - Afternoon Session
        Date: December 30, 2013 10:54:01 AM PST
        To: [email protected]

            Meetup  

        NEW MEETUP
        Minecraft Modding Workshop - Afternoon Session
        Devoxx4Kids-BayArea
        Added by Arun Gupta
        Sunday, January 19, 2014
        2:00 PM
        Hackerdojo
        599 Fairchild Dr
        Mountain View, ca
        Price: $10.00 per person 
        Pay online
        Will you attend?
        Yes

        No
        3 Devoxxians attending, including:

        Kevin Nilson
        "I love coding and teaching kids to code."

        Arun Gupta
        "Technology enthusiast who loves to teach computer science to kids."

        Menka Gupta
        "Parent of a 11 yr old who loves to mod Minecraft in Java, Robotics and much more."
        Minecraft is a multi-player game about building and placing blocks in a three-dimensional environment. The game was originally built in Java but has been ported to Android, iOS, and XBox 360. The game allows modifications (known as “mods”) that c...
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