The TMDM is a 2 week summer program that immerses high school students in the creation of digital products in a team-oriented environment. Throughout the course of the camp, we challenge them with many team-building exercises, teach them the basics of scrum and teach them how to use GameMaker to build a project together. Here’s a brief post-mortem from a facilitator’s perspective of how the camp went.
Overall, it was a very good camp and the students were very satisfied with the experience. Although we couldn’t promise them to show how to build triple-A polished games, they managed to get 2D games working in team during 1 week of project time.
A great indicator was seeing all the parents come to the final presentations and feeling proud of how much they learned during the 2 weeks. Most of them were surprised by how much more confident they have become when it came to speaking in public.
Jason and I were also satisfied and we also kept note of our learnings of how to prepare of the next TMDM. Here are some of the notes:
- Plus (What Went Well)
- We had a strong plan and more or less stuck to it
- Was very intense but doable, 2 weeks is the right amount of time.
- Project spaces worked out really well, e.g. Kanban boards
- Delta (What Can We Change?)
- Look for alternatives for the Outing Day. We tried studio tours and we tried Science World in the past. Both didn’t hit the right spot of what we’re looking for.
- Could refine the Lego4Scrum Exercise to better teach the User Journey.
- Team selection process is tricky. Still need to find a smoother and effective solution. Yet, we managed and everyone was happy.
As the facilitators, Jason and I felt that the hard work paid off as the students finished the camp with a product they are proud of, and can look back at this camp knowing that they made great memories and made new friends.
