Code Racer : battle it out & learn to code

Code Racer is a multi-player live coding game that teaches newbies how to code a basic website using HTML and CSS, and tests intermediate and advanced users on their coding speed and agility. Players race against each other and the clock to complete coding challenges, unlocking weapons and rewards along the way. Even if someone has zero experience with building websites, they'll be able to watch a video tutorial and complete the code challenges that will give them the basic skills to launch a web site.

Code Racer was built by the team behind Treehouse, where they teach web design and development to everyone in the world who wants to learn. The backend to the game uses Facebook Connect, Node, CoffeeScript, Socket.io and Spine. The frontend uses HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery. Code Racer was conceptualised and constructed during a what they call in Treehouse, "Idea Week," an annualy held session where they focus solely on designing and developing a project. In 2012 they chose to develop Code Racer when they realized there was no other live coding game on the web. It's a fun spin-off for the members of Treehouse to practice their skills and have fun as they learn to code through Treehouse’s online courses.

learn the basics of Creative Coding in an hour

If you've ever fancied getting to grips with a bit of programming and have an hour or so to spare, check out the “Hello Processing” free online course. It's based on Processing, an excellently simple - and free - programming language built with designers and visual artists in mind. It's made so that you can quickly get impressive graphical results out of it, while at the same time learning some of the important fundamentals of computer programming. It takes the form of an hour-long video tutorial, written and presented Processing expert Daniel Shiffman, split into short sections followed by time to write and modify a program. For the introductory part of each section you just see video, and then when you get to roll your sleeves up and write your own code the screen splits into three sections: the video tutorial, the code editor and the code display window where you see the end results of your program.

After a quick introduction explaining what computer programming's all about and what you can do with it, there are four main sections in which you'll learn how to create shapes, colour them in, use input to animate them and finally use touch or mouse click events to decide if the code does one thing or another. After this you'll know enough Processing to write your own creative programs and, hopefully, feel much better equipped to learn its more advanced functions. Daniel's an animated and engaging teacher, and we reckon this is a much more rewarding way to get a handle on the basics of code than the dry, old-fashioned way of working through a set of written tutorials. If you have an hour to spare and you've always wished you had a better understanding of computers, why not give it a go?

[Ref.] http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/learn-basics-creative-coding-hour-12135457

experimenting with beer

Erica Shea and Stephen Valand, started the Brooklyn Brew Shop out of the Brooklyn Flea in the summer of 2009 to get space-strapped New Yorkers brewing. With the idea that making beer (real beer from real ingredients) can be simple, tasty, and most important, fun, the Brooklyn Brew Shop created stylish, easy-to-use Beer Making Kits designed especially for stove-top brewing and ingredient mixes for seasonally inspired beers. In their own words : "Our goal is to get everyone brewing by simplifying the beer making process without dumbing it down."

The whole concept spans the entire brew process, with concise instructional videos that guide the prospective brewers through the whole process, from the actual unpacking of the kit, to filling bottles with the finished beer. Making beer consists of a few steps, none of which are hard, but since you're bound to have some questions, apart from the videos to watch, there is also a Q&A section available on their site, to answer most of your questins. Go here for more.

Do NOT forget, homemade beer tastes great, and it is something that YOU have created. However, a lot goes on while beer is fermenting. Your beer is becoming alcohol before your very eyes. It will change over time, and it might not even look like beer for a few days. So don't worry if your beer looks cloudy. Everything will settle to the bottom. Don't worry if your beer looks green for the first few hours. Hops are green, and they will settle to the bottom. In the end, don't worry. Beer will be beer.

For all available instructional videos, please go here. There is an extensive review of their beer making kit and brew process in three parts here (I), here (II) and here (III).

Shock, soap or laser ?

"Creativity can be learned." ; this is what the Norwegian School of Creative Studies, puts forth with a very smart interactive website named "Shock, soap or laser?". There are hundreds of ways to solve a creative task. The solution is often a very different place than what you thought and on the way to the answer you will discover new stuff.

Creative processes are exciting to take part in, because you never know where you’ll end. Some of the roads exploring leads to interesting, striking or unexpected responses, while others appear to not succeed. Which track that gives the best result, you can only find out by trying different approaches and work hard. Frames are safe and well, but in a creative education is part of the point to break the rules and open the mind, to find all the solutions others miss.

Shock, Soap or Laser is actually an experiment by Norway’s Creative Vocational School. The university is using the site to promote it’s 2-year vocational programs alongside their freshly launched 2012 Bachelor’s degree in creative marketing communication. The school aims to educate people for a number of professions within the creative industries.

Note : By taking this 10-step creativity test you also entered a draw to win a mobile phone, however that competition ended on 15 April, so don't expect anything on that.

CREATIVITY TEST : GO TO THE SITE >>>

TEDEd : lessons worth sharing

TED believes passionately that ideas have the power to change attitudes, lives, and ultimately, the world. This underlying philosophy is the driving force behind all of TED's endeavors, including the TED Conferences, TEDx, TEDBooks, the TEDFellows Program, and the TEDTranslations Project. With this philosophy in mind, and with the intention of supporting teachers and sparking the curiosity of learners around the world, TED launched its newest initiative, TED-Ed.

TED-Ed is a free educational website for teachers and learners. We are a global and interdisciplinary initiative with a commitment to creating lessons worth sharing. Our approach to education is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED's, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student.

TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED's, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student. TED-Ed's videos aim to capture and amplify the voices of the world's greatest educators. To achieve this, extraordinary educators are paired with talented animators to produce a new library of exceptional educational videos. The TED-Ed website, similar to TED.com, is ever-evolving and TED depends on you, the TED community, to nominate inspiring teachers that have touched your life or clever animators who have the skills to bring a gifted teacher's lesson to life.

Best Flips are exceptional user-created lessons. A Best Flip is a stellar video from YouTube that has been surrounded by multiple choice questions, compelling writing prompts, a meaningful guided discussion, and a section that links to other pertinent resources. A Best Flip can be created by anyone, anywhere, at any time.  The important thing about a Best Flip is that it uses the TED-Ed website to showcase a video that has the potential to teach an incredible lesson and then it uses the modules built on the TED-Ed website to teach said lesson. All TED-Ed lesson creators have the option to nominate their lessons as Best Flips. Each nominated lesson is carefully reviewed by volunteer teachers and the TED-Ed tam. Lessons that are selected through this process appear on the official Best Flips page.

Video lessons are also grouped under a unifying or describing theme, and denoted as Series. Lessons that are categorized (under one theme or topic, etc.) appear on the official Series page. For a complete list (per educational subject) go here.

Morocco’s Guelmim Technology School

It’s never difficult to pick a Moroccan building out of the crowd and this beautiful new Guelmim Technology School is no exception. Bold and red like the nearby desert, the 6,833 square meter campus design by architects Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani, and Mohamed Amine Siana comprises a contemporary twist on vernacular architecture. The Universite Ibn Zohr D’Agadir called for a powerful design that would pay heed to the vernacular architecture of Southern Morocco. Instead of using traditional materials, the designers opted for concrete due to its high thermal massing. This was then covered in a red-grain paint that matches the red earth of local structures. [1]

The concept was to produce a contemporary building leaning towards modernity whilst paying tribute to its heritage and grounds. We truly believe that this is a case of ‘Mission Accomplished’. With the cladding technique symbolizing all that is Moroccan earth, the structure follows a simplistic and clean-cut modern approach focusing on linearity and symmetry. This is the defining true brilliance of this project which ticks all the right boxes without one being able to obviously point out the reason why. The buildings are organized following an L-form pattern and are positioned in a north-south axis. Their volume is quite massive creating a great contrast between interior and exterior. However this over scaling is balanced out with the protruding square & rectangular openings; a feature which is breathtaking through its continuity. [2]

The exterior palette draws from the land, utilizing a cladding technique symbolizing both the Moroccan earth and earthern building practices. The massive textured volume of the exterior is in contrast to the smooth white interior spaces. The spaces are brought together with indoor gardens that appear cut from the mass. The protruding windows and brise soleils that appear carved from the facade show a clarity and understanding of the harsh climate. [3]

See also the work of the same architectural team at Morocco's Taroudant University here.

[1] Ref. http://www.greenprophet.com/2012/06/moroccos-guelmim-technology-school/

[2] Ref. http://www.yatzer.com/Technology-School-Guelmim-Morocco

[3] Ref. http://architechnophilia.blogspot.gr/2012/07/new-work-technology-school-of-guelmim.html