Toys2Life’s STEAM Workshop Series

Character Creation, Authoring Dialog, Voice Acting

www.toys2life.org

The “Stories and Software” STEAM workshop series was developed at the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado by Entrepreneur in Residence Isaac Davenport and his team at Toys2Life. 

What will we do?

-Play with a next generation smart toy system where kids select who talks to whom by moving radio tagged dolls and action figures closer together or farther apart.

-Write lines of dialog within the confines of tagged dialog models.

-Voice act and record the dialog for their character.

-Play their artificially intelligent toy character against their friends and built in characters.

-Write stories their character might tell other characters.

-Create emotionally appropriate dialog so their character can respond to other’s stories.

-Create fully scripted interactions between their character and other characters.

What will we learn?

-We will explore creative writing with purpose, the mechanics of language, the emotional content of language and what makes a character interesting as we create lines of dialog that fit the classifications within the dialog engine.

-We will try voice acting and dialog editing.

-We will apply computational thinking as we create files in Java Script Object

Notation (JSON) to feed into the algorithm of the artificially intelligent dialog engine. 

-Computer literacy skills through a JSON editor, file explorer, and audio recording software.

-We will practice our story telling skills as we create half contextual stories that can be told to any character and fully scripted dialogs with known characters.

-We will briefly discuss Blue Tooth Low Energy (BLE) radios and how the system knows which characters are getting closer to which other characters.

In this workshop we will write, tag, and record a dozen phrases. Towards the end of the workshop, we will see our character come to life as it talks to the other characters. 

The workshops are optimal for kids who have had some experience with computers.

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This event is part of Boulder Computer Science Education Week, December 1-8, 2018.

Create apps. Code robots. Design stories. Explore new technologies, new programming languages and environments, meet robots, try coding, engage with problem solving and gadgets. Meet extraordinary people of all ages doing amazing things during Boulder CSED Week.

Boulder CSED = free Computer Science Education programs for everyone at your library, school and tech partner organizations.

We have code at our fingertips as we drive our cars, check the news on a laptop, or message a friend with our cell phones. Boulder CSED Week invites learners of all ages (adults, school aged kids, and even pre-schoolers) to consider code and create with it! Experience robots, and control them with code, make a block based program or write out coded instructions, learn how to code a new device or make an app, visit with a robot at story time, and more! All of Boulder CSED Week’s program are free and open to the public. Programs are hosted by local experts, educators, and makers, and inspiring technologies offer pathways for code-learners of all levels of experience. Some programs ask for pre-registration. Join us - create with code for this year’s Boulder CSED week!

Volunteer. Present. Build, test, experiment. Solve tricky bugs. Be a code creator!

We are delighted to host programs with these awesome partners who volunteer their time for Boulder CSED 2018!

Code Raspberry Pi, get started with VR, and learn Processing with SparkFun
Jump, shake and roll with Sphero
Start coding by simply writing words with Workbench Education
Make action figures talk with Toys2Life
Blocks code, robots move with Questbotics
Hack a robot with ROBAUTO
Design 3D games with AgentCubes
Erect LEGO robots with Play-Well TEKnologies
Voice command Dash and Dot with CU Science Discovery
Assemble and code robots with Kids2Glow
Educators code robots with Blockly led by Parallax
Explore Boulder data with Art of Data
Create 3D CAD models with SketchUp
Play with Robots and Program an Hour of Code Dance Party with MindSpark Learning
Think like a robot with ModRobotics
Work on any project you wish with Youth Maker Hangout
Fashion a light up card with Boulder Public Library
Construct a 3D printed object with BLDG61
Enjoy robot storytimes with Boulder Public Library

We're grateful for the sponsorship generosity of ROBAUTO, Texas Instruments, Makey Makey, Bitsbox, Scratch, Workbench, Parallax, ArcBotics, Google, BrieBug, SparkFun, Galvanize, BrieBug, FitBot and the Boulder Library Foundation for making CSED Week possible!