What is Magickraft and Computer Programming?
Magic is the power that allows people to do impossible things by saying special words and that’s what computer programming is. If you know the right words to say you can literally create something out of nothing.
How did you get started?
I learnt to code when I was 10 and I asked Prahlad ‘Hey, are they teaching you how to code at school?’ cause I kind of was like you know the school will take care of it.
Prahlad said to me ‘ No I think they would start teaching me next year’ and I was like ‘Oh my god, it’s almost too late’.
I rang Digital Brisbane and I said ‘Hey listen I want my son to do the Coder Dojo but I accidentally signed myself up as a mentor’. And so Kelly says to me that’s fine mentors kids can always come. So Prahlad and I went along together.
Where did Magickraft come from?
I noticed a couple of things. One was that they were teaching coding like it was golf. Like a solo activity, individual key warriors solving the problem. When in reality software development is a team sport.
I was like is there a way we could create that for the kids and the other thing is kids like to play. So they’re playing games and working together and then at the back of that I see this book ‘ Transform your world with the power of Python’ and so I say
‘Hey how would you guys like to learn how to code on Minecraft?’ and it’s like a bomb went off.
They just went nuts. And I am thinking how hard could this be? With this book I stay one chapter ahead. Turns out a little bit more than that.
What is the importance of what you do and the next steps for Magickraft?
We’re not just teaching kids to code we’re actually introducing them into software development.
We’ve got a very deep integration with Github. One of the things that we have just enabled today is the ability to run javascript code in Minecraft directly out of Github. MCT1 is now being developed on Github so we have just pushed today for the first time to the Github repo.
It gives people the opportunity to try it out. What we really want to see, is we want to see a thousand lotuses blooming with us. Take it on, make whatever they want. It’s like enabling innovation.
Seeing other people like how they look when they first started, Like ‘Oh we’ve finally done this, it’s so good’. Just seeing other peoples expressions when they can finally change something.
I think the thing about it is, it allows you to have a disproportionate effect on the world.
How far can one person go , can one person do. You can make a huge difference if you can code.
It’s like the new literacy, when people learnt how to write that really transformed human civilisation. Because manual research it could go anywhere, and now with computer programming you can create experiences, you can create things for people, you can make a real difference. And I think that’s one of the most important things about the major things about it.
Prahlad is taking on creating Minecraft for Type 1 Diabetes using Magickraft it’s like making a difference in an area in life that’s important to you.
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