Software Engineering Leader uses STEM to teach kids Digital Brilliance | Interview with Kevin Epps

Software Engineering Leader uses STEM to teach kids Digital Brilliance | Interview with Kevin Epps Kevin's contact info: Website: http://www.digitalbrilliancehour.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-fciYMesCx76J_K6oz4MuA Email: kevin.epps@digitalbrilliancehour.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/digitalbrilliancehour Instagram: @digitalbrillliancehour1 Twitter: @BrillianceHour --------- Contents of this interview -------- 00:07 - Interview starts 00:41 - Du'An introduces Kevin 02:43 - You're a frontend web developer tech lead, for those new to tech, what is software engineering and how does it differ from frontend development? 04:41 - How do they work together to build the web apps we see and use 06:38 - How did you get started with software development? 09:50 - For someone that wants to get started with software development, is college a good path still or they can be self-taught? 11:39 - Did you have a mentor on your journey? 13:16 - North Carolina Central, is that a black college? 13:32 - Going to a black college, was there a lot of us in software development? 15:18 - Congratulations for graduating top of your class 15:43 - Getting into software development, you had this aspiration to develop your own games, at what point did you develop your first game? 19:39 - Was it an 8-bit game? 20:34 - Let's get back to your story 23:37 - When you were developing games, were they to be played online or on a computer? How can someone access your game? 23:55 - Back then, did you get them out to people so they could play then? 24:42 - How did you come up with the theme for your games? 25:54 - Y'all broke up the different pieces and then put them together, did you use version control or you used Git? 26:22 - Out of you 4, you were the only one that knew how to code? 26:52 - What do you need to develop a game? 28:07 - What language did you write those games in? 28:24 - Did you lean that language in college? 28:35 - Have you ever had an official job developing games? 29:23 - Which one do you enjoy more - Frontend development or developing games? 30:18 - What's your favorite game of all time? 30:58 - Who's your favorite character? 31:33 - Do you wanna talk about helping kids learn how to develop games and teach them music? 35:25 - How do you get the students to grasp those smaller pieces? 38:05 - What are the ages of the students? 39:59 - If someone wants to sign their kids up, how do they do that from anywhere around the world? 42:33 - Do students need to pick a track between music and programming or do they get to choose? 43:39 - You can do that on your phone or wherever? 45:39 - Once the kids learn how to do music, do they share them? 47:27 - When they start to develop music, have you had kids that are extremely talented? 50:29 - Before the pandemic, were you in person? 54:04 - What's your pricing/cost per week for your 12-week course? 57:55 - Do they collab on the games or build their games individually? 59:39 - Have you heard of scratch? 59:44 - When teaching kids how to code, is the program like scratch or are they learning coding languages? 01:00:57 - The older students that that have gone through your program, do they end up going to college for software development? 01:04:18 - Is your current program strictly software development and music or do you branch out to networking technology? 01:05:18 - When it comes to funding, let's say someone wants to support you. how do they go about it? 01:06:30 - Where do you want to go from here? What's your big picture? 01:09:03 - Have you seen SNK Neo Geo, it allows for backloading games to be added via USB, thoughts on retro gaming license? 01:11:09 - Have you thought about putting out a curriculum where you develop games using Raspberry Pi and kids can play portable games with their friends? 01:12:40 - Do you have any of your games online? 01:16:32 - How long should you keep a child on block-based app programming before moving them to real coding? 01:17:55 - What is your thoughts on the logic block coding? 01:19:06 - So at some point after they get the understanding of logic of "this then that", they need to step outside and challenge themselves? 01:20:22 - Do your kids have a choice of what platform their games are engineered for? Console vs PC vs Handheld switches 01:20:41 - What's your thoughts on mobile games? 01:22:48 - Is the coding behind a PS5 game and a Sega 32-bit game drastically different or is it the graphics that makes the game look so much better? 01:23:47 - For kids that are just starting in coding, is it the same concept of breaking down to the smallest concept and building from there? 01:25:18 - And you find those engines and develop from that point your own game? 01:26:14 - In your 12-week course, do you show that to the students and talk to them about that? 01:27:41 - Is there something you wanna say to the people? 01:28:25 - Outro Thank you for the support! #Stem #DigitalBrillianceHour #KevinEpps