Unreal4School

Background

Prometeo-Lab is an Italian Cultural Association, first in Italy being authorized by Epic Games as an UATC, recognized nationally through the Digital Republic program (AGID) for the development and implementation of projects concerning digitalization and technological innovation. We regularly collaborate with more than 15 schools in the Rome area, as well as sometimes work with 10 other schools across Italy, with a total of 7,000 students in our network currently. Programming - or “coding” – is evolving into "visual" forms, where the traditional “textual” coding, notoriously difficult for young learners, is drastically reduced or even disappears entirely. Notable example of such "visual scripting languages" is the MIT "Scratch" programming system.  

Our initiative

We are offering high-school students at partner schools the opportunity to gain new visual coding skills through the Unreal4School programme. Students also touch on other disciplines like real time computer graphics, 3D animation, lighting and rendering.

Some of the subjects covered are: 

•  Computer Graphics and Realtime CG
•  Physics Basics and Realtime Physics 
• Programming and Scripting Basics 
• Applied Math and trigonometry
•  Unreal Engine  

As a final project students will be build their own application to run on their machines, to be showcased as the very first piece of their future portfolio. The project is articulated in a series of STEM workshops over 2 years of activity, offered free of charge. 

Each workshop has a total duration of 40 hours, and is deliverd over a period of 2 weeks, with 4 hours per day of training offered to a class of 20 students. Overall, the programme will deliver a total of 30 workshops over 2 years, or 1,200 hours of training. Students receive an official certificate of attendance upon completion of the course from Epic Games.The project promotes diversity and “Women in STEM”, aiming at having a participation between 50% and 60% among female students.