Sandbox Game - an Educational Development Program

💡 SIP: Ideas All Ideas
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The gamebuilder is an quite easy and intuitive tool and I was wondering whether there is potential support to run a program to teach kids to create games and their first experience building be The Sandbox

I was thinking of a 12-month pilot program in the Netherlands to run bi-monthly Sandbox game creation workshops for 20 local youths (ages 10–16). The project will focus on digital creativity, blockchain education, and metaverse skills using The Sandbox platform.

Goals

-Teach 240 kids over 12 months the basics of game creation in The Sandbox.

-Develop local talent and interest in web3 gaming.

-Train local educators to independently run future workshops.

-Promote The Sandbox in the Netherlands as a leading tool for creative education.

If there is support for the topic I can also open comms with the municipal to sponsor part of the venue to hold these workshops.

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I bet some of our @Delegates have some constructive questions or feedback to drive this idea forward!

Also, @SasanSeyedi.eth, you may want to ping @markbagogames from The Sandbox Academy to develop your idea further, as this is something Mark has been doing for a while now in the Philippines.

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Hi @SasanSeyedi.eth,

Thank you for the idea. I had the same things in mind to ask you to check what kind of format is being done for the SIP12 in the Philippine.

  • Check a bit your idea for commonalities or difference with SIP12.
  • Maybe stupid question but is it legal to teach to kids below 18 cryptogaming (even if its only with the game builder)?
  • If we run it in the Netherlands why not in other European countries?
  • Maybe the big difference that I see is that Mark was doing this himself while in your case we need to find some local skilled builder. Which bring us back to the format.

Maybe we should test if there apetite overall for the community to support the expansion of the Sandbox Academy.
From my side althought I am not a game builder or creator I will be supportive with my voting if format and budget is adequately designed.

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Thanks for the questions! I will dive a bit more in the SIP12 and highlight the differences and commonalities later but want to also answer some of your other questions already :folded_hands:.

Maybe stupid question but is it legal to teach to kids below 18 cryptogaming (even if its only with the game builder)?

  • This isn’t a problem as the content of the curriculum would fall within existing laws. The key point is teaching them to build. When it comes to building assets to sell for example this would be a seperate chapter as this would touch more entrepreneurial skills and that is a different cookie all together because it would then also have to involve handling tax, setting up soletrading with parents concent etc etc… so that is a topic that has to stay out of the curriculum to keep the focus.But even that, yes it would be legal as long you take steps like informing the parents and also showing them the opps.

If we run it in the Netherlands why not in other European countries?

  • Nothing stopping us to run it in other EU countries, difference is having access and willingness of local municipals to help with an venue and potentially kickstart it along. Having an place with government indirect blessing and access to schools and students is something that is rarely available in every EU country. That alone will save time and loads of resources. I would say if same suggestion was put forward but in belgium , they would have to add another 30/40k usd for the venue for the 12months pilot.
    Your question is more of a potential goal. I do hope it can serve as a roadmap for other EU countries to follow suit and I think when that pilot finishes and you have multiple parties involved from local government and cultural organisations, it has a higher chance of landing in other countries … should others want to kick doors with local government it is easier with an proven case study

Maybe the big difference that I see is that Mark was doing this himself while in your case we need to find some local skilled builder. Which bring us back to the format.

  • I work with makerspaces and labs in Netherlands who also work with exclusively schools and provide workshops to the schools. I would have zero problems finding local makers.

I want to have a format where there is this balance between the makerspace/lab builders, the school and government support and off course also Sandbox support. but it has to be standing on it’s own 2 feet by end of the pilot and The Sandbox support should be minimal after it. Because honestly that would be the only way to replicate this to other countries. Otherwise we are just bleeding resources

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Thanks for your initial thoughts and answsers . You seems to have worked already more details in the back. looking forward to see more details after you had time to look into SIP12.

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So I had a look into the SIP12 vs this initiative

Similiarities in the problem:

  • Lack of Practical Skills in Game Development
  • Recognition and Certification
  • Institutional Engagement

Differences:
SIP 12 focuses on university students who already have a rich curriculum and on their way in life, changing or making them see the potential in 1 month bootcamp Sandbox program does nothing imo to the Sandbox adoptation. Also I don’t really like it being teached in the same environment you have school.

This initiative focuses on before uni, when they are all playing and building in roblox/minecraft and the chances of them continue building after the program is much higher and it is much closer to The Sandbox core audience.

However sorsogon state university also has younger audience and not sure what SIP12 target audience was

SIP12 goes to these venues and locations making it impossible to build a local communinity around it. This initiative would bring them to the venue.

SIP12 did not seek a sustainable model but wanted to do a bootcamp and have a spark out of it maybe?

SIP12 Altough I like the spirit behind it, I would not really have supported it. It feels like a spray and pray strategy. I have no metrics on whether the students have been playing and building after the boothcamp.

I cannot see it part of the KPI either which means he has probably not put things in place to monitor the progress before/during/after these workshops.

I’m sorry but SIP12 feels like a waste of resources which is sad because the intentions were there…

Even this suggested pilot, there are only 2 ways it can be marked as a success
A. After the pilot they continue building and playing in The Sandbox. Kids play together. I rather have 1 kid who infects his other 10 friends with The Sandbox bug instead of a 19 year old dreaming of working for GTA

B. The retention rate is negligble but the model has become sustainable with the help of municipal grants and volunteers making the maintenance cost less of burden and it continues to serve as a Brand beacon in the city for pennies.

In both scenario’s this can be repeated into other EU countries. Keep in mind my target group greatly overlaps with underpriviliged children. Meaning most don’t even see hope in the future.

So from the government pov they are happy that there will something to give the kids focus on beyond standing at the corner of the street. Not because they care about kids, but because those kids will grow up into annoying teenagers that cost policing money :slight_smile:
In their worst case scenario, hundreds of kids spend time building and playing sandbox instead of on the streets.

Part of this pilot I want to also set up a feedback loop from them as builders and as players. we are often spending months to trickle a bit of feedback. Imagine also the wealth of insight they can provide.

SIP12 heart was in the right place but so many missed opps also.

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Yeah I like ideas like this, the biggest question is always budget. For me I would prefer a budget of between $10k - $40k, but that can fluctuate based on someone’s experience and history executing such academies. I do think it might be a bit too long term for us to focus on kids at this point, given we really need people who can build complete games today to drive growth, but I’m not closed to the idea entirely.

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It is an chicken and egg story. Relying on “build it and they will come” doesn’t really cut it. They have options, tons of it. Ranging from Clash of Clans on mobile, to Roblox/fortnite on pc and consoles.

I like the Ikea effect a bit more where you give them the tools to build and the same young people will grow into ambitious adults and builders because they have an attachment to the thing they have help create

convincing an established developer to jump platform without short term monetary return is much harder than for a teenager getting attached to something he has built. So if we would even consider dollar to dollar value. It can cost 50k for let’s say create a game by an agency and then you only have a game with no guarantee of players. Now spend the same 50k on hundreds of teenagers to build and create experiences for themselves, their clubs/communities, friends. That would result in an much higher engagement and retention rate vs an one-off one.

However, both are needed very much so! you need that agency level of game creation to also aspire and see the full potential of The Sandbox and draw in more serious devs and partners.

Same kid would be more inclined to build in an metaverse where jurassic park, smurfs etc are also hanging out. We need both.

But to come back to the point on saying the priority leans more towards creating complete games suggests that we have atm not enough experiences and the servers are full or the current quality and quantity is not enough to draw players in. what is your take ?

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My personal biggest take is that we need to be able to save player progress, without it the games just aren’t engaging. I believe we are getting that this summer per the roadmap, so I think that will be a huge unlock.

After that my next priority is combat. Nothing particularly fancy, but a good basis of 5ish types of attacks, better customizability around stats like health and strength, and optimally some sort of ranged combat would be enough.

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Agreed , player progress saving is essential aswell as expanding the capabilities of the builder but this would fall outside the scope and goal of this initiative.

When the current tools are good enough to support experiences like the smurfs, jurassic park, attack on titan etc then I am confident it will also be enough for teens trying to build with it. even older tools were used to teach the target group under SIP12 and we are 1 year further almost and lots of new updates and functions have been rolled out also since then.

Your 2 points are very important for the continuous development of the builder however the current builder is more than capable to be used to teach in its current state

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Hey, @SasanSeyedi.eth :waving_hand:t4:
Can you join @biancaygg and I on Spaces on Tuesday at 9 am PST to discuss Educational Initiatives for TSB, in the context of your idea here and the ones Bianca proposed??

@Money, you may be interested in this conversation as well (as our new education and onboarding DA).

I sure hope you can make it!! – If not, we can host a separate Spaces for you later in the week or next week. DM me to plan…

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Nice! I will get it on the calendar and try to be there for sure!

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Yes that sounds great to riff on the topic and @biancaygg plans is quite awesome and ambitious , excited ! :heart_hands:

noted on the calender :saluting_face:

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Join us Tuesday?

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@biancaygg and I just has great chat with @SasanSeyedi.eth on Spaces

Sasan and Bianca are going to look into the best way to roll up Sasan’s efforts in the Netherlands into the work that Metaversity is already doing.

Regarding the future of this SIP idea, we can expect an update from them sometime in the near future here on this thread.

Sasan – you may want to drop your thought here when you’ve got a chance!

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Great space today! Love hearing networking and real time ideas happen!

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