Hi!
This event post is targeting people in NYC who are curious about video games in schools as educational tools, professional development, or eSports in a broad sense.
Saturday, Jun 8th, 2024, there is a FREE event at the main Brooklyn (NYC) Public Library.
This is the Finals for the Battle of the Boroughs Minecraft Challenge. The NYC school system held a number of satellite competitions over the previous months which whittled down all 2000ish schools to 1 team from each Borough. They will now compete by performing a live build and presenting it to a panel of judges.
Hype Reel: YouTube
If you don’t have something to do on Saturday, this is something you could do! For Free!
Disclaimer: I am involved, and I am in NYC to volunteer at it, with my friend who works at the Dept. of Education and has put this together last year and this year. It’s the 2nd time this event has taken place.
You can go and support the kids, cheering wildly and showing them a good time. This even is about them at the end of the day.
You can also go to scope out what this event is about and consider involving yourself in some capacity next year. FWIW This is more the reason I am posting. For example, there are vendor tables where you can put out material and hype yourself, your projects, your foundations, etc. There are volunteer opportunities, partnership opportunities, mentoring opportunities etc. Maybe you will see missed opportunities for local devs and can fill that in for next year?
Minecraft is used because the already passed the DoE’s stringent requirements and approval process. Any platform which collects data is not allowed. Minecraft has an education platform which does not collect data. In the future, the organizers expect Epic/Fortnight to pass compliance as well, so the competition will expand to more “traditional” eSports for next year.
The broader goal of the DoE and this project is to build industry connections into the classrooms to make the NYC school system a hub for eSports and the broader gaming industry. What this will look like is wide open right now, and that, to me, is interesting, especially given that it’s backed by the DoE. Not “just” playing video games, but the whole ecosystem: event planning, on-camera coverage, behind camera production, video game development, etc. The longer-term goal is to develop these skills in the kids and graduate them with experience in the broader industry.
Do come to support the kids, though, this is mostly about them having a good time. Also it’s free. Feel free to ask/msg me any qs!
