Abney Elementary School Student Wins Tech Fair

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From The Paulding Pulse

Kierin Hernandez, from Abney Elementary, was named the winner in the Northwest Georgia Regional Technology Fair for Game Design (Grades 3 and 4).

For the tech fair, Kierin designed a game called “Ninja Blade.” It’s about a ninja who must rescue his sensei (teacher) from a bad ninja.

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The ninja must go through several levels and defeat the bad guys, like giant bats, devil dogs and death walkers in order to rescue his sensei. The ninja walks through the levels and has a sword that can transform into a blaster. Kierin developed the game using a program from MIT called “Scratch” (scratch.mit.edu).

He created all the scenes, characters, and weapons using an 8- bit art app on his iPad and uploaded them to the game, instead of using the stock footage provided in Scratch.

He worked for two months to develop the game. Kierin’s mom, Christina, tells us that he has always been interested in computers. From the time he was a toddler, he was playing games on the computer, and in his spare time, he builds large scale buildings and structures in Minecraft, as well as 8-bit versions of famous video game characters, like Mario, Luigi, and Link.

Kierin taught himself to program using red stone in Minecraft, and can create some elaborate functioning structures, such as roller coasters and music blocks playing songs.

The Paulding Pulse is the monthly newsletter from the Paulding County School District.

Paulding Pulse Feb. 2015