ForeFront Systems offers programming classes through the Teen Programming Academy for kids in grades 4-12 using various languages and development environments such as Scratch, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Visual Studio (VB), Java and Dart/Flutter (Mobile App Development)
We make programming fun by concentrating on building video games and interactive programs that students can build and share with their families. All introductory classes begin with Scratch where we will build a cat and mouse video game as well as pong. Students can customize the games to make them react any way that their imagination takes them.
Our goal is to inspire creativity and problem solving skills that will serve students regardless of where their formal school studies or future occupations take them. A basic understanding of how computers and software works is so important regardless of whether the student becomes a computer scientist, software engineer, electrician or store manager. Learning to write computer programs teaches confidence, math, problem solving as well as creativity.
Some projects we've worked on lately:
We have classes for beginners or advanced in Visual Basic, Java or Web Design. We also have a new class in Mobile App Development, which requires solid knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript as a pre-requisite. Our students this year have built some fun and interesting programs including many games like Pong and Tanks.
Off Season Athletic Training Tracking: We have a 9th grade student who is working on building a website and application that will track training for athletes during the off season. Athletes, coaches and Athletic Directors will be able to track the progress of athletes during the off season and during the season as well. Players may challenge each other with training competition.
Mobile App - Tapping Game: A current 8th grade student has been working on building a mobile app game where user taps screen for points. He has built upgrades, prizes and online/offline capability.
Online Battleship-Like Game: A current 5th grader is working on building an online game where players enter coordinates for their forces. Players then fire onto coordinates much like the old Battleship game. Players take turn firing and can be anywhere in the world playing against each other.
Online Game Website: We have a class with middle school students who are building a members only website where players may play popular javascript based games such as Pong, Tanks, etc. Members will compete via leaderboards.
Family Pet Feedings: We have a 9th grade student who built an application to track pet feedings that are stored in our Chicago SQL Server database. The program allows the user to select the owner, the pet and then insert the date and time of feeding including who fed it, type of food, quantity, clean cage? Add water? Etc. We are now building a website to display the same data that was added via a Visual Basic program. Next, we will build a mobile app to access the same data.
Family Schedules: We have another class that is working on a Visual Basic program to manage family members, activities, schedules and absences. Again, this application stores data in our Chicago database and the data may also be accessed via custom web pages and mobile applications. This is currently being developed by a rising 5th grader.
Pokemon Go Pokedex: Our Java students are working on a database-enabled Java program to manage the user’s Pokemon characters and levels, called a Pokedex. This data is all tracked in our SQL Server database and will also be available to render in web pages and mobile applications.
