ThoughtSTEM, company founded by UC San Diego alumni, receives $330k grant from National Science Foundation

ThoughtSTEM, LLC, a San Diego-based company teaching computer science skills to students ages 5 to 18, has received a $330,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Science Foundation. ThoughtSTEM is most well-known for being the first company to release a Minecraft Modding software, LearnToMod, that allows kids as young as 5 to reprogram the popular video game, Minecraft.

ThoughtSTEM is led by UC San Diego computer science Ph.D. alumnus Stephen Foster and biochemistry PhD alumna Lindsey Handley.

“Thanks to the NSF, we are now going to be able to reach more students in different countries with different interests," Handley said. "The same experience students have had in our classrooms will soon be available online to both students... and adults. We're really interested in sharing our educational tools with more adults so they can help us reach more kids.”

With this new grant funding, ThoughtSTEM will able to offer more of their innovative, video game-inspired computer science curriculum to students around the world by moving online the curriculum they've been using in classes with students in San Diego. There will also be a push to develop a completely new computer science curriculum designed to meet the interests of a broader population of video game-playing students worldwide.

The mission of ThoughtSTEM is to find every student interested in understanding how computer programming works and teach them in a context they can understand - video games. ThoughtSTEM has taught over 7,000 students in San Diego and over 100,000 students online.

This grant is allowing us to accelerate our development of computer science educational products for students who we are looking for new ways to interact with their favorite video games," Foster said. "Our students in San Diego have really enjoyed our approach, and we are excited to now be able to share it with other areas.”

ThoughtSTEM also was co-founded by computer science Ph.D. alumna Sarah Guthals, who now works at GitHub.

Alumni company shares $2 million grant from NSF to teach kids how to code

A company co-founded by two Jacobs School computer science alums is a partner in a $2 million grant to teach how to program inside of Minecraft to children in fifth- through eighth-grade throughout the state of Maine.

ThoughtSTEM is partnering with the University of Maine to run the grant. Students will be using LearnToMod, a software that teaches how to code inside of Minecraft. It all will be part of a program administered by the University of Maine Cooperative Extensioin 4-H, which plans to reach more than 1,000 students. The grant specifically targets students in rural areas.

“The use of computer games as a mechanism for teaching computer science concepts while also improving the effectiveness of the core curriculum is incredibly exciting,” Bruce Segee, who also is the director of the Advanced Computing Group for the University of Maine System and the grant's principal investigator said in a statement. “We believe that we will see an improvement in student learning across multiple areas.”

ThoughtSTEM was co-founded by computer science Ph.D.s Sarah Guthals and Stephen Foster, with biochemistry Ph.D. Lindsey Handley. In addition to LearnToMod, the company provides classes to teach children how to code in San Diego and elsewhere.

Guthals, Foster and Handley also have co-authored "Modding for Minecraft for Kids" in the "For Dummies" series.

Read the full University of Maine press release here.

Alums publish second book teaching kids to program inside of Minecraft

A second book on Minecraft modding by UC San Diego engineering and biochemistry Ph.D.s is hitting the bookshelves this fall."Modding Minecraft" is part of the "For Dummies" book series. It is currently exclusively available at Barnes and Noble for $9.99.

The three authors are Sarah Guthals and Stephen Foster, two computer science Ph.D.s, and Lindsey Handley, a biochemistry Ph.D. The trio co-founded ThoughtSTEM, a company that teaches computer programming to kids in elementary, middle and high school. The company created LearnToMod, a sofware that allows kids to learn programming inside of Minecraft.

Earlier this year, they co-authored "Minecraft Modding for Kids." This latest book is aimed at a slightly younger audience, Guthals said.

According to the book's online marketing materials:

The projects in this book teach your player how to modify the game by using code blocks to create mini games. The projects use LearntoMod (provided as a 60-day trial download with the book), a platform designed specifically to teach young students how to modify Minecraft.
Projects include:
* Create a Spleef Game — get started with a single-player, single-level game
* Build a Monster Arena — moves readers on to multi-level game playing
* Capture That Flag — finishes with a multi-level, multi-player game based on the classic capture the flag' game

This book is designed to appeal to readers as young as seven who are interested in learning more about the technology topics they hear about every day. It applies the time-tested For Dummies approach of simplifying complicated topics with a light-hearted and non-intimidating tone and presents the information in a way that appeals to young readers. All three books in the series, Making YouTube Videos, Getting Started with Coding, and Modding Minecraft feature:

* A kid-friendly, expert-approved design - heavy on eye-popping graphics and filled with easy-to-follow steps to completing a project.
* The perfect-size, full-color, book gets your young coder up and coding with a proven mix of graphics and text instruction.
* Fun, basic projects that provide the building blocks (and excitement) for further computer/tech exploration.