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Creating a video game for the challenge draws on many parts of the curriculum and is a great cross-curricula project
It is so much more than a Digital Technology project! Working on an entry in the Australian STEM Video Game Challenge is an excellent summative assessment task. Students must engage in curriculum areas beyond STEM subjects to create an entry including the Game Design Document and video game. In a school setting, the challenge can be broken down by subject in the following ways:
English - reading, writing and reviewing reports and non-fiction texts, narrative writing and storytelling including storyboards
Speaking and Listening - giving and receiving feedback, presenting ideas and justifying choices
Mathematics - algebraic thinking, patterns and coding
Critical thinking - level design and game play
Visual Arts - creating and critiquing visual media considering audience, engagement and style
Music - creating and critiquing sound effects for different purposes
In the drop downs below, we have mapped the components of the STEM VGC with versions 9.0 of Australian Curriculum for Digital Technology. As you will see, it covers almost all content descriptors from years 3 to 10.
Years 3-4
Processes and Production Skills: Privacy and security
Access their school account using a memorised password and explain why it should be easy to remember, but hard for others to guess.
AC9TDI4P08
Identify what personal data is stored and shared in their online accounts and discuss any associated risks.
AC9TDI4P09
Years 5-6
Processes and Production Skills: Privacy and security
Access multiple personal accounts using unique passphrases and explain the risks of password re-use.
AC9TDI6P09
Explain the creation and permanence of their digital footprint and consider privacy when collecting user data.
AC9TDI6P10
Years 7-8
Processes and Production Skills: Privacy and security
Explain how multi-factor authentication protects an account when the password is compromised and identify phishing and other cyber security threats.
C9TDI8P13
Investigate and manage the digital footprint existing systems and student solutions collect and assess if the data is essential to their purpose.
AC9TDI8P14
Years 9-10
Processes and Production Skills: Privacy and security
Develop cyber security threat models, and explore a software, user or software supply chain vulnerability.
AC9TDI10P13
Apply the Australian Privacy Principles to critique and manage the digital footprint that existing systems and student solutions collect.
AC9TDI10P14
Years 3-4
Processes and Production Skills: Investigating and defining
Define problems with given design criteria and by co-creating user stories.
Processes and Production Skills: Collaborating and managing
use the core features of common digital tools to create, locate and communicate content, following agreed conventions.
use the core features of common digital tools to share content, plan tasks, and collaborate, following agreed behaviours, supported by trusted adults.
Years 5-6
Processes and Production Skills: Investigating and defining
Define problems with given or co-developed design criteria and by creating user stories.
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Generate, modify, communicate and evaluate designs.
Processes and Production Skills: Collaborating and managing
Select and use appropriate digital tools effectively to create, locate and communicate content, applying common conventions.
Select and use appropriate digital tools effectively to share content online, plan tasks and collaborate on projects, demonstrating agreed behaviours.
Years 7-8
Processes and Production Skills: Investigating and defining
Define and decompose real-world problems with design criteria and by creating user stories.
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Generate, modify, communicate and evaluate alternative designs.
Processes and Production Skills: Collaborating and managing
Select and use a range of digital tools efficiently, including unfamiliar features, to create, locate and communicate content, consistently applying common conventions.
Select and use a range of digital tools efficiently and responsibly to share content online, and plan and manage individual and collaborative AGILE projects.
Years 9-10
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Represent documents online as content (text), structure (markup) and presentation (styling) and explain why such representations are important.
Processes and Production Skills: Investigating and defining
Define and decompose real-world problems with design criteria and by interviewing stakeholders to create user stories.
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Generate, modify, communicate and critically evaluate alternative designs.
Processes and Production Skills: Collaborating and managing
Select and use emerging digital tools and advanced features to create and communicate interactive content for a diverse audience.
Use simple project management tools to plan and manage individual and collaborative agile projects, accounting for risks and responsibilities.
Years 7-8
Knowledge and Understanding: Digital systems
Explain how hardware specifications affect performance and select appropriate hardware for particular tasks and workloads.
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Explain how and why digital systems represent integers in binary.
Years 9-10
Knowledge and Understanding: Digital systems
Investigate how hardware and software manage, control and secure access to data in networked digital systems.
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Investigate simple data compression techniques.
Years 3-4
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Recognise different types of data and explore how the same data can be represented differently depending on the purpose.
Years 5-6
Knowledge and Understanding: Digital systems
Examine how digital systems form networks to transmit data.
Years 7-8
Knowledge and Understanding: Digital systems
Investigate how data is transmitted and secured in wired and wireless networks including the internet.
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Trace algorithms to predict output for a given input and to identify errors.
Processes and Production Skills: Producing and implementing
Implement, modify and debug programs involving control structures and functions in a general-purpose programming language.
Years 9-10
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Validate algorithms and programs by comparing their output against a range of test cases.
Processes and Production Skills: Producing and implementing
Implement, modify and debug modular programs, applying selected algorithms and data structures, including in an object-oriented programming language.
Years 3-4
Knowledge and Understanding: Digital systems
Explore and describe a range of digital systems and their peripherals for a variety of purposes.
Explore transmitting different types of data between digital systems.
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Generate, communicate and compare designs.
Years 5-6
Knowledge and Understanding: Digital systems
Investigate the main internal components of common digital systems and their function.
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Design a user interface for a digital system.
Years 7-8
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Design the user experience of a digital system.
Years 9-10
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Design and prototype the user experience of a digital system.
Years 3-4
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Follow and describe algorithms involving sequencing, comparison operators (branching) and iteration.
Years 5-6
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Design algorithms involving multiple alternatives (branching) and iteration.
Design a user interface for a digital system.
Years 7-8
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Design algorithms involving nested control structures and represent them using flowcharts and pseudocode.
Design the user experience of a digital system.
Years 9-10
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Design algorithms involving logical operators and represent them as flowcharts and pseudocode.
Design and prototype the user experience of a digital system.
Years 3-4
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Recognise different types of data and explore how the same data can be represented differently depending on the purpose.
Processes and Production Skills: Producing and implementing
Implement simple algorithms as visual programs involving control structures and input.
Years 5-6
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Explain how digital systems represent all data using numbers.
Explore how data can be represented by off and on states (zeros and ones in binary).
Processes and Production Skills: Producing and implementing
Implement algorithms as visual programs involving control structures, variables and input
Years 7-8
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Investigate how digital systems represent text, image and audio data using integers.
Explain how and why digital systems represent integers in binary.
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Trace algorithms to predict output for a given input and to identify errors.
Processes and Production Skills: Producing and implementing
Implement, modify and debug programs involving control structures and functions in a general-purpose programming language.
Years 9-10
Processes and Production Skills: Generating and designing
Validate algorithms and programs by comparing their output against a range of test cases.
Processes and Production Skills: Producing and implementing
Implement, modify and debug modular programs, applying selected algorithms and data structures, including in an object-oriented programming language.
Years 3-4
Processes and Production Skills: Evaluating
Discuss how existing and student solutions satisfy the design criteria and user stories.
Years 5-6
Processes and Production Skills: Evaluating
Evaluate existing and student solutions against the design criteria and user stories and their broader community impact.
Years 7-8
Processes and Production Skills: Evaluating
Implement, modify and debug programs involving control structures and functions in a general-purpose programming language.
Years 9-10
Knowledge and Understanding: Data representation
Investigate simple data compression techniques.
Years 3-4
Processes and Production Skills: Evaluating
Discuss how existing and student solutions satisfy the design criteria and user stories.
Years 5-6
Processes and Production Skills: Evaluating
Evaluate existing and student solutions against the design criteria and user stories and their broader community impact.
Years 7-8
Processes and Production Skills: Evaluating
Evaluate existing and student solutions against the design criteria, user stories and possible future impact.
Years 9-10
Processes and Production Skills: Evaluating
Evaluate existing and student solutions against the design criteria, user stories, possible future impact and opportunities for enterprise.