User:Claudeshannon/sandbox/Code Phreaks

Code Phreaks

Code Phreaks was a Chicago-based youth club and informal learning space significant for having promoted computer programming skills at a time when CS education was not yet offered in schools.

Code Phreaks began in the mid 2000s as "Game Maker Academy," a series of workshops developed to nurture foundational programming concepts and digital literacy skills within a computer game design context. The initial meetings were hosted at the Wilmette (IL) Public Library and the Warming House, a nearby youth center. The popularity and rapid growth of the group soon incurred the hostility of the Wilmette librarians, and so the group (now known as "Code Phreaks") relocated to Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, where it was hosted by the Howard Area Community Center and later the Northtown Branch of the Chicago Public Library.

The club's meetings were organized as informal, learner-centered workshops within the constructionist tradition, and were inspired in part by the example of seminal hacker spaces such as the People's Computer Center and the Homebrew Computer Club. The earliest programs focused upon Logo, Java, and the Game Maker platform created by Mark Overmars of Utrecht University. Additional programs were soon offered, using platforms such as Scratch, Alice, Robocode, Starlogo, and a variety of open source media editing tools. In time, Code Phreaks workshops were offered at youth centers and libraries through north Chicago and its suburbs.