Enjoy playing video games? Make your very own video game with sprites, sounds and enemies. Share your game with friends and family. No programming experience required!

Take the first steps to becoming a video game designer! Build a 2D game with sprites, backgrounds, sounds and projectiles. Take home your own game on a CD along with the software to share with your friends and family.

Agile Software Development is a new approach to software development that has become increasingly popular over the last decade. Agile software values individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and responding to change over following a plan (Manifesto for Agile Software Development, http://agilemanifesto.org/). Agile software approaches have been widely adopted by start-up companies and by large, innovative firms such as Google. This class will focus on providing participants with hands-on experiences that illustrate key agile principles such as: *Working on the highest priority items, as specified by the customer, at all times *Continuously delivering software throughout the engagement *Focusing on adapting to change instead of following a plan *Permitting the customer to change, add, or delete requirements throughout the software development process *Periodic self-reflection and self-improvement *Valuing working software above else *Emphasizing a sustainable development environment *Developing a strong bond with users

In this mini-course, youŽll learn how to use your Internet browser to access the Internet, save and organize links to your favorite pages, navigate sites, and print Web pages. YouŽll also learn how to locate information and people online by accessing directories, libraries, and newsgroups, and how to conduct effective searches in search engines such as Google. Finally, youŽll learn to set up and use a free online email account.

Design and build your own BEAM robot (acronym for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics) and share it with friends and family. Learn engineering techniques to solder your BEAM robot with glue guns and more.

Design and build your own BEAM robot (acronym for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics) and share it with friends and family. Learn engineering techniques to solder your BEAM robot with glue guns and more.

In this hands-on introduction to image manipulation and editing using Photoshop CS3, you will learn to prepare, alter and improve images for desktop publishing and the Web through use of Photoshop color, selection and editing tools such as the lasso, magic wand, color picker, clone tool and healing brush. Lessons and practice exercises will include selecting, converting and resizing images, correcting color, retouching, creating type, working with layers and basic web graphics.

Prerequisite: basic computer skills (including file management) required, but no previous imaging experience necessary.

This course is designed to help drafters gain theory and hands-on experience on Auto-CAD 2008. Beginning students with minimal or no CAD experience will learn the fundamentals of how to effectively create drawings. Students will practice on several tutorial style drawings and several hours will be devoted to plotting/printing in scale. Students who have previous experience with AutoCAD programs will learn how to utilize the latest AutoCAD enhancements, toolbars and menus. They will be able to increase productivity through customizing toolbars and using the latest shortcuts. Knowledge of drafting is required.

This course introduces students to IBM compatible personal computers. Students will also be introduced to word processing, spreadsheets, the Internet, and email in the Windows environment. The course is designed for students who know little or nothing about computers. This is a hands-on course with only one student working at each terminal.

Explore the basics of creating a storyline and animated graphics. Create your own animated cartoon and share with friends and family. No programming experience required. Limit: 16 participants

Explore the 2-D video game design process and publish a simple Game to share with friends and family. No programming experience required. Limit: 16 participants

Conduct a science experiment to build a fuel cell car! Explore the science of next generation transportation vehicles that help the environment. Learn principles of renewable energy and zero-emissions transportation!

This course is designed for computer literate students who would like to expand their ability to use MS Word. Topics will include formatting paragraphs, line breaks, styles, headers and footers, sorting, tables, formulas and columns. Prerequisite: An introductory course in Word at Minuteman or elsewhere, or familiarity with the basics of how to use Word.

This course will teach the foundations of website design, taught from scratch. We will not be relying on any expensive helper programs -- once youŽre finished with this class, you wonŽt need them. This course will teach how to build all the standard elements of a website, from simple line breaks to polygonal hyperlinks. No experience necessary.

Powerpoint, included in Microsoft Office, or available separately, is the most highly rated presentation program for onscreen computer presentations. In this hands-on course, you will learn how to create slide layouts and master templates, add and edit text, use images, charts and graphs, and explore a variety of animation and transition techniques. During class, you will develop and organize a complete slideshow presentation, and learn how to take it on the road successfully.

Students will receive an in-depth introduction to business planning and calculating using the integrated electronic spreadsheet Excel in a Windows environment. This is a hands-on course with only one student working at each terminal. Students will produce sample spreadsheets, databases and graphs.

Prerequisite: familiarity with the use of Windows.

This course will provide participants with instruction on each of the four key components of Microsoft Office: Word (for word processing); Excel (for spreadsheets); Power-Point (presentations) and Access (databases). Three classes of instruction will be devoted to Word, Excel and Access, and two classes to PowerPoint. This is a hands-on course with only one student working at each terminal. Prerequisite: ability to operate a PC and knowledge of how to use Windows.

Learn word processing using the popular Microsoft Word for Windows. This course is designed with the beginner in mind. No knowledge of the computer is necessary. Learn the skills necessary to produce correspondence for your home or office use including letters, reports, memos, etc.

Knowledge of how to use QuickBooks on your computer will provide you with an easy, efficient and inexpensive way to do such tasks as payroll, vendor bills, invoicing, estimating and project costing for your small business. It also tracks your checking accounts, and automatically updates your account balances. You’ll be introduced to these and other features of QuickBooks.

Prerequisite: Familiarity with how to use the Windows operating system.

Design flip-book style, animated sprites for your video games or stories. Publish them online and share them with your friends. No programming experience required. Limit: 16 participants

This course will cover a variety of Flash essentials--from understanding the tools and timeline, to animation, and some light ActionScript coding. Learn how to make a banner ad, a short movie, and even some game design tricks. No prior experience necessary!