Lake Minnetonka Whiz Kid Advances to the 'Highest Level'

Recently declared one of 12 national winners of the Youth Prize in the 2010 STEM Video Game Challenge, Tate Welty, a fifth grader at Orono's Intermediate School, is achieving a “high score” early in life.

Chosen from more than 500 entries, Welty's “Outstanding Math Game” won in the “Playable Game – Scratch Category” for its effective use of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) concepts. Scratch is a simple to use programming language that helps kids create computer animation and games.

Welty first learned about the competition and the programming language, Scratch, through his technology teacher, Pete Senske. It was no surprise to Senske that Welty did so well.

“He has really excelled in computer class since day one,” Senske said. “His drive to learn and explore is just one of the qualities that helped him to be successful with the Video Game Challenge. Tate never does just the minimum—he always takes assignments to the next level.”

Senske went on to describe the level of programming that Welty achieved in his game.

“The Scratch assignment all of our fifth graders completed required two characters and a limited amount of programming and testing,” he said. “By comparison, the Scratch game that Tate created for the contest contained more than 70 plus characters, multiple levels and a vast amount of programming and testing.”

Welty said that one of the purposes of “Outstanding Math Game” was to show kids that math is a part of everyday life.

“Math is something that you see every day, so I was kind of thinking of making math stand out a little more,” he said. “The game only asks math questions. It's just showing that math is everywhere—like the number of angles on a stop sign or the number of wheels on a car.”

 He continued, “My goal was to teach math, but also have it be fun.”

Welty's math game takes a player through a series of about ten “towns,” each named after a mathematical concept. After answering a series of mathematical questions based on that concept, the player succeeds to the next level or “town” and begins answering the next set of math questions. Once the player completes all the levels, he or she is greeted by a fire breathing “Math Monster” that pelts the player with more math questions until soundly defeated by correct answers.

According to Welty games can be a good educational tool.

“I think kids remember more when they have fun doing it,” he explained. “Like if you play on a math game like mine, you might go – Oh, yeah, I remember when I was playing against the dragon that there was some of this algebra, and I'm learning algebra now, so I remember how to do a little bit of that.”

Patricia Welty, Tate's mom, describes her son as hardworking, determined and very focused.

“He was so positive throughout the process, and he was just so passionate about seeing it through,” she said. “He was very determined and committed.”

“I think he's very excited not just for himself, but also for the school as well,” she went on to say describing his feelings after winning his own personal lap top and 2000 dollars for Senske's technology classes.

Senske said he showed the winners video from www.stemchallenge.org to all his classes (800 students).

“It was great for the younger students to look up to someone for his academic excellence and intellectual capabilities,” he said. “Tate is an awesome kid and a great representative for our school and district. I look forward to reading about his continued success in the future.”

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