In January 2025, Flip Computing delivered a session for 24 young women from local Sunderland schools at the British Esports centre. The event was a collaboration of partners and friends in the 3D and computing education community. The girls were introduced to Unreal Editor for Fortnite and the 3D skills required to create their own islands. They also explored our ‘Storytelling with Music‘ island, funded by our Innovate UK grant.

Interactive and immersive 3D is a huge industry and is growing rapidly. The global virtual worlds market is expected to be worth 800 billion euros by 2030. UK job postings mentioning 3D have quadrupled in five years. Salaries in 3D are 30% above the UK average. However, most 3D creators are self-taught.

In England, we are currently letting our young people down by not providing them with the 3D skills that could lead them to a huge range of exciting careers. Flip Computing and other organisations like Ukie / Digital Schoolhouse, Computing At School, and Epic Games are championing 3D skills and want to see more of it in our classrooms.

The creative industries in Sunderland are growing. It is also home to the national esports performance campus which delivers esports training to young people in the area (amongst other things!). The esports centre seemed like the perfect location to train a group of young people in 3D skills.

Sunderland is also an area supported by computing consultant, Sarah Zaman, a friend of Flip Computing. Sarah liaised with the local schools in the area and arranged for them to attend the hackathon event. Sarah also supported the day with her energy and enthusiasm!

In 2024, Flip Computing developed a ‘Getting started with UEFN‘ course for Computing At School. This was supported by their funding from the Epic Mega Grant. Having tested the materials on a range of individuals, we wanted to test the course in a busy classroom setting.

The resources from Computing At School include:

• Lesson plans
• Slide decks
• Vocabulary sheets
• Worksheets
• Shortcut guides

The resources have been downloaded by over 870 teachers on their platform. We have also created a web-based version of the worksheet to support with delivery. 

The resources are broken down into four sessions:

• Build your world
• Code your world
• Personalise your world
• Share your world

The materials could be used in an afterschool enrichment club or on a single enrichment day. 

Learners develop the skills to build a 3D world in UEFN, add interactions using Verse code and personalise their world to really make it their own!

We were delighted that Steve Isaacs from Epic Games supported the event and spoke to the young people about Unreal Engine and UEFN. He also enjoyed watching a few battle royale moments during the day!

We were thankful to Epic Games for providing lunch for the young people and some swag for them to take home. 

We were also pleased to be supported by CAS and enjoyed hosting Becci Peters who spoke to the teachers about the amazing things that CAS has to offer. She also enjoyed seeing the resources in action and seeing the wide range of 3D worlds that could be made!

Our hosts at the British Esports centre were amazing. They were really helpful throughout the day and made the event feel really special for the young people. They even provided a tour of the facilities which was a treat! Lunch came from a local restaurant which provided a short screen break from 3D designing, although most of the girls were happily playing games in the lunch area! A big thank you to Tom Dore for letting us run our event in such a wonderful space.

Flip Computing is on a mission to improve the learning experiences of underestimated groups in technology education. We are a social mission company and try our best to meet young people where they are at and provide engaging, creative and collaborative materials for them to enjoy. We were really impressed by the range of 3D islands that were created and the level of detail that some of the young people had provided in their islands.

It is amazing what we can achieve when we collaborate with organisations who are all working towards the same mission. We will definitely be looking out for opportunities to run an event like this in the future. Next time though, we want to add in some showcases of different 3D careers! This is something that we are working on. 

Which 3D careers would you like to share with young people? Let us know in the comments.