3D coding tools for kids and teens

Many children and teens want to create 3D coding projects such as games, animations, art and simulations. They are familiar with 3D from the games they play and naturally want to create 3D worlds. Coding develops computational thinking skills and 3D creation has the added bonus of developing important spatial cognition and spatial reasoning skills which are valuable for success in STEM and STEAM subjects. So we have a great synergy where young people are motivated to create projects that develop useful skills. 

I’ve spent the last few years working on 3D coding education for young people. First using tools in the classroom and when creating projects for Tech Age Kids, then creating educational resources at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and for the British Computing Society using Unity and the Unreal Editor for Fortnite. And more recently, creating Flock XR as the tool educators were asking us to make 3D coding accessible both to educators and to young people. 

I thought it would be useful to provide an overview of the space of 3D coding apps and tools for children and teens. 

Older 3D apps

This isn’t the first moment in history when educators have wanted to make 3D coding available to young people. There’s a lot to be said for tried and tested apps that come with a lot of history, research and refinement. 

• Kodu Game Lab is a 3D coding app from Microsoft from 2009. It is still available but it is built on older technologies and the official version has been archived. It’s useful if you have existing experience but probably not one to start with now. 

• Alice 3 is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), also from 2009, which offers block-based a path through to professional Java coding. It is still maintained. Note that Alice requires a large desktop download. It offers a route to Java programming but Java isn’t widely used in professional 3D tools. Storytelling Alice was based on Alice 2 and designed to appeal to middle school girls. 

A lot of educators have told me they want a modern version of Kodu or Alice built with modern technology and designed for the classroom and for younger learners. 

Brower-based apps

• Creaticode includes the whole of Scratch and then adds 3D features on. It’s a powerful tool with lots of features for older learners. Creaticode has free and paid features. 

• Delightex Edu (formerly Cospaces) focuses on building multimedia scenes and has a large library of 3D assets and you can import more. It also has coding features including block and text coding. Delightex has free and paid features. You need an account to access many features. 

• Flock XR offers block-based coding along with visual 3D tools. Flock XR has a small library of ‘low poly’ 3D objects and encourages learners to build their own 3D models if they want more. Code and 3D objects are kept synchronized so you can choose either approach for creation. Flock XR is free, zero-install, doesn’t require accounts and is open source. Flock XR was developed by educators and follows a universal-design for learning pedagogy. 

Game-based options

• Minecraft offers a commercial education-only product called Minecraft Education which is available in the classroom and includes block-based coding. Great for Minecraft fans. 

• Roblox Studio is a separate app where you can create Roblox games using the Lua programming language. Roblox has introduced tight regulations around who can share user-generated content (UGC) games that are available to younger audiences. This is an interesting option for older teens and young adults who want to create user generated content for the Roblox community. 

• Unreal Editor for Fortnite is a full games creation IDE and platform for creating games for the Fortnite platform. I was part of the team who created a project called Storytelling with Music using this technology. It offers visual building and the new Verse programming language from Epic games. It’s a full game engine and very powerful but there is a learning curve and there’s a slow feedback loop when developing. Suitable for older teens and young adults creating for the Fortnite platform. 

These tools can have strong appeal for some users but there’s a fix of dividing a class into the fans who have experience and enjoy that platform and those who have different experience and preferences. These tools can also have complex setup requirements and the need for accounts. There’s also a risk of distraction if learners can access other games or gaming features. 

Professional tools

Older teens and young adults with some previous experience may be ready for professional games engines. Note that games engines are increasingly used across many industries. Not just for creating games.

• Unity is a popular game engine with independent developers and smaller studios and has its own editor. I led the creation of the Unity path of projects for the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It’s a professional real-time 3D tool with lots of features, but with the right resources teens can get started with it. It uses the C# programming language from Microsoft. 

• Unreal is the games engine behind Fortnite and many AAA games. It’s powerful. It has an editor and currently uses the C++ programming language but its owner Epic Games has announced plans to move to the Verse programming language used by the Unreal Editor for Fortnite. 

• Godot is a newer open source games engine and editor which is very capable. It has a programming language that is similar to Python so could be a good option for older teens who have some experience with Python.

• Babylon.js is a professional web based 3D engine. It’s used to make lots of online retail experiences such as trainer configurators and indie (independent) games. Babylon.js uses JavaScript (or TypeScript), the programming language of the web. JavaScript is used for front end development and web-based apps including games. Flock XR is built using Babylon.js and there’s a natural transition.  

I’d caution against moving young people in the classroom to professional tools too soon. It can be frustrating and demotivating if they haven’t built up enough previous experience to be able to quickly get results from these tools. Even older teenagers without previous coding experience would benefit from using a block-based 3D coding tool to learn the concepts before moving to a professional tool. 

Why Flock XR?

At this point, I’m completely convinced that creating interactive real-time 3D projects is a really engaging and useful activity for children and young people. There are various tools that suit different times and purposes along that journey. Younger creators can develop valuable skills that will make it easier to transition to the professional tools used in industry where applications of spatial computing are growing. 

But before creating Flock XR, when talking about other 3D tools, as general purpose classroom coding tool for computing lessons, we always got “this is brilliant, but …”. 

The concerns educators have tend to be around: 

• ease of setup (accounts and installation), 

• cost once you need to go beyond the free features, 

• safeguarding (will others be able to contact young people others? is the app collecting children’s data?), 

• complexity of the first experience (for both educators and young people), 

• appeal to girls and creatives or those who don’t play a specific 3D game, 

• accessibility to learners with disabilities or additional needs

• our learners haven’t had much experience before so they’re not ready for the professional tools (but want to learn the concepts)

• are there resources for getting started?

We have designed Flock XR to fill a gap in the 3D coding tool landscape for a tool that is very quick and accessible to get started with but puts you on the path to using professional 3D games creation and real-time engines such as Unity, Unreal, Godot and Babylon.js. I’ve previously written about why block-based coding is valuable in the age of AI. 

Flock XR has been designed for young people from around age 7-14+. It’s fun for adult beginners too. 

You can use Flock XR for free at app.flockxr.com. Explore the build it demos and check out the hub for ways to get started creating projects. There’s also a free Flip Computing magazine with lots of info on creative computing and Flock XR.