Chance The Rapper’s advocacy for Chicago’s public schools is well-documented; from his donations to his political activism, Chance does as much as he can to help CPS students flourish. His latest effort comes in the form of a CPS student-designed video game called SuperMe, soundtracked by one of the songs from his The Big Day debut album, “I Love You So Much.” The game, which was coded by students during Computer Science Education Week with assistance from Google and Chance’s SocialWorks non-profit, sees players flying through a city collecting hearts as superheroes modeled after the kids who created the game.
Our heroes? The Chicago Public School students who coded their own superheroes in a game called SuperMe. 🦸 Here’s how @Googleorg, @chancetherapper, @SocialWorks, @CSforALL and @scratch are supporting their coding creations → https://t.co/LJRDdIzjc5 #CSEdWeek #CodewithGoogle pic.twitter.com/tdG6bBNPUE
— Google (@Google) December 9, 2019
In a Google blog post about the project, Chance wrote, “In 2017, with CS4All, Scratch, and a little help from Google, we told hundreds of kids from the South Side of Chicago they could do anything with code. Since then, we’ve been busy with teacher training, hosting family creative coding nights, and getting the whole community excited about what’s possible with code. Now the kids are coding. Seven elementary schools spent a bunch of time creating a game and drawing themselves as superheroes — that can fly! That can teleport! That collect hearts. All using code.”
He continued, “A few weeks ago, I saw their incredible work and am so proud of them that I decided their projects should be seen by the entire world… So today, the first day of Computer Science Education Week, I present you with — SuperMe, the official video game for ‘I Love You So Much’ (because anyone can make a music video).”
Chance also announced that the program would continue next year with a $250,000 grant from Google to support SocialWorks and CS4All. You can play SuperMe here.
