Welcome to AntMe!

My name is Tom. Eight years ago I created the fun programming game AntMe! to act on my conviction that the shortage of skilled workers in our IT industry was related to the inadequate and outdated learning materials used by our education system. Students need to experience flashes of successes—it’s those moments of revelation when you see a concept in action and understand: I did that, and I know how I did it, that make learning fun and lead to enduring interest in the subject. And that’s exactly what makes AntMe! so successful. Students quickly begin writing their first lines of code and bringing the ants to life. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and it brings boys and, crucially, girls as well closer to IT in a playful way. My goal is to offer the game for free to schools and universities—but to do that, I need your support. If you’re a company that depends on well-trained IT experts, or if you train them yourself, then let’s discuss a sponsoring or investment package. I appreciate every kind of support.

The Advantages

    1. Playful, relaxed approach
    2. Fast learning minimizes barriers to entry
    3. The learning content is not imaginary – it’s directly applicable to daily work in the IT industry
    4. Solid pedagogical concept
    5. The combination of playful learning and solid computer science knowledge gives the game long-term relevance and appeal
    6. Reliable support for educational measures

The Opportunities

    1. Support and encourage the next generation
    2. Increase the presence of women in computer science and IT
    3. New educational material/concept

The Potential

We have many ideas about how to make AntMe! even more exciting. There are many new features waiting to be implemented. But to do that, we need time and we need money—and that’s why we also need you to help us advance AntMe!

Special thanks to our current supporters:

Microsoft GmbH // artiso solution GmbH // KUKA Roboter GmbH

What is AntMe!?

AntMe! is a free, fun game that teaches players object-oriented programming. It’s easy to pick up, it’s exciting, and despite being a game, it’s very relevant to real-world applications. You control your very own ant colony using real, professional code. You teach your ants how to master many challenges, like how to gather sugar and apples, how to defend their anthill and how to defeat the natural enemies of ants and programmers alike: bugs. From the very start, AntMe! teaches you how to code using a real programming language (C# and Visual Basic are currently supported). That means that you can immediately utilize your new knowledge to write working programs of your own. The game is based on a sound scientific foundation and is currently used with considerable success in a number of schools and universities.

How it works:

    1. Download the free AntMe! software in the download area.
    2. Install a development environment (also called an IDE—basically, it’s a program that you use to write other programs). We recommend Microsoft’s Visual Studio. Alternatively, you can use Sharp Develop, though it’s a bit less user-friendly. You can download both for free!
    3. You’ll find all the info, instructions and help you’ll need in our ever-growing wiki.

The Company

AntMe! GmbH was established on 30 June 2014 by me, Tom Wendel. I’m not only the lead developer on the current version of the game; I’ve been part of the project from the beginning ever since I created the AntMe! concept eight years ago.

The rest of the core team:

Dominik Bösl > Computer scientist focusing on robotics and trend research. Innovation Manager at KUKA. Dominik is responsible for investigating the scientific and pedagogical aspects of AntMe! Patric Boscolo > Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Cloud Computing and Developer Tools. As an IT business engineer, Patric builds bridges between business and technology. He helps ensure that the content of the game meets the technical needs of the IT and business world now and in the future.

We’re looking for:

For creating our educational materials and our documentation we need professional support from the fields of technical writing, education/pedagogy, foreign language correspondence and translation/interpreting. Contact us if you’re interested in teaming up with us to bring AntMe! to the world. Write to us at info@antme.net