virtual Creative Coding Fest

CC Fest is a free and friendly event for anyone curious about creative code! Will you join us?

On Sunday, September 28, 2025, from 9 am to 1 pm PDT (-7 UTC) join us on Zoom for a virtual creative coding fest. We’ll make interactive and engaging digital art, animation, and games, work with AI or hardware, and explore other options in various workshops. Hear from our keynote speakers on important and timely topics related to creative coding!

We welcome:

• Students, artists, hobbyists, creatives, and tinkerers who are curious to learn

• Educators and community organizers who are looking for inspiration

• Everyone who would like to learn more about creative code and our community

Saber Khan is organizing the event. If you have any questions, you can email mrkhanatndv@gmail.com.

You can donate as you RSVP below. Funds will be used to cover the cost of the event, Zoom license and offering small stipends to presenters and keynotes.

RSVP below

Schedule (all times PDT -7 UTC)

(More details to come)

Welcome and Opening Keynote 9 to 9:30 am

Workshop Round 1 9:30 to 10:30 am

Break / Teacher Camp Info Session / Networking 10:30 to 11:00 am

Workshop Round 2 11:00 am to 12:00 pm

Closing Keynote and Goodbye 12:00 to 12:30 pm 

Keynotes

Workshops (1 Hour)

Teaching and Learning with Web Spinner by Caleb Foss

Web Spinner is an in-development web content building tool designed by an educator to improve the coding learning experience. For those familiar with p5.js, as that project has shifted focus to more technically complex areas, Web Spinner offers a more beginner-friendly alternative. This session will demonstrate how the tool can be used in coding lessons, and it will highlight some special features including its simple process for creating multiple canvases, click event listeners on canvas shapes, and live property value viewing for debugging.

Beginner

Caleb Foss (they/them) is an artist and educator who develops mess-making systems using media technologies. They make software, games, videos, digitally-fabricated objects, and multimedia performances. Foss' methods draw from amusement parks and magic tricks, and their work seeks opportunities for amorphousness in the future of human media interactions. Their work has been showcased in film festivals including Chicago Underground, Imagine Science (Brooklyn), and FRACTO (Berlin) as well as Hand Eye Society's WordPlay Festival for writing in games (Toronto) and BitBash at the Chicago Humanities Festival. They are an Assistant Professor of Web Development, Design, and Social Media at Joliet Junior College.

Art, Code & Storytelling with p5.js by Missy Cooper

This session explores how creative coding can reveal hidden layers in art and storytelling. Through a live demo, Missy will show how images and poetry can be interactively “peeled back” using p5.js, mirroring the process of uncovering symbolism and meaning in visual art. Beginners are welcome, no coding experience required.

Beginner

Missy Cooper (she/her) is an artist, technologist, and educator from Port Orange, Florida. Her work blends classical portraiture, symbolic abstraction, and poetry with interactive technology. A former curriculum developer at Girls Who Code and longtime arts educator, she creates experiences that explore mental health, identity, and the hidden emotional layers we all carry. Missy is the founder of Quiet Legacy Collective, where she develops digital tools and immersive art experiences that bring creativity, code, and community together. She is also the Founder of The Coop: Social Club, a nonprofit community hub dedicated to reducing isolation among autistic adults, neurodivergent individuals, and seniors.

When she's not at home with her husband and 3 boys, she can be found reading, playing cozy games or putting something together somewhere.

Spatial p5 – Live-Coding for Mixed Reality with p5.js by Tibor Udvari

Spatial p5 is an open-source toolkit that combines p5.js, p5.xr, and P5 LIVE to simplify real-time prototyping for mixed reality. This session begins with a live-coding demonstration on a Meta Quest 3 headset, then guides participants through creating their own interactive sketches using the browser-based immersive web simulator. The workshop highlights Spatial p5’s approach to collaborative, accessible, and creative coding in XR environments.

Intermediate

Tibor Udvari (he/him) is a creative technologist based in Lausanne, Switzerland. He teaches in the Master Visual Knowledge program at HEAD – Genève and collaborates on web projects with his associate, Amaury Hamon. His practice often involves creating interactive applications in partnership with designers and artists, combining technical expertise with an interdisciplinary approach.

He holds an MA in Media Design from HEAD – Genève and previously led the technology center at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, where he supported innovative projects exploring new and emerging technologies. His work has been shown internationally, including at the World Fair in Milano, and has received recognition through awards such as The Most Beautiful Swiss Books from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture.

Tracing the Storyline by Jesal Mehta

In a time when AI gives us any written output on demand, but is still un-human and flavourless, let's go back to a roll-the-dice story generator. We will use Tracery to construct the template of a story, and generate whimsical and silly variations based on that. The story can be expanded to be as complex as one wants it to be, though we will begin with a simple one line story. Later, I will walk participants through launching these on their own github page or other avenues.

Beginner

Jesal Mehta is a designer, educator and maker working across the overlap of design, art and code. He works with materials and processes, like paper and wood, knotwork and weaving, etc. Digital fabrication forms a large part of his practice as well. He works with code, using processing and p5.js to make generative art while exploring visuals based on interaction, mathematical concepts and data visualisations. He also works with sensors and interactive electronics, an aspect which received a major boost after he participated in the FabAcademy program that led him to more interactive electronics and machine making. After practicing Industrial Design for a while, he has decided to teach, and leads the Tangible Products and Technology vertical at the Somaiya School of Design, Mumbai. His current personal interest is bringing generative art into the physical realm as objects, interactions and experiences. He also has an abiding interest in weaving and drawing machines. Apart from design and making, he is a student of history, occasional poet, and sometime cyclist.

Closing the Circle by Jesal Mehta

This workshop traces a workflow that starts with a physical or analog input, digitized, transformed code using p5.js into weird and wonderful variants, and then the results brought back to the physical through digital fabrication or other processes. We will start with a real input - a smear of paint, a sketched out shape - that is digitized and uploaded. We then apply some algorithms to manipulate this or use it as a base for generating different visuals. Finally, we export the result as an image or vector. The vector can be later used as input for digital fabrication processes like laser-cutting, plotter art, 3d printing, etc. Apart from this exercise, we will look at other workflows along similar lines, with examples using varying inputs, algorithms and outputs.

Beginner

Jesal Mehta (he/him) is a designer, educator and maker working across the overlap of design, art and code. He works with materials and processes, like paper and wood, knotwork and weaving, etc. Digital fabrication forms a large part of his practice as well. He works with code, using processing and p5.js to make generative art while exploring visuals based on interaction, mathematical concepts and data visualisations. He also works with sensors and interactive electronics, an aspect which received a major boost after he participated in the FabAcademy program that led him to more interactive electronics and machine making. After practicing Industrial Design for a while, he has decided to teach, and leads the Tangible Products and Technology vertical at the Somaiya School of Design, Mumbai. His current personal interest is bringing generative art into the physical realm as objects, interactions and experiences. He also has an abiding interest in weaving and drawing machines. Apart from design and making, he is a student of history, occasional poet, and sometime cyclist.

AI Mirror Play by ash herr

Lets explore how AI "sees" - using AI! We'll use LLMs to create playful mirrors/reflections that can reveal how machines see and interpret our world.

Beginner

Ash Herr (she/they), known online as @empowa, is an artist whose work explores personal growth and identity through the lens of the evolving internet. Based in San Francisco, Ash is the founder of tiat, a nonprofit dedicated to creating new intersections between art and technology by supporting and showcasing experimental new media art. Their practice blends digital culture, community building, and creative expression, with a focus on how technology shapes our inner lives and shared futures.

Power of the Portrait by Lisa Hauser

Join Code/Art for a hands-on workshop at the intersection of art and coding!
Educators will create self-portraits using JavaScript, explore a gallery of student-coded portraits, and learn practical strategies for classroom implementation. The session also highlights Code/Art’s all-girls self-portrait coding competition, showing how a single lesson can spark creativity, broaden participation, and reshape how students—especially girls—see computer science. No experience required—beginners welcome!

Beginner

Lisa Hauser is the Chief Learning Officer at Code/Art with over 24 years of experience teaching computer science and mathematics in Miami public schools. A passionate advocate for increasing female representation in tech, Lisa was instrumental in launching Code/Art, driven by her belief that coding and computer science should be accessible to all students as powerful tools for change. In 2021, Lisa was honored with the Educational Innovation Abie Award by Anitab.org for her contributions to expanding opportunities for women in computer science.

Computational Thinking and Comics: The Magic of Fractal Gridding by Ecy Femi King

Imagine if we could bring more computational thinking, art, joy, laughter, and learning science to students through the power of fractals and comics. This workshop introduces the concept of Fractal Gridding Comics—a novel visual learning method that blends creativity, math, and cognitive science alongside computational thinking principles such as abstraction, and decomposition. Using the Fractal Gridding method, we will explore how to create classroom content such as syllabi, study guides, and visual libraries while incorporating computational thinking and other cognitive science and design principles.

Beginner

Ecy Femi King was born in Scotland, raised in California’s Central Valley (Fresno/Clovis), and her family is from Sierra Leone. She recently graduated from Stanford University with a BS with Distinction in Symbolic Systems (Human-Centered AI, 2023) and an MS in Computer Science (HCI, 2024). Currently, she works at McGraw Hill as a Data Scientist.

Ecy (pronounced AC) is very passionate about education, learning, teaching, STEAM, and this novel visual thinking methodology called Fractal Gridding. She is the author of the award-winning “Bit by Bit” (Stanford University Press, 2024), an educational Computer Science (CS) comic book exploring introductory CS. She also wrote “Una Kushε” (2024), a comic-style guide for creating warm and welcoming CS classroom environments with a Pan-African theme. The latter has been used in Stanford's section leading training curriculum; the former has been recognized by Fast Company as one of the most innovative student designs. Both comics are formatted in the Fractal Gridding medium, a comic style which King pioneered. Ecy also enjoys doodling, writing, coding, pan-Africanism, visual thinking, music, puns, joyful conversations, and of course, Fractal Gridding everything and anything she can.

Digital Quilting Circle by Tess Ramsey

Let’s sew some digital quilts using code! In this workshop, we will discuss strategies for integrating Fiber Art and Computer Science and you will learn how to manipulate assets in p5.js to mimic beautiful quilted textiles. Attendees will each make one quilt square that shares a story or references a core memory. Then, we will compile our squares into one big CCFest quilt.

Beginner

Tess Ramsey (they/them) is an artist and educator based in New York City. They are a champion of project-based learning and interdisciplinary collaboration with experience building and managing multiple makerspace programs. In 2025, Tess received the national CSTA and Infosys Computer Science Teaching Excellence Award for their work igniting passion for technology through the lens of art and self-expression.

Tess is a CSTA IMPACT Fellow Alum committed to providing access to technology education and fostering a sense of belonging for all students in these spaces. Before becoming a teacher, Tess received a BFA in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art, where they promoted gender equity through performance art. In addition to teaching, they love to knit and search for rare vintage virtual pets to add to their ever growing collection.

Your first Creative Coding Class - In a Post LLM world by Akanksha Vyas

Teachers across the globe are struggling to understand what "teaching" and "learning means in a post LLM world. This is truly applicable to creative coding. In this session I will discuss an approach where we lean into these tools and embrace them in teaching creative coding to complete beginners — guiding them to use AI effectively while building strong fundamentals. I’ll share my approach with a special focus on the first class, talk though my experience, and showcase some inspiring student work.

Intermediate

Akanksha Vyas (she/her) is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Pinky Promise, an AI-powered digital clinic for women’s health, where women can connect with a Doctor and get care immediately. She leads the development of proprietary AI/ML tools—bringing fast, affordable, and accessible care to every woman in India.

Akanksha is also Visiting Faculty at Design Institutions across Mumbai (NMIMS, KJ Somaiya, Ecole Intuit Lab) since 2018, with a focus on technology for designers. She has taught courses on Intro to Coding, Blockchain and NFT's, Emerging Technologies, Design Research, and Make your Own LLMs. Along with this, she leads a Women X Code community in Mumbai. She loves building things. In her free time she works at a bookshop.

3D printing with p5.fab! by Blair Subbaraman

p5.fab is a Javscript library to control digital fabrication machines using creative code. In this workshop, we’ll introduce p5.fab and work through 3D printing examples to make physical things with creative code!

Beginner

Blair’s (he/him) work explores physical automation as a creative medium. He’s most interested in how domain experts like artists and scientists can leverage their existing skills when using machines. Blair is a PhD student at the University of Washington where he works in the Machine Agency.

Vibecoding and CS Education - An open conversation by Paul Way

This emergence of generative AI tools for writing and editing code has revolutionized the process of building software. What does this mean for CS Education? How do we best develop critical thinking skills and build student knowledge of CS? How do we prepare students for the rapidly changing landscape? How do we balance deep learning with use of generative AI. What are your favorite new tools and workflows? This session will consist of a short presentation and student examples followed by an open discussion.

Intermediate

Paul Way (he/him) is a 24-year veteran educator and the Upper School Technology Coordinator, and Innovation & Technology department chair at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica. With a deep passion for empowering students through hands-on experience, Paul’s passion is in putting emerging technologies directly into students’ hands to spark creativity and innovation. He co-founded a thriving annual hackathon for independent schools and continues to lead cutting-edge programs in computer science, engineering, and digital fabrication. Paul’s work bridges technical skill-building with real-world relevance, inspiring the next generation of makers and problem-solvers.

Stringing worms with type & code by Sai Ram Ved Vijapurapu

Take a few lines of text and bestow lifelike motion on them. Using p5.js, we’ll look at how to measure the width of each character, space them out, and use a bit of math to keep each one stringed to the next. At the end, we'll have a kinetic type animation.

Intermediate

Sai Ram Ved Vijapurapu (he/him) is an information designer crafting delightful experiences with data & technology who draws inspiration from natural phenomena, often using code as a means to that end. In the past, his work has been recognised and celebrated by CultureHub, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Bangalore International Center and Information is Beautiful, among others. Sai is currently at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program where he continues to evolve his practice by imbuing interactivity in his work.