Bringing Together Cosplay and Coding in High School

On one particular Saturday inside Compass Community Collaborative School in northern Colorado, the scene is quite different from a typical school day: Young people are playing a Mario Kart tournament in one classroom while participants play Dungeons & Dragons in another. In the cafeteria, student vendors sell keychains, figurines, and art prints. In the main hallway, Star Wars characters engage in lightsaber battles with medieval knights and mushroom fairies. Princess Bubblegum offers advice to a Fallout Vault-Dweller on the perfect stage walk. Onstage, preparations are underway for a cosplay contest.

The school has been transformed into a comic-con (comic convention): a gathering of pop-culture fans where many dress as their favorite characters to celebrate the fictional worlds that unite us. Compass Comic-Con is more than a Saturday event; it’s the culmination of a project-based learning (PBL) experience, in which students infuse engineering skills with costume design and event planning to bring the community together.

The Art and Science of Cosplay

At Compass, high school students can participate in a venture course titled “The Art and Science of Cosplay.” Cosplay, a mash-up of the words costume and play, describes the practice of dressing up and embodying characters from fan-favorite media, including popular video games, anime, films, TV shows, and comics. It is a popular hobby that involves rich problem-solving, self-expression, and a meaningful way for youth to connect with others.

The school applied for a grant from the Colorado Department of Education aimed at increasing diversity in computer science and used the funds to create a course where students learn Python programming two days a week and study costume design and event planning for the other three days. The grant helped to jumpstart the program, and the course now self-funds with revenue from the annual comic-con.

Nature of the class: Aligned to standards in both visual arts and computer science, this course weaves costume design, event planning, computer science, and engineering skills into a semester-long experience culminating in a student-led comic-con and tech-infused cosplays.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, students learn costuming skills, including sewing, foamwork, pattern use and creation, painting, sculpting, and creating process journals (often referred to as build books).

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, students take an introduction to computer science class (this may be offered for credit through the local community college). This course follows a typical Introduction to Python Coding syllabus, with modifications made to the final assessment. For the final, students create a coded component for their costumes. Past projects have included light-up wands, a Ghostbusters Proton Pack, and robotic wings.

Finally, students spend Fridays planning for the comic-con. The students are divided up into groups for each aspect of the con: vendor communication and outreach, activity planning, and marketing, which includes the comic-con’s social media presence and website.

Although the venture schedule allows almost nine hours a week for this interdisciplinary class, everyone feels the pinch of “con crunch”—those last-minute preparations to finish a costume, finalize the schedule for the comic-con, and polish up the build book before the big day.

Finally, the big weekend arrives, and the comic-con can get underway! Vendors pay a fee to rent a table at the con, and Compass School transforms a couple of rooms into vendor halls. Students recruit vendors by distributing literature at other local conventions and art fairs, as well as by networking with other event organizers. They also recruit a food truck to attend the con.

The school charges an entry fee for the public to attend and enjoy the day’s activities, such as movie marathons, panel discussions, gaming, meet-and-greets with experienced cosplayers, crafting, scavenger hunts, browsing the vendor hall, and more. Libraries, schools, and art clubs may be good places to publicize the comic-con. Working with a parent or community member who is an experienced event planner can be a big plus. Income from the vendor fees and badge sales funds the Art and Science of Cosplay class for the following year, providing sustainability for the future.

Getting Started

Interested in integrating cosplay with computer science at your school? Here are some ideas to get you started. We also maintain a list of resources and ideas.

Procure supplies: Sewing machines, fabrics (thrifted sheets can make fantastic costume fabrics, and patterns are often available at thrift shops too), some 5 mm EVA foam, contact cement, Mod Podge, hot glue, and some acrylic paints can handle many costuming demands. The students also place an emphasis on responsible material use, opting to thrift and scavenge many of the materials to make a cosplay. Students have created gowns and bodysuits out of old bed sheets and swords from upholstery foam.

Reach out to the cosplay community: The local cosplay community is enthusiastic about helping new learners get started; guest teachers often attend classes to share their expertise in sewing, foamwork, painting, and competition tips. Local cosplayers can provide recommendations for supplies, and they may be willing to consider teaching a school workshop. Local cosplayers have also been very supportive of jumpstarting a new comic-con; students learn how to communicate with the cosplay community to negotiate the terms of staffing a table and judging the cosplay contest.

Choose your coding platform: You can start with block coding using low-cost BBC Micro:bit or teach Python and use either Micro:bit or a CircuitPython-based microcontroller. We favor Adafruit’s QT Py.

Accessorize with electronics: Wearable electronics should include lights, such as NeoPixels, as well as servos and audio devices, like piezo buzzers. NeoPixels are programmable, multicolored LEDs that come in a variety of formats, from single pixels to strips to matrices. For costuming purposes, look for soft, flexible wires that provide improved durability in wearable applications.

Involve student interests: Students love discussing their favorite “fandoms,” including video games, movies, books, and web comics. Encourage them to create a costume that immerses them in that fandom and then add their own personal touch to it. A cosplay doesn’t have to be a perfect match for a character to be enjoyable to create and fun to wear. For example, students may enjoy making a Spider-Man–Batman mashup or a human version of a My Little Pony character. Students should make a “cosplan” with a materials list and put together a timeline.

Document, document, document: This is an essential part of creating a cosplay; teach students how to create a build book to document their progress and share their artistry with others. Many cosplayers have excellent tutorials for making build books. At Compass School, students were required to provide the following:

• Reference photos or sketches for what they were trying to achieve
• The backstory of the character and why it was meaningful to the cosplayer
• Process photos that showed the progress of the build
• Bulleted text that highlighted techniques used and skills learned
• Evidence that answered the question “How did you do that?”

Build books require specialized communication skills. A contest judge should be able to review a build book in minutes and have their questions answered about how the costume was constructed. Brevity, organization, and clarity are key.

Begin with the assessment in mind: Compass assesses students in four competencies related to the course progress: cosplay crafting, including the planning, budgeting, technique, and quality; documentation, which is mainly the build book, reference image set, and character backstory; comic-con planning, including documenting their role and meeting deliverables; and engineering skill, meaning completing the coding assignments according to specifications and applying those skills in a final project.

Student response

The student response to the course and comic-con has been overwhelmingly positive; the interdisciplinary, project-based learning experience goes far beyond what students get from siloed classes. The costume construction helps students build confidence and communication skills, develop experience with new art techniques, and create a sense of community and belonging. After years of an unchanging gender division in computer science and engineering classes, the balance flipped with the addition of this new class.

Many students received their first college credits through the Python course—a class they would not have signed up for without the cosplay component. Before The Art and Science of Cosplay was offered, 70 percent of the students in Compass’ Computer Science and Engineering courses were male. In The Art and Science of Cosplay, that number is about 35 percent, which reflects the gender balance of the cosplay community at large. It’s been invigorating to draw students into computer science who normally don’t see themselves represented there. As one student reported, “It was really cool to combine coding and art! I think it allowed for a diverse set of skills that we learned and was able to cater to both more ‘artsy’ kids and more ‘techy’ kids.”