iD News and Blog

2008 Ultimate Gaming Weekend Champions!

Congratulations to our 2008 Ultimate Gaming Weekend Champions!

Banditz, Zach M. from University of Washington and

Gh0stfaceK1llah, Chris S. from the University of Central Florida

These two amazing gamers, attended our Ultimate Gaming Weekend program and achieved the status, nay, the very pinnacle of success that defined the Ultimate Gaming Weekend Gamer.

Battling the minions who dared to challenge them in the arena of multiplayer gaming, they came out victorious. Foe after foe slayed by the mighty left and right mouse button, they ignored the cries of misery and instead rallied behind the mighty power of “PWND”.

On behalf of all of us at iD Tech Camps, we want to congratulate you for all of your hard work and dedication to the sport of gaming!

 

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San Mateo Daily Journal – July 9th, 2008

Computer Camp Teaches Children New Technology

By Heather Murtaugh

Flocks of sheep can fly and talk with Scottish accents.

Well not in day-to-day life, but those are common sights in 12-year-old Eric Snyder’s modification of video games, also known as modding. Actually, Snyder does not yet know how to give the sheep the accents. But the flock is definitely soaring overhead. Learning to create these different situations in an existing video game is just one lesson students can choose to pursue at iD Tech Computer Camps. The camp is offered in 23 states, Washington, D.C. and through a study abroad program in Spain to students 7 to 17 years old. In our ever-changing technology-driven society, many of the skills children learn at an early age can be put to use for professions in the future.

Or in the case of 14-year-old Nick Peterson from Burlingame, those skills can be used straight away. Peterson first signed up for camp four years ago. The first two years he opted to go during the day. This year and last year he stayed over night. Each session gave Peterson the ability to build on tech skills.

During his various camp sessions, Peterson has taken digital video, Web design, special effects and gaming design.

He’s been able to use his video skills as a sort of side job.

“I love camp, and I learn a lot,” he said near the end of his one-week session.

ID Camps average about six students per staff with only adult staff. Additionally, each student has their own computer in which to work. Camps are partnered with over 50 universities – locally with Stanford University. Through the week, students learn skills such as web design, animation and Flash through projects.

Foster City resident Sandra Kung, 11, was able to build a Web site about puppies. She picked the topic because she really wants a dog but can’t have one.

Kung previously attended a different technology camp. She left it unimpressed and brought those same apprehensions to the first day of camp in Palo Alto this year. She was pleasantly surprised, however. Kung plans to help her friends design Web sites.

Fourteen-year-old Stephanie Lee designed a site about soccer. She plays for a local club team as a defender.

“It’s fun to be able to create [a Web site]. It’s a lot of fun and it’s cool to see when you finish,” said Lee as she showed various aspects to her soccer Web site.

Although the focus is on technology, it is still a camp, explained Lead Instructor Dory Abrams.

“It’s really fun but also educational,” she said. “It’s a hard balance, but we manage to pull it off.”

There’s special activities planned each night for the students like movie night, talent show and an ice breaker event where staff introduces themselves using costumes and funny skits.

Students also have set time away from the computers in the afternoon to play games and sports.

Participating in camp can be rewarding for the staff was well.

Director Lydia “Big Apple” Luxama teaches ninth grade English during the school year. This is her ninth camp season, and the sixth with iD Camps. As her time with the company expanded and grew, so did her opportunities, she explained. Luxama began as an instructor. Today she is the director at the Palo Alto location.

For Luxama, a big component of camp is enhancing the children as individuals. Students get tickets for things like working well with others or helping another person. Those tickets go into a raffle at the end of the week.

Eleven-year-old Paul Touma from Atherton had a lot of tickets stored in the lanyard around his neck holding his ID. Touma was participating in a special camp allowing him to choose a sport - in his case tennis - to participate in half the time with the rest of his camp focused on technology.

Touma was nervous to attend camp, which he regretted by the end of camp since he made so many friends.

Learning to create the games was easier than Touma had originally thought, at least once he got into it. He created a basic shooting game. Once home, Touma most likely will not make additional games since he simply does not have access to the software.

Creating first-person shooting games has a certain amount of violence build into it. The camp, however, has a patch on the software preventing students from creating games with certain violent actions, explained Counselor Emily “Thumper” Lindsay.

Lindsay joined the staff from Canada and teaches 3-D game design and game modding. Some of her students also create a puzzle game. Each has the chance to stump Thumper with their game. Students take turns attempting to stump each other as well, she said. Teleporters seem to be very popular with the students.

Sean Morgenthaler, 12, used his skills to modify games to make games he owns harder, he said.

Morgenthaler , from Portola Valley, began taking the classes in 2004 because he really likes computers. He definitely sees himself working in the computer science industry later in life.

“This is a fun place to go and do what you like,” he said. “It’s a lot different from some of the other computer camps. You have freedom. They give you guidelines, but you can use your imagination.”

For more information visit www.internaldrive.com.

 

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The La Jolla Village News – July 19, 2008

iD Tech Camps Weave Web of Learning for Kids

By Dave Thomas

Just because school is out for the summer does not mean students are not learning. One local tech camp is making sure students learn and have fun at the same time.

The iD Tech Camps, which include offerings locally at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), make available weeklong sessions for day and overnight, beginner to advanced students, ages 7 to 17, at more than 50 prestigious universities in 23 states and Spain. The local camp, which is in its ninth year in La Jolla, will run through Aug. 8 at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Students learn how to create video games, experience game modding, improve gaming skills, build robots, design Web sites with Flash, produce digital movies, create comic books, learn programming and more.

As a result of attending iD Tech Camps, the student’s self-esteem improves as he or she returns to school and incorporates the learned technology into school projects and extracurricular hobbies. Oftentimes these students are mentors for other students and even teachers.

Every camper has his/her own computer and there is an average of six students per staff member.

Campers also get exposed to university life as they are on campus, work in the lab and eat in the cafeteria. Overnight campers sleep in the dorms.

At UCSD, students can also take a Surf & Tech program in which they spend half the day learning to surf and the other half making a Web site or creating a video game.

A number of local students are partaking in the learning and fun this summer, including Liberty and Montana Ruderman of La Jolla.

The two said they have learned how to make Web sites and flash animation. They first put the images together in Photoshop and then used Dreamweaver to create the code for their very own Web site.

Asked why they are attending the camp, they noted that they have their own Web site and their dad wanted them to get experience making Web sites while having fun at camp.

The two said the best thing to date at camp so far was flash animation, with Montana adding, “I made my character wave.”

La Jollan Kasi Ladjevardi is also attending this summer, noting that last year she came to this camp and made a cool video game.

“This week I’m making a Web page and animating a character in flash,” Ladjevardi said.

Asked the best thing about camp so far, Ladjevardi noted the help given by the instructor.

“She showed me how to animate my character,” Ladjevardi added.

Norby Cisneros of San Diego said that making a really cool comic book was fun.

“I also learned how to use the computer keyboard and mouse,” Cisneros said. “I used the Wacom tablet to draw pictures for my comic book named ‘Robots Attack.’ ‘The Unknown Creature’ is my second comic book I’m working on with my partner in class, Ava Ladjevardi.”

Cisneros added that the instructors are nice.

“I get tickets for the Friday raffle when I do stuff that’s good,” Cisneros added. “The best thing about the camp is that I like working with a partner to make an even cooler comic book.”

And not to leave out the local flavor, Cisneros added, “The cafeteria at UCSD is a buffet.”

There is still some space available at the UCSD camp. For further information and fees for the remaining weeks of camp, visit www.internalDrive.com or call (888) 709-TECH (8324).

© 2008 San Diego Community Newspaper Group

 

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The North Andover Citizen – July 17, 2008

Innovative iD Tech Camp Lets Kids Create Computer Games

By Sally Applegate

North Andover -

The Blade of Awe has been stolen, and it is up to you to find The Prime Suspect and return the stolen sword to the king.

To do so, you will have to face all the creatures in the woods that don’t want you to get it back, but you have already slain a dragon.

When you reach the Palace of Darkness the Samurai warrior guards will try to stop you, but you are stronger than three of them put together.

Charley Lei of Andover, a sixth grader at West Middle School, has quite the imagination. He is in the process of creating the Quest of Dragons game in a room at Merrimack College’s Deegan Hall, where iD Tech Camp’s young campers are hard at work on their projects.

Sitting next to Charley, Ian McGinty, a seventh grader from Chelmsford, demonstrates how the heroes of these games cope with hit points and benefit from health points – until they run out, that is.

“Ian’s my friend,” says Charley as he explains what happens once your health points run out. “If you lose all your health points, you go to the Underworld, where Death himself decides whether to keep you or send you back to start all over again. It’s basically never-ending. [In my game] you can go to any other city and find another quest.”

Charley views the game he is creating as an adventure that might make a good book someday.

At the other end of the room, Ethan Gouveia, a seventh grader from North Reading, is building a first person shooter game in a futuristic urban world full of villains that must be eliminated.

“You come up and get your gun and ammunition, and there is a second gun here if you are able to get it,” explains Ethan. “It’s supposed to be science fiction. You get keys to the guns, and if you can’t get the keys, you can jump through a door.”

Ethan’s game is a maze of colorful boxes where danger lurks and hidden items will let you get yourself another weapon – or take a hit if you step on a corner, but find healing if you step on a green box – but during the game you can’t see what color the boxes are. If you negotiate the final maze of small tunnels you enter the Win Zone at the base of the game.

iD Tech Camp

Merrimack College is one of three Massachusetts colleges, along with MIT and Smith College, offering youngsters at the national camp this opportunity to spend a week creating a video game and learning many other skills such as game modding, robot building, Web site design, digital movie production and comic book creation.

The youngsters range in age from 7 to 17, and use the products Apple, Adobe, AutoDesk, Canon, Clickteam, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Symantec, VEX, Western Digital, Wacom and others as they build their video games.

They also get a preview of what college life will be like as they work on campus, eat in the college cafeteria, and, for overnight campers, sleep in the college dorms. This is the fifth year at Merrimack College for the iD Tech Camp, which is in its 10th year of operation.

Lead Instructor Greg Kinneman is a 2006 graduate of North Andover High School currently entering his junior year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute [WPI]. This is his second year teaching at the camp.

“Last year I saw a newspaper article on the tech camp and checked out their Web site,” says Kinneman. “I’d had a lot of experience working with kids and was studying game design at WPI with a major in Interactive Media and Game Design. When I went on their www.internalDrive.comWeb site I viewed it as if I were a student coming to camp, would I enjoy it? I found it is a well set up camp, with a beautiful Web page.”

Kinneman applied online, was accepted, and taught at the camp last year.

“I really enjoyed it, so I came back this year,” says Kinneman, whose camp nickname is Jazz Jackrabbit. “I’d like to work for a game development company, either nearby or in California or Texas. I could start as a programmer and work my way up to being a lead designer someday.”

The campers enjoy an outdoor hour every day, with sports, games and interacting as a group. At the end of each day, they gather outside to recognize and thank each other for the help they gave each other during the day.

Camp Director Liz Theis, camp nickname Motherboard, is a grad student at the New School in New York City, and teaches Video Production at the Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School in New Haven, Conn. She says the afternoon acknowledgement is part of the camp’s social experience, giving the campers a chance to interact with people with similar interests.

Kinneman was surprised at how diverse these young computer enthusiasts are.

“When I first came here I expected to see narrowly focused kids,” says Kinneman. “The truth is we have kids from all walks of life with all sorts of interests, really into athletics and social activities. They’re really a diverse group of individuals. They’re what makes this all worth it.”

You can check out the camp for yourself at www.internalDrive.com.

 

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Ahwatukee Foothill News – June 26, 2008

ASU Offering Summer Game Design Classes

iD Tech Camp teaches how to develop programs, Web sites

By Travis Roemhild

Playing video games may not be the first option chosen by parents for how they want their kids to spend those hot summer days. However, a day camp hosted by Arizona State University can teach creativity by way of video game creation and design.

Located at the Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus in Mesa, the iD Tech Camp offers several classes specializing in 3-D game design, game modding, Web site design and programming to kids ages 10 to 17.

Participants have full access to professional design and creation of computer programs. They spend most of their time tweaking ideas with close guidance from four experienced counselors.

In the 3-D game design class, students use what is called FPS Creator to create “first person shooter” games that are similar to the popular Halo and Call of Duty series. In the program, kids produce levels from scratch and tweak preloaded character models to create their own unique computer game. Popular games are shown as examples to display what works and what can be expanded upon.

“We tell them that people have already built just about every concept imaginable,” said Ricky Bennett, director of the iD Tech Camp. “We tell them, ‘Let’s build on it, take it a step further.’”

Several Ahwatukee Foothills kids are attending the camp this week, including Aaron Madsen, 12, of Kyrene Akimel A-al Middle School and Connor Gutman, 10, from Horizon Community Learning Center. Aaron has spent his time at the camp building an “escape” game from scratch called Missile Defense and Connor is learning the ins-and-outs of Adobe Dreamweaver to create his own Web site.

“I wanted to make a fan page about this game I’m obsessed with,” Connor said. “It’s fun to create something that anyone can see.”

Bennett and the other instructors take the kids out during the day to play kickball and do other exercises as a break from staring at a computer monitor all day.

“We do a lot of fun stuff besides making video games,” Bennett said.

The camp started as one class 10 years ago and has expanded to 50 campuses nationwide.

“It’s obvious the owners want it to be the best computer camp,” Bennet said. “We want the kids to be creative but at the same time there are measurable standards for every class.”

At the end of the camp, each participant receives a disc with everything they have done for the week.

The weeklong camp comes with a price tag of $749, running Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Find out more about the program at www.internaldrive.com.

 

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