iD News and Blog

The Daily Texan – July 24, 2008

iD summer tech camp includes design classes

Participants work for one week to finish video game projects

By Ines Min

On a UT blackboard Wednesday, 15-year-old Tyler Bautista worked out the equation for an algorithm to make his video game function properly.

Bautista came to the solution a few minutes later using the Pythagorean theorem and guidance from an instructor. The algorithm would keep the video game’s enemy from fruitlessly entering a tower’s line of defense and dying senselessly, Bautista explained.

For the past eight years, internalDrive, a family-founded technology education organization, has put on a summer technology camp for kids ages 7 to 17 on the UT campus. The camp is a technology-driven educational program consisting of week-long specialized courses in robotics and video game and Web design.

Every summer, the kids and staff members come from countries around the world, including Canada, Egypt, Norway and France, to participate, said Jennifer Suarez, director of the Austin program and first-grade teacher who has worked at the camp for two summers.

Up to 70 kids enroll each week and are allowed to take as many of the courses as they want. A week-long overnight course costs about $1,200, and a week-long day course is about $750.

The most popular courses at UT are 3-D game design and video game creation, Suarez said.

Kids in the 3-D design class build video games from scratch using a special design program. The robotics class started with a basic square bot and focused on making their robots able to move before making more sophisticated robots that can fight with each other using weapons.

“I was blown away by the kids here,” Suarez said. “They are all brilliant.”

Freda Li, a 14-year-old from Houston who took the Web design course, spent the week creating a Web site of her favorite bands and worked Wednesday to create an animated background for her site using Adobe Photoshop.

“I think it’s really fun. I like working with computers and we get lots of time to hang out,” said Li, who is one of three girls enrolled in the camp.

“We’ve found that the girls in the camp are really creative,” Suarez said, adding that the program is trying to recruit more girls. “They create the most visually appealing games.”

Peter Golightly, a 15-year-old who recently moved to Austin and partook in the program’s camp at Stanford University, based his work on a popular online game. Using a computer program, a designer creates a game by first starting with a model, then creating a skeleton, adding texture and eventually a script, Golightly said.

“It’s like a jigsaw, but the pieces can be molded to any shape you want,” he said.

Staff member Eric Cooper, 22, said the game can become as complex as the designer wants and depends on the time and effort put forth. Kids are given the entire week to finish a game, working for approximately six hours a day on the computer. Outdoor activities are integrated into the schedule.

Walker Summers, 13, spent his week in the game programming course. His game combined elements from the video game World of Warcraft III and the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.

“It’s a lot of fun here,” Summers said. “[The programs] are easy to work with, and it’s fun to make maps.”

 

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Ventura County Star – July 14, 2008

In program at CLU, kids create video games, design Web sites and learn programming

This tech camp is no Flash in the pan

By Terria Smith

Kids and computers fill a room in California Lutheran University’s Nygreen Hall, creating digital army tanks, animals and landscapes for the computer games the students are making at iD Tech Camp.

“This is very fun. It’s what I live for every year,” said James Sutton, 12, who attends Santa Rosa Technology Magnet in Camarillo and is in his fifth summer at the camp. “We get to learn a skill that not a lot of people get to learn.”

The iD (internal Drive) Tech Camp runs from the end of June to the beginning of August. Each session is 2 1/2 weeks long. Students 7 to 17 take classes to learn how to create video games, design Web sites, produce digital movies and learn programming.

The program started 10 years ago and is held at 50 universities in 23 states. Some programs offer overnight camps. The program at Cal Lutheran is day only and costs $749 per session.

Charlie Freund, local program director, said this is the seventh summer that CLU has hosted the program.

He said most students come into the program with an interest in computers and can be successful if that is all the background they have.

“They can pretty much come in without much knowledge,” he said.

Ken Gorman, in his third year as a camp instructor, said the program tries to get new students into core classes so they can learn and build on that knowledge.

“It’s a great environment to teach in because they’re so eager to learn more,” Gorman said.

Freund said the students learn Web design using Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash software programs. He said they make two- and three-dimensional video games using Multimedia Fusion 2.

Gorman added that the staff tries to keep the games as nonviolent as possible.

“There’s a lot more to developing a computer game than making one thing shoot at another,” he said. “We want them to get a whole design with a story line, plot, beginning and end.”

This is 11-year-old Nicholas Berardis’ second year in the program. The student from Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village said he was designing a game that wasn’t a maze but was still challenging for a player to try to find his way out. He said his favorite types of games to make are 2-D games.

“Most games that are 2-D are from old times,” Nicholas said. “I didn’t know anything about making video games before I came here.”

Gorman said he hopes that the campers leave the program with a desire to be more creative and learn more.

“Most students come back with a willingness to be open-minded,” Gorman said.

- For information on iD Tech Camps, visit http://www.internalDrive.com.

 

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Orange County Parenting – June, 2008

Summer Camp Goes Digital

iD Tech Camp Brings Kids Into the 21st Century

By Becky Brock

Believe it or not, summer camps are not limited to hiking and horseback riding anymore.  Instead, camps are catering to a variety of children’s interests.  To keep up with the fast paced lifestyle of the 21^st century, iD Tech Camp offers an exciting summer camp with beginner to advanced level courses, for ages 7 to 17, on the newest technology, programming and film strategies and systems.

Family owned and operated, iD Tech Camp has more than 50 camp locations at prestigious universities in 23 states and features a study-abroad program in Spain.  With almost a dozen camp locations scattered across California, there is one right here in Orange County at UC Irvine.

iD tech Camp, which prides itself on being America’s number one tech camp, gives students opportunities to work with the latest technology and educated staff members.

“Tech camp sounds like an ideal opportunity for children to experiment with software that may be inaccessible to them,” says Claire Rubman, associate professor at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, New York.  “They can also work with experts in the field that may not be available in the regular school year and dedicate time to hone a new skill.”

Students also work closely with staff members because of the 6:1 ratio.  With only five to six students in each course, staff members are better able to help students complete their projects and understand the computer, gaming, or film systems.  And, to make iD Tech Camp a memorable summer camp, each staff member is at least an upper-level undergraduate, or graduate studying related fields where the iD Tech Camps are held.  The instructors not only serve as mentors, but they are also trained and closely evaluated.

Whether or not your child stays for day camp or the overnight camp, students are motivated to learn because each course is project based, to give students a hands-on experience.  At the end of the week, students submit a project using the new skills they have learned, like digital video editing or making their own web page.

But the camp isn’t all work and no play.  Each day, students are given free time to play Frisbee, board games and more.  Some camps, like the one at the UC San Diego campus, is used for a Surf and Tech Camp for kids ages 11 to 17. Half the day is spent learning video game creation or web design and the other half is surf instruction.

Karen Thurm Safran, vice president of marketing, points out that when students complete the projects they have worked on all week, it gives them a sense of accomplishment and helps boost many students’ self esteem.  Also, the iD Tech Camp locations are a part of the goal to help kids embrace the learning process.

“Because it’s at a university, the child may decide to apply there,” Thurm Safran says.  “It encourages them to continue on with their education.”

Julian Finnegan of San Francisco enrolled in an iD Tech Camp video game creation course when he was 10 years old.  Not long after, he started creating his own video games and selling them to his friends.

It has been four years since Julian started his own video-gaming business.  He has acquired most of his electronic literacy by attending the id Tech Camp and Gaming Academy.

“It’s his favorite camp,” says his mother Ellen.

The skills Julian learned at camp have helped him at school and home.  In addition to creating his own video games, he helps his teachers install software, prepare lighting for school plays and has designed a Web site for his father.

iD Tech Camp also encourages green activity, including carpooling, lowering energy consumption and recycling.  Staff members say they know the importance of teaching kids technological advancements and how to stay green, to improve the future.  For more information about iD Tech Camp, visit www.internaldrive.com. -Becky Brock

This article originally appeared in Parenting OC Magazine’s June, 2008 issue.

 

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The Chapel Hill Herald – July 7, 2008

Camp for Computer-Age Children

By Rob Ikoku

CHAPEL HILL-For many children, summer camp offers the opportunity to get away from mom and dad, make new friends and have all kinds of fun on the lake. But for some children, camp involves more conditioning. Air conditioning, that is.

Campers at iD Tech Camp at UNC take the summer camp idea and turn it inside-out. Designed to cater to the computer crowd, the camp, based in UNC’s Spencer dorm, offers classes ranging from programming to video game modification. Open to kids as young as 7, the weekly camp caters to those who have frown up surrounded by an electronic culture, and who represent the future of a booming industry, explained cam director Kathy Trimble.

“For this age group, it’s a very natural thing,” she said. “Each child takes their own track and makes their own custom-designed project.”

As she spoke, fingers clicked away at keyboards as games of all types were being constructed, tested and tweaked. Mason Garard, 12, of Noblesville, Ind., took time away to describe his 12-level creation.

“I guess it’s an adventure game,” he said. “The spider’s name is Cirrus and he’s fighting Nimbus, the demon. I’m going to sell the idea to Nintendo.”

While it might be a few more years before the designers behind titles such as blockbusters Halo and Grand Theft Auto take notice, it’s not as far-fetched as it might seem, Trimble said. “We have iD Tech campers who have published games.”

For parents who might second guess sending their children to a computer camp, Trimble was reassuring, insisting that the game-based camp offered an opportunity to be creative rather than just an escape.

“It’s logic based,” she said, referring to the game design software, before adding that every game “has to be carefully designed and built.”

As for video games in general, the freedom involved with constructing is the real draw, but that freedom has limits, said Andy Arminio, a camp counselor from Flagstaff, Ariz. He spoke at length concerning violence in video games and the balance between allowing campers to build them as they wish and ensuring they keep violence to a minimum.

“It does look a lot more realistic,” he said, referring to the violence in some of the advanced campers’ creations. “But in the end, you’re responsible for what you do. It’s always a trade-off between freedom of expression and the public good.”

In the end, the camp gives all comers the opportunity to work with computers and do what they love, Trimble said. “It gives the campers the change to live a college life and also experience being independent.”

This article first appeared in the July 7^th edition of the Chapel Hill Herald.

 

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The Santa Cruz Sentinel – July 4, 2008

UCSC Camp Encourages Kids to Unleash Digital Creativity

By Nathan Ichtertz

Video game companies such as Rare and Ubisoft design role-playing games, but now kids as young as 7 can, too.

At the iD Tech Camp at UC Santa Cruz, one of approximately 74 such camps in the United States, children ages 7-17 learn how to create video games, improve gaming skills, build robots, design Web sites, produce digital movies and learn programming.

“The whole point of the camp is to show kids these are skills they can really use,” said Sultan Rana, director of the iD Tech Camp at UCSC. “We’re tapping into their creativity.”

The camp, which expects 30-40 kids per week, runs weekly sessions from June 29 to Aug. 1, and is a hands-on, project-based curriculum where campers complete a project by the end of the week.

“It’s a rewarding experience teaching software to the next generation,” said instructor Tim Alvord.

ID Tech also offers a Surf & Tech program, where students spend half the day surfing and the rest of the time creating a Web site or video game.

The campers, most of whom are local residents, are given software to create their own video games and Web sites, and instructors are there to help as needed.

Brian Luzovich, a 15-year-old from Ben Lomond, created a WarCraft III map, which mimicked a map from the popular computer game. Luzovich said it’s really cool because he’s in control of designing every aspect of the game.

“You’re totally free,” said 11-year-old Nicole Trenchard of Scotts Valley, who was in the middle of creating a Pac-Man-like game.

In the morning, campers work on their projects for an hour and a half, then they take a 20 minute break.

“A lot of them suffer writer’s block; they don’t know where to take their game, so we give them a break to relax,” said Rana.

The day continues with lunch, and campers engage in group activities afterwards. Activities range from participation in sports to team-oriented video game tournaments.

Students then continue working on their projects, followed by “reflection time,” where the kids talk about their experience that day and interact with one another.

“I’m learning a lot at the camp,” said Alex Chesebro, a 13-year-old from Granite Bay. “The people are great. The animation is pretty easy to do and it’s rewarding to see it online.”

ID Tech Camp is a family-owned company, started by Alexa Ingram-Cauchi in 1999 while she was an undergraduate at the University of Washington. Cauchi saw a need for a hands-on summer technology program located at top universities where students could use cutting-edge products from respected companies. She believed such an environment would encourage students to pursue their secondary education while engaging in technology.

The camp is celebrating its 10th year this summer.

“I love iD Tech Camp. I was here last year and I loved it so much I came back and took it this year,” said Rory Landau, a 10-year-old from Scotts Valley. “I’d recommend it to anyone who likes computers.”

For information on the camp, visit www.internaldrive.com or call 1-888-709-8324.

 

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