The Pong – Video Games on the Field

December 11th, 2009 by: Pete-V

Howdy iDers – I’m (the other) Pete.

Bryan – And I’m Bryan. The *only* Bryan.

How did you get here – this is supposed to my big camp blog debut!

Bryan – Don’t worry. I’m just here to keep it exciting.

I’m not exciting?

Bryan – You’re pretty exciting, but look at this hair.

Fair enough. Anyway, I’m (the other) Pete – the activity expert of iD Tech Camps. I do my best to unplug the campers and get them physical. Over the next handful of months I’ll be writing about some of the awesome activities that we did in the summer of 2009 and give hints about what is on the horizon for 2010.

Prior to iD Tech, I helped run an outdoor version of Pacman called PacManhattan, which used the city grids surrounding Washington Square Park in New York City as a Pacman board.

One of the challenges that we put on the Staffers in 2009 was to develop outdoor games based on video games. This proved to be an incredible success – the Campers loved being characters in their favorite games and the Staffers loved the idea of game creation. Also, it provided a great opportunity for the campers in our Digital Video Camp and Photography Camp to get interesting and some ridiculous shots!

Here are some of standouts – let us know your faves:

Inspired by: Pong by Allan Alcorn of Atari Incorperated, 1972.

Created by: Gadget at Rider University.

[PIC of Pong courtesy of Wikipedia]

Prep: Minimal – just set up some boundaries and choose teams

Players: 8 – 14 players (keep even numbers)

Props: Soccer ball and boundariesSpace: Medium field or Large Gymnasium

Time: 10-15 Minutes

To get the ball past the other team / to be the last team with players.

Separate the group into two even teams and create boundaries that are roughly half a soccer field. Each team links arms to form a “paddle” and faces the other paddle at either end of the playing field. The paddles can only move left or right (not forward!) and cannot unlink arms. The goal is to get the ball past the other paddle by kicking it toward the opposite boundary. If the ball exits the boundaries on the right or left, the last team to touch the ball loses a player.

Players that are lost from one team link arms onto the opposite team. If there is not enough room to add more players, another paddle can be made out of two players.

The game continues until only one player is left on one side.

All players must remain linked. If a paddle becomes separated, a player is lost from that team.

The paddles can only go left or right.

Players can only kick the ball.

If the ball goes out of bounds, the last team to touch the ball loses a player.

Variation 1: Use any extra campers or staff to make the boundaries on each side. They can be the wall that the ball bounces off of to keep the ball in bounds.

Variation 2: Use a camper to play the ball. They walk in a straight like and try to go past the “paddles”. If they hit the paddles, they must turn around and keep in a straight line. Each time the “ball” is out, they can trade off with another player.

Variation 3: Once a player is out, they are completely out of the game.

Outdoor Left 4 Dead

Inspired by: Left 4 Dead by Turtle Rock Studios and Valve Corperation, 2008.

Created by: Phozee at Purdue University

Prep: 5 minutes, set up boundaries / spawn point(s)

Players: 20 or more bodies

Props: 4 Water Guns

Space: Field; Grassy Area – NOTE: Area with obstacles and terrain works better

Time: 10 Minutes

Four survivors armed with water guns must stay alive for a set amount of time against a horde of zombies.

Create a large boundary in an area that ideally has some obstacles, such as trees. Make one (1) Spawn point out of a cone for every 10 or so players at random spots within the boundaries.

Separate the group into 4 Survivors and the rest as Zombies. The Survivors are all given water guns and must stay alive for a set amount of time – the less Zombies the more time that is given. Staffers should probably start as the Survivors to set a good example of safe play. The Zombies must take out all of the Survivors by tagging them each five (5) separate times before the time limit is over. A tagged Survivor must freeze and cannot move until they are tagged by another Survivor. They are still allowed to shoot the water gun while frozen. Zombies that land a successful tag must move on to another Survivor before tagging the same Survivor again. When a Zombie is tagged by a water gun, they must immediately retreat to the nearest spawn point.

Zombies must retreat to a spawn points immediately after being tagged by water.

Survivors must freeze if tagged and cannot move unless tagged by another Survivor.

Once a Survivor is tagged five (5) times, they become a Zombie and start at the closest spawn point (and give their water gun to a non-playing Staffer).

Both Survivors and Zombies must start the game walking. As the players become more advanced, the boundaries can be expanded and fast walking can be allowed. Use proper judgment to ensure safety – especially if there are a lot of obstacles!

Bryan – When Vassar played this game it was really fun and the kids enjoyed it. We had 4 survivors and the rest Zombies, but I made sure to start off only letting the zombies walk and his everyone in an square with boundaries. After a few minutes, I started letting the zombies run and it got wild. A round or two went by and then I opened the field up and created many different spawning stations so the survivors could run around and the zombie would spawn at the nearest station and the survivors could have a chance to run away. We took a lot of great photos! Ultimately it was a lot of fun and the summer camp kids were asking to play it everyday. Pete thought of using sponge balls, which would work well, except you have to the pick them up and zombies may be around.

Inspired by: Team Fortress 2 by Valve Corperation, 2007.

Created by: WoWZer and Greg at Rollins College

Prep: Fill up water guns and sponges; assign teams and classes; create strategies; create boundaries

Players: 10 or more bodies

Props: Various Sizes of Water Guns, Sponge Balls, iD Tech Crossing Flags, iD Tech Flag Football Flags, Sponges, Plastic Bags

Space: Field; Grassy Area – NOTE: Area with obstacles and terrain works better

Time: 30 – 45 Minutes

Capture the other team’s flags.

This is a complex version of Capture the Flag that uses class definitions for each player. Each player takes on a role that defines how they participate in the activity.

Create boundaries over a large area. If there are many obstacles, be sure to make the group aware of potential safety threats.

The game of Capture the Flag is simple: one team has to bring the other team’s flag back to their home base without being tagged. This variation builds on the concept while integrating some aspects of the popular video game, Team Fortress 2. Place one flag on either end of the playing area. Each of these acts as a base from which the two teams begin the game and eventually try to place the opponent’s flag. Separate the group into two equal teams and assign classes to each player. Allow each team to formulate a strategy and begin. The first team to bring the flag to their base wins.

Each class needs to be represented at the beginning of the game. Once a class is assigned, a player may not change classes until a new game begins.

Grenadier – The Grenadier class only has a small water gun and is able to wield water bombs and sponges. A bag is tied to the waist of the grenadier with a limited supply of water bombs. When this ammunition is out, the Grenadier must go back to his designated side in order to reload. The Grenadier is the only member allowed to use the water bombs and sponges besides the Staff.

Scout – The Scout class is your main flag runner, meaning that they are the only member of the team that can capture the opponent’s flag. The Scout has to wear a flag around their waste and can only be tagged out by having the flag grabbed or by a water bomb or sponge. The Scout does not carry a weapon.

Medic – The Medic is one of the most important classes. Medics are the only class that can revive other team members. When a member of their team is tagged, they must squat out of play and call for a medic. The Medic tags the player on the field and instantly that player is back into the game. Medics may carry a small water gun and must put their team color around their arm.

Soldier – Soldiers represent the bulk of the players. Most people who play this game will fall into the category of Soldier. The Soldier is given a medium sized water gun and have free reign of the field. In order to gain an advantage in this game, the Soldiers must work together with strategies in order to overwhelm their opposition. Soldiers must put the team color around their head.

Staff – The Staff are hired mercenaries. The Staff are able to switch sides at any time, however rules do apply. If you are shot out, the way you are hired on that team is by being tagged by a Medic. The Medic of any team is able to revive a Staff member and that Staff member has to play for that team until they are tagged out again. Staff are encouraged to bring their own water guns and/or water bombs for an advantage.

Staffers are encouraged to create their own classes and add them to this game. Engineers, for instance, could resupply players on the field.

When a player is shot on the limb by water (except for the Scout) that limb is no longer functioning until a Medic heals that player.

Medics may not heal themselves.

A body shot, water bomb and sponge hits equal an immediate out until revived by a Medic. If two limbs are hit, the player is also out.

Players may be revived either by a Medic or by walking back to their home base.

Inspired by: World of Warcraft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_warcraft) by Blizzard Entertainment, 2004. Specifically, this refers to a player named “Leeroy Jenkins“  by Ben Schultz.

Created by: Chris at ASU

Prep: Create boundaries

Players: 10 – 20 bodies

Props: 1 Flag

Space: Open Space; Large Field

Time: 10 – 20 Minutes

Rescue Leeroy from the Bosses.

Create boundaries that are roughly the size of a soccer field. Assign roles to all of the team members: 1 Leeroy Jenkins, 5 – 8 Bosses and the rest are Leeroy’s teammates. The goal is to rescue Leeroy from the Bosses before he crosses from one side of the field to the other and have all of his teammates also escape. Everyone starts at the edge of the boundary and the Bosses surround Leeroy. Leeroy screams, “Leeeeeeeeeroy Jeeennnnnnkins” and starts running without regard to the other side. His teammates have to rescue him by grabbing Leeroy and leading him to the opposite boundary, while avoiding being tagged by the Bosses. If a player is tagged by a Boss, they have to sit and wait to be revived by another player. The game only ends if either all players have been saved or all have been tagged out by a Boss.

Players tagged by a Boss must squat out of play and wait to be revived by another player.

If Leeroy is successfully saved, all squatting players are simultaneously revived.

December 11th, 2009

Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers, iD Tech Camps, Summer Camps

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Ms. Pacman Pizza!

December 4th, 2009 by: Josh

As promised, here is the long anticipated Ms. Pacman Pizza recipe.  The preparation for this is a bit less intensive than my Pacman cookies and one has the option of using prepared bread, sauce etc… So sit back and learn how to make a pizza that even the Mario brothers would be proud of.

First, do not cook or use the oven without an adult present!!!  As I am no exception to this rule I asked my adult friend, former iD Tech UCLA Director, Jeff to come and supervise me:

First you need to make or buy pizza crusts.  I can guarantee you that the whole throwing the pizza dough in the air thing would not have ended well for me, so I simply bought some pizza crust:

As alfredo sauce is white, it takes up food coloring really well so we’ll be making this an alfredo, white pizza. Here is a great recipe for alfredo that I found:

2 tablespoons butter

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 dash ground black pepper

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons grated Romano cheese

Melt the butter in your sauce pan then mix in the other ingredients and stir until they are all mixed in.  I recommend a low heat and make sure to take it off the heat before it browns.

Next, you’ll be using food coloring to achieve the ubiquitous Ms. Pacman yellow color.  I started off adding the food coloring conservatively:

But that just wasn’t cutting it so I added a bit more:

And that didn’t work either so I just went nuts and kept dripping it in until I achieved the color I needed, be prepared to use about quarter to a third of a standard bottle:

Stir thoroughly until the color is uniform:

Then carefully pour on to the pizza:

I spend a lot of time trying to smooth out the sauce and distribute it evenly around the edges and throughout the pie.  Make sure that the sauce contours the crust otherwise Ms. Pacman won’t look properly round.

Next, there are several toppings we need to include to distinguish this pie as “Ms. Pacman” as opposed to simply “Pacman”. Those items, along with the ingredients you’ll need are;

A bow – Roasted red pepper slices and a tomato slice

A beauty mark – A black olive

Eye liner / eye shadow – Several sliced black olives and half of a green olive

Lipstick – 2 quarters of a tomato slice

Also, arranging items on a circular plane can be a bit confusing so I’ve provided a layout guide to demonstrate how Ms. Pacman is arranged.  As you can see, the edges of her bow can be used to approximate the placement of her various design items:

As we are using the bow as the reference point for the rest of her details, we should start with that.  For the sides of the bow we’ll be using a bouquet of roasted red peppers.  Buy ‘em that way or roast ‘em yourself.

Note: BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN USING KITCHEN KNIVES AND ALWAYS HAVE AN ADULT PRESENT.

Cut them in half and lay  them out flat.  Cut around the edges to try and achieve this shape:

Make six and arrange three on each side in second quadrant of the pie (using the center of the pie as your origin),  loosely arranged around a line that follows:

y = x + b, where b = the radius of your pizza crust:

Next, cut a thin slice of tomato and place it at the intersection of the following lines:

y = x + b (b = the radius of your pizza) and y = -x

That’s a pretty bow!

Next up is the beauty mark, which will be a whole black olive.  For its placement, find the intersection of x = b/2 * -1 and y = b/2 * -1, where b is, again the radius;

Next is the eye shadow. Carefully prepare several black olive slices (I used 5) and half of a green olive.  We will place the green olive first and then arrange the black olive slices around it.

Place the green olive at the intersection of y axis and the point along the tomato slice with the most negative value:

Finally, we will place the lips. Before we do, we have to determine the angle of the slice that will be removed from the pie to create her mouth.  We are looking to achieve a 45 degree angle, I used pieces of spaghetti to help me approximate.  Once it looks right to you, put your slices in place:

And it is time to bake!  Preheat the oven to bake at 450 degrees and let Ms. Pacman bake for about 10-15 minutes, checking frequently as cooking time will vary depending on what kind of crust you are using.  While you are waiting for it to bake, you should do something fun like playing hide-and-go-seek:

What I love most about this recipe is that it is not actually complete until you’ve eaten one of the pieces.   If you used spaghetti as guides, the lines should still be there. Cut carefully and go over the cut several times, we need this to be clean! (Once again an example of “subtractive 3D modeling“)

All done!

Happy holidays!  If you try any of my recipes, please send me pictures, I’d love to post them!

December 4th, 2009 | Tags: pacman, pizza

Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers

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Thanks to iD Tech Camps, Co. hires 9 yr old website developers

November 23rd, 2009 by: Pete

Hello iD Nation,

I just received this message through facebook.  This is what it’s all about!  We talk a lot about how our summer camps develop technical skills for the future.  This is proof you don’t need to wait until college to start putting those skills into action.  This is awesome stuff and certainly worthy of a “do something big” story.  FYI, the letter says “Thanks to you, Pete…” but I cannot and will not take credit for our awesome tech camps.  The success of our programs is dependent on the people on our team.  Thanks to everyone who has made our summer camps in New Jersey, and our camps across the country, a success.

Enjoy!

-Pete

——————–

Subject: Thanks to IDTech Camp, Co. hires 9 yr old website developers

Thanks to you, Pete!

This summer, fresh out of 3rd grade, our twins R. and S. (names withheld for security) learned enough in your website development/game development course to develop a website for a local company and got paid enough to pay for their tuition next summer! (Their goal!)

No, it was not a relative or friend, it was a real client! We told them if they wanted to take classes in game development, they would have to earn the $ to pay for it…and they did!  We are attaching a picture of them with their clients and first paycheck.  They also negotiated a website maintenance contract…ongoing $$$!

If I were you, I would advertise in our area of PA.  Ours were the only kids at Rider College from our area, we found you only by accident, and there is a lot of interest in this type of class here.  If you need any help promoting IDTech camp in this area, we would love to help you (for free).  All parents should know about a camp their kids like so much they are willing to to learn enough to pay their own tuition!

Gratefully,

H. & L.  (Parents’ names withheld for confidentiality)

——————–

We’ve got our summer camps in PA at Carnegie Mellon University and Villanova University.  Please check the availability of our courses at these locations.  And, thanks for spreading the word.  This is what it’s all about!

-Pete

November 23rd, 2009 | Tags: game development, summer camps in pa, website development

Posted in: CEO's Blog, do something BIG

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Canadian Summer Camps

November 19th, 2009 by: Pete

A colleague of mine just sent me a link from the Canadian Press.  Most people in the U.S. know we host our summer technology camps at the top universities in the country – Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, UCLA…

As we begin our expansion into Canada, it is interesting to get a lay of the land.  Here’s a quick read on some of the top schools in Canada.  We’ve launched iD Tech Camps at the University of Waterloo.  We’ve also launched the iD Visual Arts Academy at McGill University.

The Canadian Press

Date: Thursday Oct. 8, 2009 5:55 PM ET

TORONTO — The prestigious Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings are out and 11 Canadian universities have made the Top 200 list.

Six Canadian universities have even advanced in their standings over the previous year’s list, with Montreal’s McGill University ranking the highest at number 18.

McGill, which is the only Canadian university in the top 20, was also one of the six Canadian institutions that advanced in its ranking this year over last year’s list.

The University of Toronto was the next highest on the list at number 29, improving from 41st spot last year, while the University of Alberta made a huge leap from 74th spot last year to number 59 this year.

The universities of Waterloo, Calgary and Western Ontario also moved up on the list, with Calgary soaring from 170 to 149.

The other Canadian schools that made the grade were UBC, the Universite de Montreal, Queen’s, McMaster and Simon Fraser.

So, rest assured, when you attend one of our summer programs in Canada, you’ll have the peace-of mind-in knowing that your are not only learning great technologies–but you are doing so at an institution of prominence not only in Canada, but also the rest of the world.

Have a great day!

-Pete

November 19th, 2009 | Tags: computer camps in canada, summer camps in canada, top universities in canada

Posted in: CEO's Blog, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Summer Camps

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Pacman Cookie Recipe!

November 13th, 2009 by: Josh

At iD Tech Camps our students learn how to make video games.  But today, I’m going to teach you how to make cookies, based on video games.  Specifically, Pacman cookies.  This post will be a step-by-step tutorial of how to make Pacman themed cookies.

First, do not attempt to cook or use the oven without an adult present!!!!!  As I am no exception to this rule,  I asked my adult friend Charlie to come supervise me.

Before getting your hands dirty, you are going to need the proper cookie cutters to make the shapes.  Unfortunately, actual Pacman cookie cutters do not exist so you’ll need to improvise.  There are two different shapes you need to create, the “ghost” shape and the “Pacman” shape.

For the ghost shape, simply find a tulip shaped cookie cutter and rotate it 180 degrees (or just turn it upside down).  Charlie demonstrates:

For the Pacman shape you will start with a simple circle shape and then use any “V” shaped cookie cutter to subtract a portion of the dough.  For those of you learning 3D modeling, this is very similar to “subtractive modeling” when working with polygons.  I found that this “house” shape worked nicely:

Once you have the cookie cutters gathered you will need the following cooking supplies;

Sugar Cookies:

3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon milk

Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Icing:

1 egg white

2 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon light corn syrup

Various food paste colors

Mini chocolate chips

Tools:

Plastic bags

Baking Tray

Scissors

Spray-Oil

Butter Knife

Or you can just cheat on the sugar cookies (like I did) and buy some pre-made dough.  Once the dough is ready, lay it out and begin to make shapes;

I found that transferring the shapes from the cutting board to the baking tray was very difficult, so you are best off creating the shapes directly on the baking tray.  Make sure to spray it down with oil first.  I recommend removing the excess dough while the stencil is still applied, as demonstrated below.

And time for Pacman:

Well done!  These are all the shapes we need for representing the characters of Pacman:

Now it is time to bake the cookies.  Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and cook for about 10-12 minutes, check frequently as cooking time can vary.  While you are waiting try and partake in something productive, such as playing music:

Now the cookies are baked.

Next up is making the icing.  Combine 1 egg white, 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of corn syrup and powdered sugar and give a good stir.

Once the texture is consistent we are ready to add the color.  There are 5 colors you’ll need for the characters.  Between a set of “regular” and “neon” food coloring dyes, we had almost all the colors we needed, here is the breakdown:

Combine red and yellow to create orange, don’t forget to save some icing for the color white.

To mix the color in, we will spoon parts of the icing into plastic bags, about 2-3 heaping spoonfuls should do for each color, make sure to ration properly so you don’t run out.  Once in the bag, add drops of food coloring and kneed the icing within the bag until the color is even.  I found that bold colors such as red required many drops, whereas lighter ones like blue and pink required few.

Once your colors are ready, cut small (like REALLY small) holes in the corner of each bag:

Then drizzle the icing over the cookie.  Go very light on the icing and use a butter knife or spoon to spread it out.   Start off EXTREMELY light, I can’t stress this enough.

Next up we will have to make the eyes for the ghosts, but we need to let this icing dry first.  Put a few dabs of icing on the plate and test with your finger as a reference for whether or not the cookie icing is dry.  While waiting, you should probably exercise a bit as you are about to eat some cookies:

Now that the icing is dry it is time for the eyes.  The whites of the eyes will simply be some left-over uncolored icing (make sure to save some) and the pupils will be chocolate chips.   You’ll want to offset the position of the “whites of the eye” and compliment them by where you position the chocolate chips.  Remember go light on the icing, when you press down the chocolate chip, you will spread out the white icing:

All done!  Have a little fun with it!  We made a maze with the leftover icing!

BIG UPS to Helvetica from http://www.snackordie.com for the original recipe.   Tune in next week for Ms. Pac-Man Pizza!!!!!!

November 13th, 2009 | Tags: cookie, pacman, recipe

Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers

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Halloween Fun at iD Tech Camps!

November 9th, 2009 by: Josh

Anyone knows that at iD Tech Camps our camp staff is all about having fun, and our corporate staff is no exception!  Every year Halloween is a big event in our main office and throughout our nationwide satellite offices. Here are some highlights of our costumes:

It’s me as the Big Bad Wolf!

The Ingram-Cauchi family (our founders!) as Little Bo Peep and her Flock of Sheep

Patrick from Client Services as a Karate Master!

Joy and her family as a Star Wars menagerie including Luke (in-Jedi-training), Yoda, Princess Leia and an adorable Jawa

Jimmy from the Web Dept. as Fred Flintstone!

Dwayne from Client Services as “Gumdrop Head”!

Brother-sister duo Kate from Human Resourses and Dylan from Field Support as 50′s Girl and Roger Rabbit

Nova from Administrative Services as a Peacock!

And I just can’t get enough of myself!

That does it for Halloween ’09.  I can’t wait for next year!

November 9th, 2009 | Tags: Halloween, Star Wars

Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers

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It's On! iD Tech Camps Announces It's 2010 Summer Camp Lineup

November 2nd, 2009 by: Pete

Dear iD Nation,

I want to personally welcome you to the iD Family.  To our returning families, I know you’ve been looking forward to our 2010 launch.  Yesterday we started taking registrations at 8 AM, and the phones were ringing busily all day.  That’s a good sign!  We had  a banner year in 2009, so we think 2010 will be even better.

An obvious question many families are asking is “What’s New?”   I am going to cut and paste some content from our “What’s New” page on our website:

• Digital Catalog – Our summer camp catalog is now available.
• Registration is now live! – Register with our latest promotion and save $100 by 12-15-09.  And when you refer-a-friend, you now save $50 and your friend does too!
• New Locations – New prestigious university locations including the campuses of Harvard, Princeton, Adelphi, Bentley, the expansion of our Teen Academies nationally, and our expansion into Canada.
• New Courses at iD Tech Camps – Awesome new courses include iPhone® App Development, Digital Photography & Photoshop®, RPG Game Design & Graphic Arts Hybrid, Game Modding with titles including Warcraft® III, Starcraft®, Half-Life® 2 and more.  Go to courses and programs.
• Expansion of our Teen Academies – The  iD Programming Academy has expanded to MIT.  The intensive game development program, the iD Gaming Academy has expanded to Chicago and Seattle.  We’ve also launched the new iD Visual Arts Academy. The Teen Academies are for ages 13-18.
• iD 365 – Endless Summer – Upon registration at iD, you now get access to our monthly FREE online workshops, taught year round by live instructors.  More.
• Receive Continuing Education Units from Villanova University or Stanford Continuing Studies.  Details.
• The iD Guarantee – We average 6 students per instructor at iD Tech Camps.  If we exceed an  8:1 ratio, you get to return for a free week of camp at equal value.  It’s that simple!  It’s iD quality.  And it’s only at iD!  Note:  Not valid for Teen Academies. Get details.
• New Games – Hot new commercial gaming titles used in our gaming courses, gaming tournaments and Ultimate Gaming Weekends.
• Learn Valuable “Life Skills” – We’re building new life skills content for this year.  The curriculum will round out the summer experience. See the benefits of iD. We’ve also got fun new camp activities for students.
• Technology Isn’t Just for Boys – We’ve created more courses and modules that are be appealing to girls including Web Design & Flash® Animation, Graphic Design, Video Editing & Special Effects, Digital Photography & Photoshop and the new teen-only  iD Visual Arts Academy.
• Go Green – We continue our iD Greening initiative by promoting carpooling, reducing travel and energy consumption and establishing new outreach partnerships in the communities we serve.
• The Basement.  For Students Only! – Find out what the buzz is about.   Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.  Blogs.  Student Project Uploads.  Camp Photos.  iD 365.  And more.  Head down to the The Basement!

OK, I’m back.  As you can see, we’ve been a bit busy preparing for this launch.  You might expect that we kick back and take a few months off in the Fall, but nothing could be further from the truth.  We’ve got the hardest working crew in the summer camp industry.  We’ve had teams working round the clock to pull all the pieces together…working with new locations (including the expansion of our Teen Academies and a push into Canada), developing curriculum, developing back-end applications, signing contracts, overhauling our website, developing content, designing our camp brochure, working with new corporate partners, creating new courses, and so much more.

The launch is a big, big, team effort, and it is a sign of our company’s organization and dedication to providing the very best.

On behalf of all our employees, we want to welcome you to the new camp season.  We hope you’ll take a few minutes to look around our website.  And, as always, we’re just a phone call away.

Best,

Pete Ingram-Cauchi

CEO, iD Tech Camps

November 2nd, 2009 | Tags: 2010 summer camp, computer camps, Summer Camps

Posted in: CEO's Blog, Summer Camps

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Tilt-Shift Photography, or How to Make Everything Look Tiny

October 27th, 2009 by: Justin

This is a large format camera:

Unlike your digital camera (which most likely doesn’t even need you to focus), or an old-school SLR film camera (which only needs focus, shutter speed, and aperture), a large format camera has a lot of controls. Check out how each piece moves in 3 dimensions in the picture below:

2 of the adjustments you can make are called tilt and shift. Without getting TOO technical, what you’re doing is moving different focus planes to interact with each other in a way that you can’t really do with other cameras, thus selecting a certain region of the film to be in focus. There are modern tools that can do this on modern cameras (even digital!) – for example, lensbaby.com offers a lens that can make those adjustments. What will this do for you? You may remember this picture from a previous blog entry:

So, if you don’t have an extra $350 to spend on a lens (ok, let’s face it, you’re going to use it to buy video games and Mt. Dew), you can still acheive this same effect with a Gaussian Blur. It’s a great effect. You take a picture of normal sized people and magically they become miniatures!

Select a round (circular or oval-shaped) selection around the center, in focus, portion of your photo. Invert your selection and feather it by a lot. 100 pixels isn’t too many. Select Gaussian Blur from the filters section and experiment with settings. Can you make a photo look like these?

Email me *your* contributions at justin(at)internaldrive.com (@ symbol left out intentionally to prevent robotic spam crawling!) and I’ll post the best ones in a future entry.

October 27th, 2009 | Tags: iD Tech Camp, photography, Photoshop

Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers

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Four Online Games to Exercise Your Brain!

October 23rd, 2009 by: Josh

It is well accepted that games and puzzles serve to keep ones brain sharp. In fact, there is even pending research that the kind of stimulation they provide can prevent/slow the progression of certain mental conditions such as Alzheimer’s and even improve cognition in individuals who’ve suffered head trauma. Additionally some types of games require social interaction which benefits ones social skills, especially in young adolescences as it develops the their ability to corporate (or beguile!) to achieve an objective. At the very least, games are a fun way of giving your brain a work out, which is just as important to exercise as the rest of your body.

Here are 4 very fun “brain games” that I personally frequent. They are each very different and promote very different types of cognitive skills.

1) http://games.asobrain.com/ – Xplorers

Mental Muscles flexed:

• Memory
• Social Skills
• Strategy, Planning Ahead
• Resources Management

“Aso Brain Games” offers a view games, however I’ve chosen it for one in particular; Xplorers. Xplorers is a carbon copy of the best selling, European, tabletop board “The Settlers of Catan” by Klaus Tuber. It is a classic “German-style board” game as it encourages a very high-level of player interaction, is simple, short and highly aesthetic. In a nutshell, the game resembles a hybrid of Risk and Monopoly, minus all the boring parts (seriously when is the last time you finished either?)

2) http://www.flashbynight.com/drench/ – Drench

Mental Muscles flexed:

• Visuospatial Cognition
• Planning Ahead

The self-proclaimed “World’s Simplest Flash Game”. Players have a limited number of moves to paint a grid all one color. Moves must be planned based on the pattern of the pre-existing pixels, which is randomly generated from 6 different colors. Calling for an extremely high level of visual concentration, players will becoming increasingly adept at interpreting a seemingly chaotic grid of colors. Though very different from Chess, players must think several moves ahead, similar to Chess players. As each move yields a tree of options, players must think through as many options while they can keep track of, all the while swimming in a sea of brightly colored pixels!

3) http://www.fantasticcontraption.com/ - Fantastic Contraption

Mental Muscles flexed:

• Creative Problem Solving
• Understanding of Physics and Engineering
• Trial and Error

This game allows user to build contraptions to compete various tasks. The game is very open ended and it’s puzzles can be solved in a variety of ways, there is no one correct answer. This gives it tremendous reliability as you can revisit puzzles to try and solve them is a simpler way (or a more complicated way!). What is particular fun about this game is that one can build their own levels and share them with the community. Participants have used this to create spin-offs of the game such as “Battle Bots” in which users create contraptions which joust one another!

4) http://games.swirve.com/earth/ – Earth 2025

Mental Muscles flexed:

• Resource Management
• Long Term Strategy / Planning
• Social Skills
• Mathematics / Statistics

This text-based game is run tournament style in month long and two-month long installments. Hundreds of player compete in building an empire. During that time they must find ways to monetize, defend and expand their empire by employing a variety of different strategies. Seeking out alliances are needed for survival. The game allows for many different types of play; will your empire’s army brutally conquer others or will you focus on industry and grow rich through exporting goods?

What are your favorite brain games?

October 23rd, 2009

Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers

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Green Blog Action Day!

October 19th, 2009 by: Justin

o maybe you’ve heard of Copenhagen. No, I’m not talking about the little can, I’m talking about the UN-sponsored global summit on climate change. If you haven’t heard of it, you must not read very many blogs! October 15th is designated as “Blog Action Day,” and 20000+ different blogs mentioned the big day. One interesting thing to note is that this number, as high as it is, is only one half of 1 percent of all of the blogs that are out there.

iD Tech has been pushing green issues for years. We know that we can help save power by turning off lights, computers, and monitors when we aren’t using our labs, and that reusing cups (by putting our name on them!) helps reduce waste. Did you bring in batteries or ink cartridges last year? Maybe a used cell phone or two?

If you have any more ideas on how to improve efficiency and reduce waste at camp, we want to hear them!

October 19th, 2009

Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers

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