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May 21st, 2010 by: Josh
Big news at Columbia and another Rendezvous Dilemma!!! Hey guys! I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the East Coast, visiting some of iD’s most prestigious locations, Princeton and Columbia. Mainly, I was there to put some finishing touches on our lab spaces at both. Our big news is that due to popular demand, we are adding two weeks to our schedule at Columbia!!!
Also, while at Columbia, I had another amazing chance rendezvous, similar to when I ran into Jen at OSU. However, this one involves one of my oldest friends ever, Jon B. who I met at summer camp(!) just before my first year of kindergarten (which was with him as well)! When I ran into him, he was on duty as a Columbia EMT, safety first!
Below is a then and now comparison, the first is of myself (right) as a lobster and Jon (left) as a fish during a 1st grade school play, the second is of our encounter at Columbia:
Again, I’ve decided to calculate the odds of us randomly running into each other. I’ve made some adjustments to my original equation to suit this scenario. First of all, (for the purposes of this study) we are eliminating the odds that Jon could have ended up anywhere else; the program he is in is highly specific and his choice to enroll was deliberate, so his relationship to Columbia and NYC is given. It is also given that Jon will be spending a significant amount of time publicly traversing the campus as an EMT shift-worker, we will assume that he is working part-time (as being a Ph.D. candidate is a lot of work!) which is standardly 20 hours per week. This equation is much simpler then my original as I’ve reduced almost all of the variables to time and space;
(FYI – All of Jon’s assumptions are contrived, I have no idea what Jon’s actual work hours and habits are!!!!)
We are still missing one thing. Just as we started the equation with the odds of Jon being on campus at a given time, we must also consider my timing on campus. Of the 40 potential work week hours that my visit may occur, only a portion would involve a public part of the campus (as I’m typically behind doors in meetings in the pre-season). I’m going to estimate that variable at half an hour.
Below is the final solution. Sorry for mixing decimals and fractions below (don’t you hate that?), I’m hoping that it may help some people visualize the variables:
Though the solution is an extremely small number, this is significantly higher than the probability of running into Jen at OSU (which was taken to the power of -26). However, with an entirely different equation it isn’t nearly apples to apples.
Can anyone do better? I’m sure there are lots of ways to solve this! Bonus points if you can create an equation that isn’t limited to specific geographical scenarios (as mine are). E.g., it wouldn’t matter whether the rendezvous occurred at one of our Florida summer camps, or one of our Illinois summer camps, or even one of our Vancouver summer camps, it would still employ all the same variables and constants.
May 21st, 2010 | Tags: alfred lerner hall, lobster, prestigious locations, summer camp
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
May 20th, 2010 by: Ryan
iD Tech Camps teach programming
The top computer science institutions in the country are continuing to experience a steady boost in enrollment, fueled by prolonged economic uncertainty.
The pipeline of pre-college organizations feeding the big tech schools—junior highs, high schools and even summer camps—are seeing the same trends.
ID Tech Camps, the largest youth technology camp that takes place at California Lutheran University and other colleges, recently launched an introductory programming course for children ages 7, 8 and 9, and a new iPhone apps course for teens.
The camp teaches young teens how to program in C++ and Java. Advanced students are learning to develop their own iPhone apps.
The youngest campers, ages 7, 8 and 9, get a taste for programming using MIT Lab’s software program called Scratch, which allows users to program their own games and animations, and upload them to the Web. There have been more than 500,000 projects shared on Scratch’s website.
Established in 1999 in Silicon Valley, iD Tech Camps is family-owned and operated.
The camp offers technology courses, including 3-D video game design, 3-D game modeling, Maya, video game programming, programming in C++ and Java, programming iPhone apps, robotics, Web design, Flash animation, graphic arts, digital photography and video editing.
The summer camps consist of weeklong day camps, sleepaway camps, and multiweek teen academies.
Courses are appropriate for beginning to advanced learners.
The company teaches the latest technologies from Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Autodesk, Sony and Valve.
For more information about iD Tech Camps, call (888) 709TECH (8324) or visit http:// internalDrive.com.
May 20th, 2010
Posted in: Cal Lutheran University, iD In The News
May 14th, 2010 by: Elise
Summer hasn’t started yet, but iD Tech Camps has already been featured on TV shows and radio stations nationwide. Reporters are discussing how our summer technology programs promote STEM (science, technology, education and math) in kids and teens.
Here’s a TV spot from News 8 Austin where iD Regional Manager Jen Devine discusses how our summer tech camps takes kids passions and hobbies further. The reporter Tracy Gladden even jumps right in and tries her talent in a video game which one iD student created.
May 14th, 2010
Posted in: iD In The News, St. Edward’s University, Trinity University
May 13th, 2010 by: Marta
Each year since I’ve worked at the iD headquarters, I get the privilege of creating the camp desktop wallpapers for iD Tech Camps, the iD Gaming Academy, the iD Visual Arts Academy and the iD Programming Academy, which you can see if you attend any of our programs this summer since they’re installed on every computer that’s used at camp. I can honestly say that this project is one of my favorite projects every year and it often inspires me to create my own wallpapers in my free time, which is what I’ll be showing you how to do in this post.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN & CREATE
This tutorial will incorporate design elements such as adding textures, gradients, layer properties and using the mask feature in Photoshop. These are all basic to intermediate skills and should be fairly easy to grasp. If you want to explore the possibilities that all of the Adobe products have, check out our Web & Graphic Design Courses or our Video Editing & Photography Courses that we have at our Day Camps and Overnight Summer Camps at iD.
The final project that you’ll have at the end of this tutorial will look something like this:
Are you excited? It’s another Mario Bros. graphic. If you can’t tell by now, I really like Super Mario Bros (I mean seriously, have you played the New Super Mario Bros on DS? I’m totally addicted.). Not only that, I find that there are a lot of free resources out there for Mario graphics. Did you know that if you attend camp, you can actually make a replica of a Mario game in our Video Game Creation Course? Pretty cool stuff.
GATHERING RESOURCES
When I work on professional projects for iD or freelance projects at home, I sometimes need to purchase certain graphics due to copyright issues. For projects that I am creating for only myself or that I won’t be re-selling, I always look for free resources, because who doesn’t love free stuff?
This project requires a few resources—a couple of fonts, some high-resolution textures and an AI (Adobe Illustrator) file I pre-made. You can download the fonts and textures to a file on your computer here:
You can also find your own textures by doing a quick web search. Always remember to be careful about what sites you download content from, and if the computer you’re working on isn’t yours, it’s best to ask the person who owns it if it’s okay to download a file. Below are some good starting points for free, (safe) design resources on the web.
FONTS
VECTORS, GRAPHICS & TEXTURES
Another way of getting textures for your projects is to take your point and shoot camera and capture close-up photos of things around you. You’ll be amazed at what you can get from doing this.
GETTING STARTED
To get started, you’ll need to first figure out the size of the desktop wallpaper to create so that it will look good on your screen. To do this, you need to find out the resolution that your monitor is set at and set your image size in Photoshop to be those dimensions.
You may already know your screen dimensions, but if not it’s easy to find out. Click on the Start Menu on your PC computer, choose Control Panel. Once you’re in the Control Panel, go to Display and then click on the Settings Tab.
As you can see on the image above, my screen resolution is 1280×1024, so when I create my new file in Photoshop my art board dimensions will be 1280 pixels wide x 1024 pixels high. Since this will be used for the computer screen, the image resolution will stay at 72 pixels/inch and the color mode, RGB.
CREATING THE BACKGROUND
To create the background, use the rectangle tool to create a shape that extends over your artboard. Name the new layer you created, “Blue BG Gradient”.
Open up your Layers Style Menu by double clicking on the layer (but not on the text, or you will be given the option to rename your layer.)
Now, click on Gradient Overlay and create a blue, radial gradient with these settings:
Now we need to add some texture to our background. Select File>Place at the top of your Photoshop screen, then navigate to the folder where you saved the texture files you downloaded at the beginning of this tutorial. Find the rust.jpg file and click on the Place Button to bring it into your PSD file.
You should have a transform box around your image, which allows you to resize the image. Resize the image to fill up your entire artboard and then hit Return to set the image into place.
(By the way: When you place an image, it automatically becomes a Smart Object in Photoshop. Smart Objects can be useful because they allow you to resize and manipulate images without losing their original quality. You can tell when something is a Smart Object when it has a little icon in the lower right corner of its layer.)
Now that your rust texture is placed, we want to de-saturate it. First we need to rasterize our rust image by right clicking on the layer and selecting Rasterize. You’ll know that it’s rasterized if the icon at the corner disappears.
Next go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and change the Saturation to -100.
To create the light texture feel, change your Layer Property to Soft Light and the Opacity to 40%.
Now we’re going to create the yellow background element by creating a yellow-orange rectangle. Name this layer, Gold Brick and double click on it so that you open up its Layer Style. Change your Drop Shadow settings to be a dark blue (#043875), with a Blend Mode of Multiply. Change the angle to be 124 and uncheck the “Use Global Light” box. Make the distance, 29, the Spread, 0 and the Size 0.
Also, you’ll want to add a Stroke, which will be white and size 13. You can keep the rest of the settings at their defaults.
Now it’s time to bring in the second texture. Go to File>Place and find the file where you saved the brick.jpg. Expand this image to be at least the width of your gold shape. Then change the Layer Property to Overlay.
We want the brick texture to only be placed in the gold area, so we’re going to use a Clipping Mask to accomplish this. First make sure that your brick image layer and your gold shape layer are on top of one another in the layers panel. Then, to create a Mask, hold the ALT key and move your mouse in between your brick layer and the gold layer until you mouse changes from a hand icon to a double circle icon.
After you do this, your brick texture should only be seen within the yellow shape area. Nice!
The last thing we need to finish out background is to place the starburst graphic. From the files you saved earlier, place the starburst.ai into your Photoshop file. Resize it to fill up most of your artboard and center it on top of the yellow brick image. Lastly, change its Layer Property to be Soft Light.
To make things easier as we progress through the project, create a new folder and name it “Background Elements”. Now place all of the layers you just created in that folder by selecting them all at the same time (hold Shift to do so) and using your mouse to drag them on top of the folder.
BRINGING IN & COLORING MARIO
Now we get to add in the Mario character. If you haven’t done so, download and install the fonts that from the beginning of the tutorial. The Mario and Luigi font is a type of font called dingbats, which means that each character of the font isn’t a letter, but an image. (If you want to learn more about fonts, check out Looking at Typography.)
The Mario graphic we need is found by typing in the lowercase letter, “q”. The default size of your font is probably pretty small, so change the size to be about 385pt.
Now since Mario is black and white, we’re going to color him in to give him a little depth. Coloring Mario is fast and fun. Basically what we’re going to do is use our Paint Tool to paint underneath Mario. To do this we need to create separate layers for each part of him.
First create a new layer by clicking on the New Layer icon in your Layers Panel. Make sure that this layer is underneath your Mario dingbats layer, which is named “q” since it’s actually a text layer. Name your new layer “Shoes”.
Pick a dark brown color (I used #844100) and use the Paint Brush Tool to paint in Mario’s shoes.
After this, you’re going to create six more paint layers, named, “Gloves”, “Shirt”, “Shirt Buttons”, “Face”, “Eyes” and “Hat”. In each layer, choose a color and paint the area in. I’ve included the color codes that I used in case you want to follow what I did.
When you’re done painting Mario, create a new folder and name it “Mario Character”.
ADDING IN THE TITLE TEXT
To add the title text, you’ll want to use your Text Tool and select the font you downloaded called, “Super Mario Bros.” Then type in the title that you want your desktop wallpaper to say. You can use the text I wrote or you can type in a new phrase if you like.
When you type your text make sure your font is black. Because of how this font is designed, when you type your text, the letters should be outlined in black and not filled in.
Next angle your text to the left to get that action feel. So far, your text should look like this:
Since this font isn’t colored in by default we need to do so ourselves. To do this, make sure you have your text layer selected, then select the Magic Wand Tool (W) on your Tool Panel.
Then click anywhere on your artboard, except for inside the text letters. You should see flashing dotted lines around what the magic wand selected, which should be everything except for the text. Now, while holding the Shift Key (if you do this correctly your cursor will change into a wand with a plus sign) , select the areas of the letter’s O, R and A.
With all of those areas selected, hit, SHIFT + CTRL + I. You should now have only your letters selected. Now go to your layers panel and create a New Layer. Then go to the menu at the top of the Photoshop screen and select Edit>Fill. From this menu choose “Color” and select the color white, or any color you think might go well inside the letters. After you fill in your letters, your text will still be selected. You can unselect the text by going to the Marque tool and clicking anywhere on your artboard.
Make sure to rename your new fill layer to something such as, “Text Fill”, then drag it below your original text layer so that the black outlines show up. To add the hard, drop shadow on the letters, make a copy of your “Text Fill” layer, then open up its Layer Style by double clicking on it.
Check the Color Overlay box and change your settings to the ones below:
Name this layer “Text Drop Shadow” and move it below your “Text Fill” layer. Use your mouse to adjust it a bit to the left and a bit below the original text. It now gives the illusion of a drop shadow.
After that your wallpaper is complete! Looks pretty snazzy, huh? Now that you know the basics for using textures and Clipping Masks, you can add in other elements to make your wallpaper uniquely your own. For mine, I decided to add some other Mario characters using the same dingbats font and the same coloring method I used for Mario. I also added in our iD logo for fun.
The last thing you’ll need to do is so save your graphic as a jpg. You can create a small file by going to the top Photoshop Menu and selecting File>Save for Web & Devices and saving your graphic as a jpg. Then go to your computer’s Start Menu and go to Display (like you did at the beginning of the tutorial to find out your screen size). On the Destktop tab, click on the browse button and select the file you just saved. Hit OK and your very own wallpaper should be on your computer!
Now that you know how to create a personal desktop graphic, you can be sure that I’m going to ask you to send us any of your cool creations. As always feel free to send them to info@internalDrive.com or hit us up on facebook and show us what you’ve created. Happy designing!
May 13th, 2010
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
May 6th, 2010 by: Pete-V
I issued a challenge to Bryan: Create or break a world record.
This challenge was not taken lightly – but I will get to that momentarily. Bryan accomplished his task and then reissued the same challenge to me: Create or break a world record.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a world record breaking blog post – “The Most Links in a Blog Post on InternalDrive.com that Lead Back to InternalDrive.com Without Getting Too Off-Topic”
This summer, we are issuing the same challenge to all of iD Tech Camp locations through a new program called iDX with a little help from the Universal Record Database.
iDX is a competition between four teams that spreads across all iD Tech Camp locations. Teams are made up of several individual camps (mainly centered around a large region) that work together to score points by completing various specific challenges set forth by the iDX administrators (Bryan and I). Many of these tasks have to do with creating or breaking records and each has a value (or bounty) of 1 – 10 points.
For instance, one of our Florida summer camps, such as Rollins College, could get everyone at camp to sign the same sheet of paper. This task would earn the BLUE team 1 point. The other Florida summer camp, namely University of Miami, could then complete the same task for a second point for the BLUE team. An Illinois summer camp, such as Lake Forest College, can tape everyone at camp high-5ing 10 different people which would score the RED team 2 points. Each week we tally the scores and share the statistics on which team is leading for the summer, for the previous week and which camp has scored the most iDX points.
The higher point challenges is where the record breaking begins! An Orange County California summer camp, namely UC Irvine, could get 8 points for the YELLOW team by performing the difficult “Group Soccer Juggle 2″ task, where at least 20 Campers need to keep a soccer ball in the air for 5 minutes or 300 taps by juggling with their feet. If their video is accepted by the URDB as a world record setting performance, that point score is doubled!
We are really excited about iDX this year because it adds some competition and cooperation between all iD Tech Camps. Campers are used to competing against other camps in our video game tournaments but now there is another outlet to dominate! I will keep everyone posted on the iDX highlights from this blog and especially call out any new records set by iD Tech Campers or staff.
And, as promised, here’s Bryan’s record breaking performance: “Longest Time To Keep An American Quarter Balanced On Spinning Coat Hanger”
From URDB:
Bryan Vitale placed an American quarter on the tip of a bent metal coat hanger and spun it for 2 minutes, 56.20 seconds.
CRITERIA TO BEAT RECORD:
- must use a standard coat hanger bent in a diamond shape
- must place/balance an American quarter on tip of hanger
- timing begins when first spin starts
- no adhesives are allowed to keep quarter on hanger
And for future reference, I linked to InternalDrive.com 19 times in this blog post – setting the current record!!!
May 6th, 2010
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers, Summer Camps
May 5th, 2010 by: Pete
Summer video game development program for teens teaches young students real-world gaming skills with professional level software.
Campbell, CA (PRWEB) May 5, 2010 — The iD Gaming Academy, a specialized intensive summer game development boot camp for teens, has announced two new locations for its summer 2010 lineup. Now in its 5th season, the iD Gaming Academy has expanded to Seattle and Chicago. The two-week program immerses students in game theory, development, graphics—and other crucial “behind the scenes” aspects of the industry. “We have a lot of gamers who come to us expecting the experience to be easy—but developing games requires patience, the ability to work in teams—and you’ve got to be good. The industry is growing, and the competition is strong. We give our students a leg up,” said Pete Ingram-Cauchi, CEO of the iD Gaming Academy.
The Academy has locations at Stanford University, Villanova University, Emory University, and now the University of Washington in Seattle and Lake Forest College in Chicago. The summer programs are strategically located close to some of the country’s premiere gaming studios including Electronic Arts®, Valve®, Microsoft® Game Studios, Hi-Rez Studios and Big Huge Games. The Academy incorporates tours of many of these studios into its curriculum. “We want to give them a taste for what a real gaming studio looks like and feels like,” said Ingram-Cauchi.
The Academy hires industry professionals with game development experience. Jay Vales is a 3D Modeling instructor at the Academy, and has professional credits working on many well known games including the massively multi-player online role playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft®. Alex Liebert, another Academy instructor, is an indie game developer and owner of Aqualux Deluxe which is a web based action/puzzle game.”It’s really gratifying to see the satisfaction in a student’s face at the moment something clicks—when they’ve wrapped their head around a tough concept and created something they’re proud of. There’s a thrill in seeing your (game) ideas come to life,” said Liebert.
Teen students look to the Academy to teach the building blocks of gaming. And it might be a smart choice for those considering the potential of the gaming industry as a career choice. A nod to the long term sustainability of gaming, a recent BusinessWeek article outlined the fact that the video game industry posted $1.52 billion in March 2010 sales, up 6% over the same period a year ago. The growing importance of video games is hard to miss. A recent USA Today article stated that Erskine Bowles, head of the Obama administration’s budget-balancing task force, had contacted Microsoft® CEO Steve Ballmer to see if the company could build a video game that would allow gamers “to take a stab at balancing the budget.”
Fortune 500 companies are also getting into the game. The United Parcel Service (UPS) recently announced they are looking to hire 25,000 truck drivers. But there is one catch. Applicants will need to prove they are ready for the job by completing virtual training through, you guessed it, video game simulations.
And recently, Google, Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt suggested that playing multiplayer video games “ is good training for a career in tech,” and if he were 15 years old, that’s what he’d be doing right now.
The summer gaming camp provides instruction in different two-week courses, and enhances the gaming experience with gaming tournaments powered by NVIDIA®. The teen camp courses include Modeling and Animation with Maya® (the industry leading development tool used in top-selling video games like Resistance 2™), and Programming for Game Consoles, which allows users to develop games for delivery on the PC or Xbox 360®. Other academy courses include Level Design – Unreal® Engine 3, where Teens mod Unreal® Tournament 3 with the same engine used for the Gears of War and Bio Shock series.
So, Mom and Dad, how about all those hours “wasted” in the basement playing video games? It looks like it just might be an investment after all.
About the iD Gaming Academy
The iD Gaming Academy, operated by iD Tech Camps, is North America’s #1 provider of summer camps and teen gaming camps at 60 elite universities in the USA and Canada. Locations include Stanford and , Villanova University and Emory University. Established in 1999 in Silicon Valley, the company is family-owned and operated. iD Tech Camps offers technology courses including 3D Video Game Design, 3D Game Modding, Maya®, Video Game Programming, Programming in C++ and Java, Programming iPhone® Apps, Robotics, Web Design, Flash® Animation, Graphic Arts, Digital Photography and Video Editing. The summer youth camps consist of weeklong day camps and sleep away camps, and multi-week teen academies. Courses are appropriate for beginner to advanced learners. The company teaches the latest technologies from Apple®, Adobe®, Microsoft®, Autodesk®, Sony®, Valve® and more.
May 5th, 2010 | Tags: game desing camps, game development for teens, learn maya, maya camps, Summer Camps, video game camps
Posted in: iD In The News
May 4th, 2010 by: Elise
KVUE News Austin
May 4, 2010
School is almost out and summer is drawing ever closer. Which raises the annual question–what are the kids going to do on those lazy summer days? KVUE’s Quita Culpepper talks with Jen Devine, regional manager of Internal Drive, which runs a technology camp at St. Edwards University.
Click here to watch the interview
May 4th, 2010
Posted in: iD In The News, St. Edward’s University
