When I was a kid, I went to my fair share of educational summer programs: language camp, clay animation camp, invention camp (and I loved them all). But those are so 20th century. These days, the hot, educational activity during the summer months is tech camp, the obvious choice for kids who are obsessed with playing on their computers, conquering video games, and mastering the thousands of apps for their iPods, tablets, or smartphones. To view the video and read the complete article click here.
High tech careers are in high demand and some local students are getting a leg up on their future competition.
The iD Tech Camp is going on right now at St. Edwards University. Students, ages 7 to 17, are learning skills in computer programming. Students are learning how to create iPhone applications and video games as well as robotics. Some students will be allowed to take the games home that they made, while others will be able to upload their iPhone apps for you to buy.
The program is designed to be hands-on, which is something the students love.
“You kind of get free roam. You can just do whatever you want. They help you get started and then just let you go. You can just develop your skills and have fun and it’s a just a lot of fun,” said Nicholas Woods, a 17-year-old iD Tech Camp attendee.
This is the second year St. Edwards has hosted the camp and there still might be some spots availabe. For more information check out www.internalDrive.comor call 1-888-709-TECH.
Nearly 30 local kids sat, mouses clicking furiously and heads bent toward screens, in front of computers on a recent Wednesday afternoon.
They weren’t playing video games.
They were learning how to create programs and design for those games and other projects.
They honed their knowledge of new technology at one of a series of week-long iD Tech Camps being held this summer on the campus of Washington University.
The camps are offered by the firm internalDrive, based in California, at Washington University and more than 60 other sites nationwide.
Students from 7 to 17 learn to see how computer programs are used to create the video games they play, said Tanna Orgeron, director of the Washington University camp.
The company leases rooms in various college campuses. In the case of Washington University, the company has offered courses there for more than five years.
The courses, from beginner to advanced cover topics that range from role playing game design to programming languages to robotics to arcade game creation. Courses cost $600 to $900 depending on the particular class taken and its length, with some extended day and overnight sessions offered.
We asked some of the students to describe to older, tech-challenged folks, in terms their grandmothers would understand, what they’re working on.
Rose Livingston, 16, a Webster Groves resident, who will be a junior at Cor Jesu Academy.
“I’m working to write the execution file, the coding program, for a money converter chart. With it, you can put in the amount you have in U.S. dollars and be able to see the amount you’d get in other currencies like pesos or euros or zlotys, which is Polish money. I’m having a little difficulty with it right now, because it’s not outputting exactly what I want. But I’ll crack it, though it might take a little time. This program helps people who don’t want to do math.”
Elias McClendon, 17, a Florissant resident, who will be a junior at Hazelwood West High School.
“I’m working on a first person shooter level, which is part of a shooting video game where you play as if the camera were in your head, like you’re that shooter character. Each character, which is created with some preset controls, has a gun, which you can make move and shoot by using arrow keys, a space bar and left clicking on the mouse. So far, I’ve been creating a vehicle death match on that level, in a large area with a bunch of mountains. And I also plan to build a giant highway with vehicles driving to and from it, with bridges leading to the center of where the fighting will be. You need to create each part section by section, using a paintbrush tool for terrain. With the computer tool, you click and hold it to raise the level of the land to make a mountain peak. The hardest part is to get everything in the game to run smoothly, which can take an hour for each part, so I constantly play test everything. It’s a long process, just to make one level of a game. Just imagine how much time it takes to create a whole game! It seems so easy when you’re just playing.”
Omar Jawaid, 13, a Chesterfield resident, who will be an eighth-grader at Parkway Central Middle School.
“I’m making mods, which are extra levels and added on stuff, for a level of a role playing game. In that, you build different characters and decide what weapons they’ll have. For instance, you can change the race or class of character, like making someone a priest or warrior, and decide what your character does and what weapons they have while they’re going on a quest. For instance, a warrior can use a long sword and a shield and a ranger or archer can use bows and arrows. Wizards and sorcerers can use spells and quarterstaves and wands. Most RPGs (role playing games) have one overall quest and other side quests, to make the characters stronger. And all these steps take different programming. Adding too many effects can cause the game you’re making to crash. For instance, part of what I’m doing is having people enter a plundered village I’m making with a lot of fire and bloodstains. If you add too many of those effects, it causes the computer to crash. Also, you need to do baking, which is making all these effects and changes playable on the computer. The village, for instance, takes a lot of time to bake. And the more you add, the longer the game level becomes. It can be hard to find the cut off point to end one level and continue on with the game’s story to other levels.”
Brandon Brouk, 14, an incoming freshman at Westminster Christian Academy, who lives in the Ballwin area.
“I’m creating a character in a role playing game and also working on terrain for the game. I’m using a program called Neverwinter Nights 2 that lets you use buttons to select how you can edit and shape terrain, to raise and lower it and add texture and color to it. There are a lot of bugs to work out. For instance, sometimes the ground you’re working on just disappears and turns blue. I’m trying to fit as much in this game level as I can without the program slowing down. The great thing here at camp is, whenever you get stuck on something, you can ask a person next to you about what they think can help.”
Matteo Gerardo, 14, an incoming freshman at Parkway Central High School, who lives in Chesterfield.
“I’m making a map for a game called Unreal. There is a field with two bases with vehicles and weapons. There are many jump pads, where you’re able to jump to other platforms. I’m using a program called UDK, which is an Unreal Development Kit, a development framework with computer tools to create the game. You use a lot of mostly geometry, like developing cones and cubes into making these platforms where characters stand in the game. For instance, to make a tunnel, you make a big cube and shape it into the tunnel.”
Samantha Johnson won’t have a sunburn or mosquito bites to show for her time at camp this summer. But the 11-year-old will take home something else – an iPhone app called “Cupcakes vs. Bunnies” that she developed herself.
Samantha spent last week on the Stanford campus sitting at a flat-screen computer, shoulder to shoulder with her fellow campers, learning the fundamentals of designing a game app for the iPhone and iPad.
Digital Kids: Summer camp teaches kids how to create iPhone apps, video games and more
By Alia Wilson
After rocketing off a jump and shooting into the sky, a race car lands sharply back on a track with turns and loops, not unlike something from a Hot Wheels commercial.
The creation is straight out of the imagination of 11-year-old Cameron Mungall of Sunnyvale, who’s one of hundreds of students ages 7 to 17 participating in iD Tech Camps held at Stanford University this summer.
Founded by the company internalDrive in Silicon Valley, iD Tech Camps are week-long sessions for beginner to advanced students at 60 universities throughout the nation. Students can sign up for a particular course, where they can create iPhone apps, robots, video games, websites, C++ and Java programs, movies and more. Campers complete a project by the end of the week using the latest tech products, such as Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Final Cut Pro and others.
“We get to do a lot of things and we get to do them freely,” Cameron said. “The instructor is really nice and he doesn’t limit us that much.”
Students in the 3D Game Design Course Racing Games are led by instructor Cal “Hops” Wasylowich, a 2D and 3D animation student at St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario.
“They’re programming without even knowing it,” Wasylowich said. “I’m more than happy to show them how to do more advanced things, but I encourage them to learn through playing with the program and let them figure it out on their own.”
It’s not uncommon for students of the camp to not only become more tech savvy, but to take their newly acquired skills back to school and beyond.
One student developed several iPhone apps, which were featured in The New York Times, and had a high school research internship in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another student now works for Electronic Arts as an after effects editor, and another became art chief for her school’s literary magazine.
“The thing that draws me back year after year is being able to see a whole new generation picking up on these software programs,” said Emily Lindsay, director of the Stanford location. “It’s a really cool set-up. Just the sheer size of the Stanford location means there are so many opportunities to meet more people and learn from each other. Seeing so many people with such similar interests and sharing them is what we really get excited about.”
The camp is celebrating its 13th year with more than 120,000 students who have participated. Not only do students and instructors come from Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Mountain View, Saratoga and Palo Alto, but also from abroad. Some have come from as far as Japan, Taiwan, Egypt and England.
“We’re teaching kids important skills that are important in the 21st century in a fun environment,” said Karen Thurm Safran of iD Tech Camps. “They’re taking something that started as a passion and taking it a step further.”
The older and more experienced students get, the more intensive courses become available, including the iD Gaming, Programming and Visual Arts academies. Students can learn first-hand from industry professionals in Silicon Valley on how to create commercial video games for the Xbox 360 or apps for Google Androids.
At iD Tech Camp, kids design their own computer programs
By Shantal Parris Riley
Young minds probed deep into the world of computers Thursday at the iD Tech Camp at Vassar College. Scores of kids, ages 7-17, sat in front of computer screens, designing from scratch games, iPod and iPhone applications, and other programs. They were participants at the iD Tech Camp’s computer science summer camp, which is in its 10th year at the college. “I’m making an application that converts English into binary code,” said camper Benjamin Handel of Brooklyn. The 12-year-old held an iPad showing a blank window with a virtual keyboard underneath it. “Say you type this,” he said, keying in “My name is Ben.” He tapped a large virtual button labeled “convert to binary,” and a series of about 50 ones and zeros suddenly appeared in the window.
Aliens invade 11-year-old’s iPhone- and he doesn’t mind
By Britney Barnes
IRVINE — Pulling out his black iPhone, Luke Stanback called up an app for “Alien Invasion” and started blasting space invaders from a ship. The game is pretty challenging, but Luke knows all the “cheats.” That’s because the 11-year-old created the game over the last four days. “It’s pretty cool,” said Luke, “especially since it’s on my iPhone.” Luke was just one of many kids working diligently on computers Thursday morning at the weeklong iD Tech Camp in UC Irvine’s Mesa Court Community Center.
Inside a small technological laboratory on Alexander Street, kids aged 7 to 17 are programming computers and creating iPhone applications, robots and video games as part of iD Tech Camp held at Princeton University.
The camp, which has been held at the university for the past 10 years, enrolls approximately 100 students during each of its eight week-long sessions, according to Brittany Jones, director of the camp’s Princeton location.
TCU academy prepares teens for career in video games
By Diane Smith
Enter the world of Cupcake Zombies at your peril.
Once in, you’ve become a lemon that shoots forks. Your mission is to destroy the hungry cupcake zombies because it’s only through their elimination that the Food Pyramid can be rightfully reclaimed. Does this sound like too daunting a mission? Relax. It’s just a video game.
Cupcake Zombies was created by 16-year-old Zach Villarreal during a two-week summer program at Texas Christian University that ends today. The academy takes teens deep into the world of creating video games. Participants tap into graphing, math, storytelling, computer programming and art skills to learn how to create video games.
Throughout the summer, students on break from school will spend many hours in front of a computer. But one group isn’t playing video games or surfing apps; they are learning to create them.
For beginners and tech-geniuses alike, iD Tech Camps offer students ages 7-17 the opportunity to spend a week learning how to create games, programs, apps, websites and more. More than 200 will participate in the camp held at Rollins College this summer, and even more will attend at one of the other 60 universities around the nation…
Expertise: Photoshop, Illustrator & Graphic Design, Prairie Dogs, Corn, Driving Tractors, Moonwalking, and Guessing the Quantity of Random Objects in A Jar
