iD Blog Author: Josh

Hey guys! I know these types of videos are all over the web but this one comes from my good friend and guitar prodigy, Gabe Deutsch and it is pretty rockin’:

Learn more about the Mario Bros. Theme song here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros._theme

Learn about it’s composer, Koji Kondo, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dji_Kond%C5%8D

Rock on Gabe!

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!

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!!!!!!

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!

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?