iD Blog Author: Josh

Hi All! Summer is in full swing and I’ve been super busy touring iD Tech Camps all over the nation! I’d like to take this time to share with you one of my favorite iD Tech Camp traditions, one that is unique to our Princeton location, in fact, one that I helped to start!

In 2005 I was an instructor iD Princeton teaching Web Design & Flash Animation. The bottom floor of our dorm had a lot of free space and it occurred to me that having a dance party is a great way to end a day of hard work at a computer! Several trips to a party store later, we had outfitted the space as a nightclub, rigged a laptop into a modest DJ booth and iDisco Tech was born. I was excited to see that the tradition is still going STRONG and campers and staff are still having a blast! Enjoy these pics!

Keep partying Princeton!

The fun doesn’t stop there!  Make sure to check out all the cool photos from our Summer camps in New York, our Computer camps in Massachusetts, our Illinois summer camps and our Canadian Film School!

Hey everyone, Grizzle here letting you know that this week’s blogs come from one of our very own stellar summer staffers!  Rob M., “Mau Mau” has been with iD since 2007 and specializes in our web design and video game creation course.  He is hear to today to tell about a very unique program that iD offers…

Hey everyone its Mau Mau, iD Tech’s UCSD Surf and Tech instructor!

Basically, I wanted to use this moment on the iD Tech blog to share with everyone what I consider one of the most unique and fun courses offered here at iD Tech: Surf and Tech.

What is this mythical “Surf and Tech” you might ask? Often times when I tell someone that phrase, they envision the surf part meaning “surfing the interweb” or something like that, but trust me; its much, much better.

Basically, this is a hybrid “Sport and Tech” course offered exclusively at iD UCSD, where campers spend half the day learning how to “shred the nar” (also known as ‘Surf’) on the California coast with professional surfing instructors, and then come back to a computer lab in the afternoon to learn how to make either their very own Arcade-Style video game, or Professional HTML Website. Other fun stuff like Guitar Hero sessions, Ultimate Frisbee games, Online Gaming Tournaments will definitely ensue. Cool swag to take home with you includes your finished project burned onto a CD, a DVD video of your surfing experience and much more.

This combined experience is truly unique; iD Tech is the only camp in the nation that offers this unreal homogenization of activities. Nowhere else can you express both your inner jock and geek quite like this!

If you are from out of state or even country and want to experience surfing in California as well as create some excellent video games on a computer, iD UCSD offers both overnight stay and “Ultimate Gaming Weekends.” What this means is that if you are coming from abroad: you can stay multiple weeks surfing, creating video games and even spend the weekend just chilling out with other campers playing video games and other fun activities without having to go back home until its all over. (sadly!) Spend multiple weeks honing both your surfing and video game creation skills, or mix it up and try some of the other wicked courses that iD has to offer.

Exercise both your body and mind this summer. Enroll in the Surf and Tech program at iD UCSD today.

Hang Ten!

Mau Mau

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.

Hey guys!

I was just shown some awesome pictures taken by the campers at our spring break beta camp and I wanted to share!  When I first saw the email, I assumed that these were taken by one of our in-house pros (lookin’ at you Marta) but I was stoked to find out that they were, in fact, the products of campers in our photography course!

I can’t wait to see the photography that comes out of this summer!  With such a variety of settings, from our West Coast Washington Summer Camps all the way to our East Coast Baltimore summer camps, I’m expecting to see some awesome photography from our kids camps nationally!  In fact, I should say internationally as we’ve expanded in to Canada with our Vancouver Summer Camps and others!

Next week I’ll be heading up to our headquarters in San Jose for Pete’s famous Paella Night.  Long time readers know that means my next blog will likely include the documentation of some epic pranks… at Pete’s expense!

It is College Basketball Tournament season and things are looking really exciting. With all the Bracketology, Prognositcators, and Experts out there, people are probably wondering what iD’s men’s basketball bracket looks like. We like to root on our favorite schools – those that host our summer programs and teen summer camps!

The rules for this bracket are simple:

1. Any school that hosts iD Tech is predicted to win.

2. Win goes to the team that is the higher seed if:

a. Both schools host iD

b. Neither school hosts iD

Let’s look at the Midwest Region. We have THE Ohio State University representing as the No. 2 seed. They have a strong team that’s battled through a challenging Big Ten Conference this year. They’ve got what it takes to clean house and take Kansas out of the running.

The West Region has Vanderbilt University of Nashville, Tennessee. They’re only a 4 seed and will have to face Syracuse to make it to the Final Four.

In the East Region, we’ll get to watch some Huskies run the court! University of Washington, which hosts iD Tech Camps and iD Gaming Academy (where students learn game design), would be quite the Dark Horse to advance as far as we’d like!

Finally in the South Region, we’ll be rooting for four teams! University of California: Berkeley will have to pull off a pretty big upset to beat Duke in the 2nd round. With iDTC and iD Visual Arts Academy running on campus this summer, we know they can do it! Purdue has had a solid year, but comes in as a No. 4 seed. We’ve been on campus for only two years, but we think the Boilermakers can easily advance to the Elite 8. Then, we get to watch St. Mary’s of California go up against Richmond. If, I mean “when”, they advance, they’ll then be pitted against another of our home teams – Villanova. They’re our favorite spot in Philly for iD Tech Camp and even where we hold our staff training. They should go deep this year.

The iDeal Final Four would be The Ohio State vs. Vanderbilt and Villanova vs. Washington. Are we that crazy to put an 11 seed UW into the Final Four? They’ve got a big cheerleader in their corner to take them far. Championship game would then be Ohio State against Villanova. With the game in Indianapolis, this would be great for Buckeye fans! But since it is a match of No. 2 Seeds, our bracket system is stuck!

Who do you think would win this matchup?

Or do you have someone else in the Final Four?  Time to sound-off readers, I want to hear support for your teams in the comments!!!

BIG thanks to Charlie for giving me this iDea and providing the B-ball insight!