Greetings and Happy Holidays from the iD Tech 365 Secret Headquarters!
internalDrive’s newest online program, iD Tech 365 has been up and running for only a month and a half and there is already so much to report!
The Gift of Knowledge!
Students are having a ball learning from our ever growing collection of tutorials! They are learning how to make their own video games with GameSalad, a game design software for all levels of skill that is used to make games for the iPad, iPhone and more! By popular demand, we’ve just released some Java tutorials teaching students the basics of how to program in Java – an excellent start for students who are gearing up for our summer programs! But that’s not all, we have nearly a dozen different technologies covered on iD Tech 365 for nearly every sort of interest, including UDK game design, making iPhone/iPad apps with iOS, special FX with After Effects and more!
Win a Free Week at Camp!
That’s right! Last month, user Slartibrtfst won a $100 dollar vouch to be put towards our camps or academy programs, which he’ll be using to treat himself to some time at the iD Programming Academy. How did he win this? Simply by playing the game Nyan Cat Fly at the iD Tech 365 Arcade! Every month a game from the arcade is featured and the winner(s) are eligible for a prize. It’s not too late to win a free week of camp for yourself, this month the user with the highest score on Tower of Greed will also win a $1000 dollar voucher! You can do it!
Spreading Good Will and Holiday Cheer on the Forums!
A wonderful community of bright, well-spoken and friendly students is forming on the iD Tech 365 Forums and it is a beautiful thing to watch! Every day I’m delighted by what I’m seeing on the forums, students helping teach each other, sharing ideas for projects and generally spreading the kind of good will that this holiday season is all about! You’ll want your student to be a part of this!
Greetings from Grizzle! As of Nov. 1st, our brand new (and formerly top secret) service, iD Tech 365 has officially launched is currently open for registration! Since day one, lucky subscribers have been following iD Tech 365′s online tutorials to make their own games, iphone apps, special FX for film and much more! But that isn’t all! They’ve also been meeting up on iD Tech 365’s online forums and making friends with one another before camp, helping each other with tech questions and generally having a great time getting theme selves introduced on iD Tech 365.
But what about the $1000 dollars towards a camp voucher???
Well, that’s the other thing that student have been doing on iD Tech 365: competing for a $1000 voucher to be put towards camp! Every month iD Tech 365 features a Flash game for it’s online gaming tournament and the winner receives a prize. To celebrate the first two months after iD Tech 365’s launch (Nov and Dec) the grand prize is extra grand, in fact, it is quite literally a GRAND ($1000) in the form of a camp (or academy) voucher.
What does the Nyan Cat have to do with any of this???
Well, this month’s tournament game is “Nyan Cat Fly!” featuring everyone’s favorite Cat / Pop-Tart hybrid; the Nyan Cat. In “Nyan Cat Fly!” you fly through space and score points by eating candy, whilst avoiding veggies that harm you (just like in real life). As of Nov. 9th, 2011 at 4:31pm a user by the name of “Shadow” is in the lead with 14,208 points – can you top that and steal the prize? As the iD Tech 365 community begins to grow, the amount of competition will never be lower than it is today – act fast! You should join the fun and sign up for iD Tech 365 today!
Greetings from Grizzle (that’s me!) I’m back to leak more info about internalDrive’s top secret new program, launching Nov. 1st; iDTech365.com.
I’ve been sworn to secrecy about this project but, I’m breaking my silence as the public has a right to know! It looks like my last communiqué about winning a free week of camp with iDTech365.com made it through undetected, I wonder if this one will be as lucky… they are bound to catch on to me soon…
In addition to online gaming tournaments and community forums, the main focus of iD Tech 365 is self-directed, tutorial based learning. Our ideology in designing these online tutorials is similar to our approach to teaching at camp; cool projects inspire students and makes them want to learn more. That said, we’ve concocted some pretty cool projects that students work on through our tutorials. Moreover, students participating in iDTech365.com get access to all the files they needed to complete the projects including finished versions from pro’s to serve as references. Once the project is completed, it is all theirs to customize and continue to build upon.
I’m excited to show you a few screen shots of some of these projects – just a taste…
Below is a screen shot of a platform-style Flash game that students will learn to make. I just love the characters.
To teach our students how to make special effects with Adobe After Effects, we decided to make shot a short science-fiction action film. Our plan is to provide students with two copies of the piece, one with the special effects and one without all of the special effects. Then, by using our tutorials, students can add in the special effects in themselves (and hopefully create a few more)! Here’s a shots of the film (while being edited).
Students wanting to build a website will have a quick start with this basic website template. Once constructed the site is a great foundation for any project the student has in mind, such as a school project, a band the play in, an online portfolio/resume, or just another website full of funny cat pictures!
And of course, we’ll be teaching pro game design technologies such as the tried and true UDK (Unreal Design Kit), the same software used to create Gears of War, Mass Effect and many other famous popular game series.
And iPhone / iPad apps, you bet we got that. Anyone want to make an iphone app like Guitar Hero? We have a Game Salad Tutorials for just that!
There is so much more but that’s all I can say for now – in fact – I’ve probably said too much… Time for Grizzle to go back, deep underground to the top secret iDTech365.com headquarters and get back to work. I think they may be catching on to me…
Greetings from Grizzle! It has been a while hasn’t it? Well, it’s because I’ve been in hiding…
I’m contacting you from my underground bunker (pictured above) where, for the past year or so, I and a small, elite, team have been working on a top secret project for iD: iDTech365.com. I’ve been sworn to secrecy on this project but my conscience compels me to make such an awesome new service from iD public knowledge. As such, I’ve managed to hack into the iD Tech Blog to provide you with this expose, hopefully no one notices my clandestine operation…
What is iDTech365.com?
It is an online learning community created by internalDrive where students can learn all about technology. Once the site is launched it will offer dozens of exclusive tutorials on how to make your own game, and to learn about programming, web development, graphic design and many more topics! It is the perfect bookend to the camp experience! Study up before camp and start your week ahead of the class, or, expand what you’ve learned at camp even further back at home! We’ll be constantly expanding our tutorial series based on what the community wants to learn!
I thought you said something about a free week of camp in 2012?
I did, two weeks actually! Just like at camp, iDTech365.com will feature gaming tournaments where students from across the world can compete from the comfort of their own home. To celebrate the launch of iDTech365.com, for the first two months of tournaments the grand prize will be a $1000 voucher towards camp!!! More then enough for a free week of camp! This may be the biggest prize iD has ever offered (though I’ll have to check with our archivist whose buried in another, deeper cave)! What game will it be? That’s a surprise, but I can tell you it will be a Flash game playable directly from the iDTech365.com website – no need to go out a buy a new game!
When will this service be available?
I’ve set up a secret countdown timer on: iDTech365.com –shh! Top secret!
There is a lot more to say about iDTech365.com, but I’m afraid if I leak any more information this communiqué may be intercepted. Don’t worry, I plan on releasing another leak soon…
Hey guys! Earlier this month was Pete’s (our CEO) birthday! At camp we always make a big deal about birthdays for both our campers and staff and you better believe that we do just the same at headquarters! Here is a short video of the shenanigans from this year:
Hey guys! During a recent trip to the iD Tech headquarters (buried deep within the mountains of Silicon Valley) our CEO, Pete, asked if I wanted to go the San Jose Technology Museum and blog about it. Of course, my answer was: “YOU BET I DO!” What a great technology museum it is, the exhibits are well chosen and creative, but most importantly it provides a truly hands on experience. You really get to play with technology in a variety of ways! In the photo above, I was having fun with the thermal imaging exhibit. As you can see, my glasses and goatee provided enough variation in temperature to render a clean shot of my face, awesome! Below are more pictures of my adventure an the museum!
Next to an exhibit demonstrating 3D modeling and animation physics was this composition, depicting the evolution of video games. I thought it was cool that they used one of my favorites, Starcraft II, to represent modern video games (especially because it includes Void Rays), but they skipped the 80’s entirely, where is Pacman!?
This similar composition shows the evolution of graphic arts and photography over time, starting way back with cave paintings (Italian I think). The connection between cave paintings and modern day “street art” is blatant but I had to take a moment to consider the relation of the 3rd panel which depicts a network of geo-tagged photographs, presumably gathered from a user-base. I think the implication is that all of these works are: geographically rooted, unauthorized and collaborative between multiple artists, who may not be working directly with another. Whatever the link, I’m impressed by the creativity in the selection of that 3rd panel, as it does seem to fit.
Ok, here are some more hands on exhibits, as I promised! This one was super fun – a virtual bobsled! It could fit about two people who would shift their weight back and forth to navigate a virtual track! Bobsled courtesy of Northern California school UC Davis.
Oh man, I nearly flipped out when I saw this exhibit, a Google-maps viewing room in nearly 360 degrees! It was hard to get a shot of this room not crowded by people – everyone wanted to zoom into their neighborhood or school!
When I was in high school, I used to organize arm-wrestling tournaments for charity so I was really excited to see this arm-wrestling exhibit. In this exhibit people wrestle a mechanical arm – but they are actually wrestling another person! The mechanical arm in networked to another, identical device elsewhere in the world and the amount of force it exerts is proportionate to the persons on either side. How cool! With a webcam competitors can watch each other just like they were going head to head in real life! I would love to get one of these at each of our camps!
In this programming and robotics exhibit students first entered their name in a computer, then a robotic arm would search through letter blocks while organizing them to spell the students name. A clever girl “hacked” it to say “Ekta Is Awesome”, good job Ekta! I wanted to make it spell out “iD Tech Camps” but the kids were just having too much fun for me to intervene.
Over the years I’ve enjoyed watching “Netiquette” and “Internet Slang” evolve from something that people simply “did” to something that is now studied and discussed at a scholarly level. To that capacity, I enjoyed seeing this whole Netiquette exhibit. At iD we post our own techno-etiquette rules on the walls of our labs, quite similar to the ones in the pic above.
I had a great time at the museum and I highly recommend you all make a trip to it yourselves. If you aren’t local to San Jose, nearly every metropolitan area has a science museum of their own and they are great, educational fun for the whole family.
Here is a fun bonus pic…
Reminds us of how far we’ve come in such little time!
Hey guys, here is another guest blog from Regional Manager extraordinaire Charlie, enjoy – Grizzle
Making iPhone and iPad apps at iD Tech has just gotten easier! At 23 locations this summer, campers can sign up for our Game Design for iPhone® & iPad®class using the development tool GameSalad®.
In a class that guarantees a 1:8 instructor maximum ratio, learning how to use this professional software starts campers on the path to being a publisher to the web or Apple App Store. The great thing about GameSalad® is that programming language experience isn’t necessary. With an intuitive drag and drop setup, young developers can focus on the design and game play aspect of their project instead of heavy coding. Creating the behaviors of the game objects in your game is done with a graphical user interface. GameSalad® comes with a library of behaviors and objects that can be inserted into your game.
After you practice making your own project at iD Tech, you can download this software for free and use it on any Intel-based Mac at home! Publishing to the web is an easy way to share your projects, but of course everyone really wants to make it on the Apple App Store. That is a long and winding road that is best understood through the iOS Developer Program.
Special thanks to the folks at Gendai Games that developed GameSalad and wanted to share this tool with the promising youth of iD Tech Camps. Their intuitive, drag and drop approach to app development will lead to so much innovation (this summer and beyond)!
Hi all – This week we have a guest-blog from our super-star regional manager Keri! I hope you enjoy – Grizzle!
You might not think we do much in the off-season, but your Regional Management team is busy year around! We pour over evaluations and find solutions to any problems we might see. We fine tune and test new curriculum. We create new systems to better the camp experience for all! We also spend time working with our university partners. In some cases the planning for 2011 started on the last day of camp in August!
Our university partners are an invaluable part of our success each summer. You may not see them while you’re at camp, but trust us, they are always there! They make sure that our campers have great accommodations, that meals are provided as scheduled (sometimes they give up their own 4th of July to make sure we have meals when all other campus departments are closed), they make sure we have fields to play on (and that we aren’t sharing the field with the football team) and every once in awhile, you can talk them into sharing the top secret, highly coveted water key to the outside faucets (you know, when it’s so hot and you just need an afternoon of water games).
Don’t tell them, but this year we are sending them some homemade goodies to celebrate the season and say “Thank You” for all of their hard work. Sharing is caring, and since we care about you we thought we would share our recipes for yummy treats and some other great HoliDay gift iDeas!
My nieces are almost old enough* for camp so guess what they are getting for Christmas? A WEEK OF iD TECH CAMP! Wrap it up in a bow, hide it on the tree, stuff it in a stocking, whatever you do, it is sure to be the best gift ever! When you give the gift of camp, you really are giving a gift that keep on giving.
Why iD? Mom and Dad, you are sharing cutting-edge technology education with your child. You are introducing them to a college atmosphere and maybe inspiring them to attend one of our great universities! You are giving them tools that they can use at home, at school and beyond. What can the gift of iD Tech Camps do for your child? Check out our Do Something Big stories…Your son or daughter could be next!
For our staff who might be working on their third degree in computer science and a little low on funds, or our campers who are looking to give a few gifts to family and friends, our team has the perfect gift iDea: food. Here is a little tutorial on how to make fun and cute holiday gifts for all:
Keri’s Fancy (Super Easy) Chocolate Pretzels
Step #1: Gather your tools (You don’t need fancy candy-maker supplies, in fact, I love using red plastic cups for dipping – the ridges are perfect for “twisting” off excess chocolate).
Suggested Supplies:
Microwave safe glass bowls or Measuring Cup
Assortment of Utensils: Plastic Spatula, Wooden Spoons, Metal Spoon, Whisk
Parchment or Waxed Paper
Plastic squeeze bottles
Step #2: Select your supplies. You can use pretzel sticks or twist. If you decide to get a little crazy, you can also use biscotti, graham crackers, or popcorn.
Beginners Shopping List:
1 Bag Large Pretzel Sticks
1 Package Dark Chocolate Chips
1 Package Milk Chocolate Chips
1 Package White Chocolate Chips
Assorted toppings: Nuts, sprinkles, crushed candy or cookies
Step #3: Set-up your work space. I like to use non-coated cooking parchment paper (found at most stores). You can also use waxed paper. I lay out the paper so that I have plenty of space for my finished product to set-up. Tape down the edges so that your surface doesn’t slide around.
Step #4: Melting chocolate. A lot has been written on melting chocolate and fancy pastry chefs spend years perfecting a technique called tempering, but we are keeping it simple. Pour chocolate chips into microwave safe glass bowl. Melt in 15 second intervals. It’s going to take a few minutes, but trust me, don’t try to do it all at the same time. Melt, stir, melt, stir, melt, stir. One great tip I found was to keep about ½ cup of chips aside and add to your last “stir” cycle. It helps to set the sugar and cocoa butter molecules so that your chocolate is smoother and coats nicely. (DO NOT GET WATER INTO MIX).
Step #5: Pour chocolate into red plastic cup for dipping. There is no right or wrong here folks! I use a bit of a dip and twist to get excess chocolate off the pretzel.
Step #6: Roll or sprinkle pretzel with your favorite toppings. I’ve used everything from sprinkles to nuts. You can use different kinds of crushed candy or cookies. Just make sure to do this step while the chocolate is still in its liquid state. If you let it cool too much your toppings won’t stick.
Step #7: Do you want to step-it-up? Add a fancy drizzle! I like to drizzle in a contrasting chocolate (so white chocolate drizzle on dark chocolate), but you can use whatever flavor you like. I use a small squeeze bottle filled with melted chocolate. You can get two bottles for about $2 from most stores. Just squeeze lightly from right to left and over again until you have the amount of drizzle you like.
Step #8: Packaging! There are a million options for packaging your yummy pretzel treats. All it takes is a little imagination. You can find candy bags in the baking section of most stores. There are also aluminum tins all over the place this time of year. Take one of our graphic arts courses and next year you could start your own online candy label business! (I like using my craft supplies – Rotary Cutter with Pinking Blade, Craft Tissue Paper, Ruler and Self-Healing Cutting Mat – to make fun box stuffing).
Have fun, experiment and share your results with us here, on Facebook or Twitter!
No matter what you celebrate this time of year, On behalf of the entire Regional Management Team, I would like to wish you, your family and all of iD Nation World a safe, fun and happy HoliDay!
*My oldest niece will only be turning six this year, so she will have to wait one more year before going to camp, bummer. But trust me, I’m sending her! We have great instructors and iD is a great place for girls to gain an advantage in technology education!
Hey everyone! This is a follow up to a previous article I wrote, Four Games to Exercise Your Brain, I’m back with four more super-fun (addicting!) games, this time with a focus on vocabulary and mathematics – watch out SAT’s!
This is a replication of classic Chinese game of Nim, first documented in the 16th centaury but believed to be much older. In the game of Nim, players alternate subtracting objects from rows (technically “heaps”) and the player stuck with the final object loses. Sound easy? It ain’t. In this version you play against an AI engine with a lovably sinister cartoon persona. Due to the mathematical resolvability of this game, this little character will give you a run for your money, but he is definitely beatable!
The AI character (Juan) adds an immerse sense of narrative to an otherwise purely mathematical game, making it much more enjoyable. Narrative and story telling is an important aspect to video game design that we focus on at iD, as it can easily be over looked.
This is a simple vocabulary synonym quiz in the style of SAT (GRE, etc…) multiple choice format. However, it has heartwarming rewards, for every question you get right 10 grains of rice are donated through The World Food Programme to help end hunger! Though 10 grains is a small amount, every little bit counts and that’s why you should play! To date, nearly 83 billion grains of rice have been donated. At higher levels of vocab (which you can set at any point) you’ll notice plenty of overlap with typical standardized testing vocab lists – why not kill two birds with one stone and get your community service in while studying for your SAT’s – watch out college-entrance resume, BAM!
Recently, the site has included multiple categories of play including Art, Chemistry, Forign Language, Geography, Grammar and Math. Peep them all here: http://www.freerice.com/category
This puzzle is a variant from the “pipe-laying” genre of puzzle games. Get your IT on and assume the role of a network admin who must connect a network router to a handful of computer terminals. The game play entails rotating tiles on a 2D plane to establishing a one-way flow to all of the end points. Most arrangements only have one solution though I’ve found a few with more than one. With three levels of play (in “expert” you can wrap around edges) this game is dangerously addicting and can be played for hours! I would love a portable version of this for my phone, maybe one of our students will program at our Iphone camps!
(Four e’s? This is the last time I do you any favors, Scrabb.ly)
Mental Muscles Flexed:
Vocabulary Building
Like playing scrabble with a friend? What about with four people? What about 4,000+ people? What about 4,000 people in a real-time (not-turn based)? In Scrabbly you play Scrabble on a massive board (like enough scrabble boards to cover the state of Rhode Island) against thousands of other people in real-time, building off of your own words as fast as you can. Despite how crazy that may sound, the game play is actually quite user-friendly and ironically reminiscent of the classic game of scrabble. Here is another screen shot to give you an idea of how big this game is. Below is an “ariel” view of only 1/20th the full size of the game board, the little yellow box represents what you zoom into in-game:
Looks like a Mandelbrot set! Chaos theory anyone? This board is huge – like Canada-sized huge. Did you know we’ve recently expanded our camps into Canada? If not, be sure to check out our Canada camps!
The above four games are a great example of making learning fun, which is precisely what our educational summer camps aim to do.
Hey all! What a treat I’ve got for you guys this week!
A long standing tradition at iD Tech Camps is our staff’s creation of funny videos, usually spoofing popular music videos. This season, “Tik Tok”, by Ke$ha, was a popular target and below is my favorite rendition, made at our very own UCLA camp in California.
If you are interested in making this sort of thing yourself, take a look at our film camps! Not into film? We have camps where you can learn to program too!
Expertise: Photoshop, Illustrator & Graphic Design, Prairie Dogs, Corn, Driving Tractors, Moonwalking, and Guessing the Quantity of Random Objects in A Jar
Next to an exhibit demonstrating 3D modeling and animation physics was this composition, depicting the evolution of video games. I thought it was cool that they used one of my favorites, 
(Four e’s? This is the last time I do you any favors, Scrabb.ly)
