A colleague of mine just sent me a link from the Canadian Press.  Most people in the U.S. know we host our summer technology camps at the top universities in the country – Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, UCLA…

As we begin our expansion into Canada, it is interesting to get a lay of the land.  Here’s a quick read on some of the top schools in Canada.  We’ve launched iD Tech Camps at the University of Waterloo.  We’ve also launched the iD Visual Arts Academy at McGill University.

The Canadian Press

Date: Thursday Oct. 8, 2009 5:55 PM ET

TORONTO — The prestigious Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings are out and 11 Canadian universities have made the Top 200 list.

Six Canadian universities have even advanced in their standings over the previous year’s list, with Montreal’s McGill University ranking the highest at number 18.

McGill, which is the only Canadian university in the top 20, was also one of the six Canadian institutions that advanced in its ranking this year over last year’s list.

The University of Toronto was the next highest on the list at number 29, improving from 41st spot last year, while the University of Alberta made a huge leap from 74th spot last year to number 59 this year.

The universities of Waterloo, Calgary and Western Ontario also moved up on the list, with Calgary soaring from 170 to 149.

The other Canadian schools that made the grade were UBC, the Universite de Montreal, Queen’s, McMaster and Simon Fraser.

So, rest assured, when you attend one of our summer programs in Canada, you’ll have the peace-of mind-in knowing that your are not only learning great technologies–but you are doing so at an institution of prominence not only in Canada, but also the rest of the world.

Have a great day!

-Pete

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!

Dear iD Nation,

I want to personally welcome you to the iD Family.  To our returning families, I know you’ve been looking forward to our 2010 launch.  Yesterday we started taking registrations at 8 AM, and the phones were ringing busily all day.  That’s a good sign!  We had  a banner year in 2009, so we think 2010 will be even better.

An obvious question many families are asking is “What’s New?”   I am going to cut and paste some content from our “What’s New” page on our website:

• Digital Catalog – Our summer camp catalog is now available.
• Registration is now live! – Register with our latest promotion and save $100 by 12-15-09.  And when you refer-a-friend, you now save $50 and your friend does too!
• New Locations – New prestigious university locations including the campuses of Harvard, Princeton, Adelphi, Bentley, the expansion of our Teen Academies nationally, and our expansion into Canada.
• New Courses at iD Tech Camps – Awesome new courses include iPhone® App Development, Digital Photography & Photoshop®, RPG Game Design & Graphic Arts Hybrid, Game Modding with titles including Warcraft® III, Starcraft®, Half-Life® 2 and more.  Go to courses and programs.
• Expansion of our Teen Academies – The  iD Programming Academy has expanded to MIT.  The intensive game development program, the iD Gaming Academy has expanded to Chicago and Seattle.  We’ve also launched the new iD Visual Arts Academy. The Teen Academies are for ages 13-18.
• iD 365 – Endless Summer – Upon registration at iD, you now get access to our monthly FREE online workshops, taught year round by live instructors.  More.
• Receive Continuing Education Units from Villanova University or Stanford Continuing Studies.  Details.
• The iD Guarantee – We average 6 students per instructor at iD Tech Camps.  If we exceed an  8:1 ratio, you get to return for a free week of camp at equal value.  It’s that simple!  It’s iD quality.  And it’s only at iD!  Note:  Not valid for Teen Academies. Get details.
• New Games – Hot new commercial gaming titles used in our gaming courses, gaming tournaments and Ultimate Gaming Weekends.
• Learn Valuable “Life Skills” – We’re building new life skills content for this year.  The curriculum will round out the summer experience. See the benefits of iD. We’ve also got fun new camp activities for students.
• Technology Isn’t Just for Boys – We’ve created more courses and modules that are be appealing to girls including Web Design & Flash® Animation, Graphic Design, Video Editing & Special Effects, Digital Photography & Photoshop and the new teen-only  iD Visual Arts Academy.
• Go Green – We continue our iD Greening initiative by promoting carpooling, reducing travel and energy consumption and establishing new outreach partnerships in the communities we serve.
• The Basement.  For Students Only! – Find out what the buzz is about.   Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.  Blogs.  Student Project Uploads.  Camp Photos.  iD 365.  And more.  Head down to the The Basement!

OK, I’m back.  As you can see, we’ve been a bit busy preparing for this launch.  You might expect that we kick back and take a few months off in the Fall, but nothing could be further from the truth.  We’ve got the hardest working crew in the summer camp industry.  We’ve had teams working round the clock to pull all the pieces together…working with new locations (including the expansion of our Teen Academies and a push into Canada), developing curriculum, developing back-end applications, signing contracts, overhauling our website, developing content, designing our camp brochure, working with new corporate partners, creating new courses, and so much more.

The launch is a big, big, team effort, and it is a sign of our company’s organization and dedication to providing the very best.

On behalf of all our employees, we want to welcome you to the new camp season.  We hope you’ll take a few minutes to look around our website.  And, as always, we’re just a phone call away.

Best,

Pete Ingram-Cauchi

CEO, iD Tech Camps

This is a large format camera:

Unlike your digital camera (which most likely doesn’t even need you to focus), or an old-school SLR film camera (which only needs focus, shutter speed, and aperture), a large format camera has a lot of controls. Check out how each piece moves in 3 dimensions in the picture below:

2 of the adjustments you can make are called tilt and shift. Without getting TOO technical, what you’re doing is moving different focus planes to interact with each other in a way that you can’t really do with other cameras, thus selecting a certain region of the film to be in focus. There are modern tools that can do this on modern cameras (even digital!) – for example, lensbaby.com offers a lens that can make those adjustments. What will this do for you? You may remember this picture from a previous blog entry:

So, if you don’t have an extra $350 to spend on a lens (ok, let’s face it, you’re going to use it to buy video games and Mt. Dew), you can still acheive this same effect with a Gaussian Blur. It’s a great effect. You take a picture of normal sized people and magically they become miniatures!

Select a round (circular or oval-shaped) selection around the center, in focus, portion of your photo. Invert your selection and feather it by a lot. 100 pixels isn’t too many. Select Gaussian Blur from the filters section and experiment with settings. Can you make a photo look like these?

Email me *your* contributions at justin(at)internaldrive.com (@ symbol left out intentionally to prevent robotic spam crawling!) and I’ll post the best ones in a future entry.

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?

o maybe you’ve heard of Copenhagen. No, I’m not talking about the little can, I’m talking about the UN-sponsored global summit on climate change. If you haven’t heard of it, you must not read very many blogs! October 15th is designated as “Blog Action Day,” and 20000+ different blogs mentioned the big day. One interesting thing to note is that this number, as high as it is, is only one half of 1 percent of all of the blogs that are out there.

iD Tech has been pushing green issues for years. We know that we can help save power by turning off lights, computers, and monitors when we aren’t using our labs, and that reusing cups (by putting our name on them!) helps reduce waste. Did you bring in batteries or ink cartridges last year? Maybe a used cell phone or two?

If you have any more ideas on how to improve efficiency and reduce waste at camp, we want to hear them!

At iD Tech Camps we always say that our students will make friends that last a lifetime but I’d like to point out that the same is true for our staff as well! When I started with iD, back in the summer of ’05 I taught Web Design and Flash Animation out our heralded iD Princeton location. While there I made good friends with an international staff who was hired from Scotland, Andy aka “Wee Haggis”. Though I could barely understand a word he said, we quickly became close friends.

After working hard all week at camp, we’d take road trips all over the northeast coast touring the different parts of the country. In fact, he joined me the next camp season to drive across the country to work at iD UCLA, a road trip I’ll never forget!

I’m proud to say that we’ve remained good friends ever since and have visited each other just about every year. However, our most recent rendezvous was a special as his entire family came a long for the ride! I met up with them in New York City, then we all headed to Philadelphia. Here we are at the world famous Philadelphia Art Museum in front of the infamous “Rocky” statue. Andy and I are up top:

I found the only place NYC broadcasting the Scotland vs. Macedonia Football game, as it was not to be missed (my awesome Scotland Football jersey compliments of Andy’s fam) here we are in attendance:

PROTIP: Did you know the symbol depicted in the Scotish “Isle of Man” Flag (between Andy and I) is called a Triskelion

It’s a question people ask me about my photos sometimes:

“How do you get the background to be blurry like that?”  The photographic term for this blur is “bokeh,” which is derived from a Japanese word meaning “blur,” and it specifically means the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus area of an image.

Without going into a complete technical dissertation, it’s time to talk about aperture and depth-of-field (DOF.)  The aperture is the technical name for the opening in your camera lens that lets the light through.  The wider the aperture is open, the more light that is let in.  The depth-of-field (DOF)  is the term for the area of your picture that is in acceptable focus.  Below is what is known as a “shallow” DOF.

This effect, having the background look blurry, is one that is often pointed out as making pictures look more pleasing.

So, how do YOU get a blurry background with your camera?  There are two basic paths to this result: the hardware method and the software method.  If you have a camera that has aperture (aka f-stop) settings and manual focus, we can experiment with change those settings.  If you’re using a fixed-focus camera or a fixed-aperture camera, we can focus on the sotware method.

The Hardware Method:

Get as close to your subject as possible, and use the smallest f-stop number your camera allows.  Experiment!  The closer you can get, the better, so if your camera has a “macro” setting, try using it.  Aperture priority (usually indicated by a letter “A” on the selection wheel) is also a good thing to use, since that’s where you set the f-stop.  The lower the number, the wider the aperture, and the more chance of blurry backgrounds!  For example:

The first image was shot at f/5, the second at f/32.

The Software Method:

Import your photo into Photoshop.  Select the subject and then select inverse.  Use the Gaussian Blur filter to blur your background.  Try feathering your selection first.  Use small amounts of blur!  If you use too much, it can make real photos look fake.  This is called the faux-tilt-shift.  I”ll cover that in an upcoming blog, as well a bit more of the science behind WHY the blur acts how it does between different cameras.

Above:  what could happen if you use too much blur!

I encourage you to read up about aperture, DOF, and f-stops.  If you have access to a film camera, shoot some film.  It’s a completely different experience than digital, and you could learn some things.

Happy snapping!

Our labs are very impressive; typically a network of 30-100 computers boasting the latest technology, most cutting-edge games and applications and the kind of decorations that only iD staff know how to bring.  However what is equally impressive is that the labs are built from scratch in a mere 48 hour time period. That’s right, in only 48 hours iD staff is expected to turn a totally empty class room into a lab space worthy of the iD name.  What more impressive is that it is typically accomplished with only a couple of staff.  I consider myself an expert at setting up labs at this point and try to help set up as many locations as possible.  I decided to doucment how a typical lab set-up runs while I set up the Ohio State University lab with the help of OSU lead instructor Bryce (who was also the writer of our ‘09  Web-Design and Flash Animation Curriclum):

Day 1

Day one is all preparation for the arrival of the computers which happens the following day.  Prior to arrival “Camp-In-A-Box” (C.I.A.B.) has been shipped to the University location.  CIAB contains all the non-tech related materials to run a successful camp.  The combine shipping weight of “Camp-In-A-Box” averages at close to 500lbs.  The main objectives of day one are to un-pack an organize 100% of the “Camp-In-A-Box-Materials”, purchase any additional materials needed and then to prepare all the workstations for the arrival of the computers the next day.

Bryce is consumed by “Camp-In-A-Box”!

Every single item is inventoried

I never did finish making the cabinet…

Finally, set up and ready for the computers!

Day 2

Day two is all about the computers; inventorying them, setting them up, setting up peripherals, networking them and finally testing them.  To stress test the electical needs of the room, we turn them all on and off at the same time, nothing like hearing the windows start-up song coming out of 30 machines at the same time (I’ll try to get a video of that, did you know Brian Eno made the theme?).  Once the computers are set up, if there is still time we’ll unwind by making some decorations.

More boxes!

What’s crazier, that pile of ethernet cables or boxes stacked all the way to the cieling?

Things are beginning to shape up….

Now there is a lab!

Of course, the most important part is still missing and won’t arrive for another day:

THE STUDENTS!!!

Rock on Bryce!

That’s all for now!  Sorry I’ve been quiet the past couple months but now that camp is over (and I’ve taken a well deserved break) you’ll be hearing a lot more from ‘ole Grizzle!