iD News and Blog

It’s On! iD Tech Camps Announces It’s 2010 Summer Camp Lineup

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 around 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

 

Tags: 2010 summer camp, computer camps, Summer Camps
Posted in CEO's Blog, Summer Camps | No Comments »

 

 

Summer Computer Camp Photos-of-the-Week for 7-5-09

Most of our summer camp locations are in session this week, so let’s look at some photos! This week’s theme was “Products, Hardware and Software.” We looked through the many photos on http://www.internaldrive.com/photos and are pleased to announce this week’s photo-of-the-week winners. Thanks for taking the time to take great photos and portraying what our summer camps for kids and teens are truly like!

This summer day camp student shows off his camera skills at UCLA.

Ninja versus Ninja^TM at our UT Austin summer camp.

Web Design & Flash Animation with Wacom® Pen Tablets at Ohio State.

Game Modding with Warcraft® III at the Villanova Gaming Academy.

Camp activities include Apples to Apples at Rollins College.

Looking up from her Dell Computer at our Santa Clara summer camp.

Working with Adobe® Illustrator® CS4 at Sacred Heart University.

Outdoor summer camp activities at UC Irvine.

Vex® Robotics at our MIT summer camp.

Excited over his Spore^TM creature at our University of Washington camp.<-->

 

Tags: animation, camps, day camp, Design, Flash, game, Gaming, hardware, modding, overnight camp, photo, photos, robotics, robots, style, Summer Camps, theme
Posted in iD Tech Camps | No Comments »

 

 

Summer Computer Camp Photos-of-the-Week for 6-28-09

Summer camp is in full swing and it’s time to look at some more photos! This week’s theme was “University & Dorm Shots.” We looked through the many photos on http://www.internaldrive.com/photos and are pleased to announce this week’s photo-of-the-week winners. Thanks for taking the time to take great photos and for painting the picture of what our summer camps for kids and teens are truly like! Enjoy these photos!

Technology Fun in the Sun at Arizona State University

Future Techies of the world at Southern Methodist University

Wild Computer Campers at Emory University

UC San Diego Campers Create High Tech Fun

UC Santa Cruz  Surf & Tech Camp- How’s that for a classroom

Ohio State University Video Game Summer Camp

Smith College Let the Gaming Begin

UNC- Chapel Hill Gearing up for Gaming Camp

Purdue University Technology Time for High Tech Campers

University of Virginia Computer Campers on the move to do something BIG

 

Tags: camps, computer camps, Gaming, Summer Camps, technology, video game camps
Posted in iD Tech Camps | No Comments »

 

 

While peers play games, 6th grader creates them in summer camp

The Potpourri Tomball

As appeared in the The Potpourri Tomball June 2009
While peers play games, 6th grader creates them in summer camp
By Anna Schuman

Northpointe Intermediate student Gabe Shah is creating a 15-level multi-player Mario computer game in his iD Tech camp.

When Gabe Shah returns to school in August, his friends might tell stories of places they visited in the summer, of sites they’ve seen, of games they’ve played, but few can say they have done what the 11-year-old has.

The soon-to-be sixth grader at Northpointe Intermediate said he wishes he could spend all day every day at iD Tech Camp, held at the University of Houston. In just a few days, he has learned to create, and has completed, his very own 15-level, multiplayer “Mario” computer game.

An avid game player, Shah has had his sights set on becoming a game maker and working for Jagex Games, an independent game publisher and developer based in England. He, like many of his peers, was already familiar with playing games, but now he knows how to make them as well.

Creating games, he said, takes a lot of creativity. He was given few guidelines about the type of game to create, so most of it is straight from his imagination. Not only do he and his fellow campers leave at the end of the week knowing they were able to create something, they get to take their game home with them.

“It’d really be cool if my friends could play my game, and think it’s really cool, then they can ask where I got it and I can say I made it,” he said. “I’m the only one who can say they’ve made their own game.”

Students like Shah, ranging in age from 7 to 18, can participate in iD Tech’s gaming, film and programming camps nationwide. Some students travel across the country to go to the camps, others from across the world.

Anela Wenger, the camp director at U of H, said one of Shah’s fellow campers flew in from Japan for two weeks to participate in the camp in Houston. Wenger said she believes the popularity, though Houston is one of the smaller camps, is due to the program’s reputation.

“Some people might be skeptical to send their kids to a camp where they play video games all day,” she said. “Yeah, they do play games, but here they create the games.”

An educator by profession, Wenger said she is amazed by the focus the campers have when they start their projects. When they are doing other camp activities, indoors and outdoors, and even during lunch, campers ask if they can go back to work on their projects.

There’s more to what the campers learn than just how to program computers, design and create games, she said. They also learn great problem-solving skills through the medium of game creation.

Shah plans to return to the camp each year, taking different classes at different levels, learning everything he can, and hopes to one day be among the college and graduate students who teach the camp classes.

He said people might think of people who love computers as nerdy, but he wants people to remember how Bill Gates got his start, and said he and future campers might be among the next Albert Einsteins and Bill Gates’ of the world. Until then, he plans to spread the word about his favorite camp and the importance of computers to everyone.

“They always say reading, writing and math are what you need to know, but I think everyone should know computers these days,” he said. “Kids don’t have to love computers to come to this camp, but I bet they will when they leave.”
Share the Experience

iD Tech Camps run at the University of Houston through July 24. For more information or to reserve your spot, go to www.internalDrive.com.

 

Tags: Summer Camps, Technology summer camp, University of Houston, video game camp, video Game creation
Posted in University of Houston | No Comments »

 

 

Comic Book Creation at iD Tech Camps?

A parent recently posed this question to me:

Dear Pete, I am looking for a comic design camp for my son this summer, 2009. Can you please direct us to somthing in the Pittsburgh or the Philadelphia area of PA. Thank you for your attention to our inquiry. My son attending ID-Tech camp in summer 2007 and loved this course but it does not appear to be offered as of late. Mom in distress…

We do not specifically offer a comic design camp, but we have introduced a couple new courses that might fit the bill this year.  Please check out our Create Your Own Adventures Course as well as our Graphic Arts Course–both are offered at most locations throughout the country, as well as at Carnegie Mellon University and Villanova University which are close to you.

Both courses offer some awesome content using some very relevant and fun platforms.

Hopefully this information helps.  We hope to see you out at our summer camp.

Best,

Pete

 

Tags: computer camps, game design camps, Summer Camps
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »