Spring Break at icamp

Some kids spend their Spring Break sleeping in, watching cartoons, and eating sugary cereal (at least, that’s how I spent mine when I was a kid). But last week kids at icamp spent their April vacation programming their own video games, building robots with LEGO Mindstorms, filming stop-motion animation movies with webcams, working with green screens, making digital music, designing digital art, and learning to use a whole bunch of cool new technology tools to make creative projects.

Icamp is not a typical computer camp. But don’t just take my word for it; hear it from the campers themselves. This week our featured camper is Aaron, who came to icamp with some programming experience and wanted to push his game-making skills to the next level. Icamp counselors were there to help him learn new code and work through new challenges- and even learned a few new game-making tricks themselves!

And now, for something completely different...

These kid jokes are courtesy of the Tool Shed, at www.used-tools.com.

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America .
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?
CLASS: Maria.

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell 'crocodile?'
GLENN: 'K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L'
TEACHER: No, that's wrong
GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD: H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
DONALD: Yesterday you said it's H to O.

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are.

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with 'I.'
MILLIE: I is..
TEACHER: No, Millie..... Always say, 'I am.'
MILLIE: All right... 'I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.'

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn't punish him?
LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand.

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON: No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook.

TEACHER: Clyde , your composition on 'My Dog' is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, sir. It's the same dog.

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher

The New 3D

Unless you’ve been living in a box the last few months, you’ve probably noticed the plethora of 3D movies hitting theaters. Coraline, Monsters vs Aliens, even the Jonas Brothers came out with a 3D flick. And while I’ve seen a lot of reports lately on how 3D movies mean big dollars for movies studios and theaters, I haven’t seen much about these 3D movies actual work. So I investigated.

Back in the old days of 3D, movies were filmed with two separate cameras and used color filters to highlight images for your left and right eye- images for one eye filmed with one camera would be in red, images for your other eye and filmed with another camera would be in green or blue. Old 3D glasses had one red lens and one blue or green lens, and when you put them on, the colored lens made one eye see red parts of the image and your other eye see blue or green parts. Then your brain would combine both images into one, making the picture look 3D.

Today’s 3D movies don’t use color filters to create separate images for your eyes (which is why you don’t have to wear those cheesy cardboard glasses anymore); instead, they use polarization filters. Light is a wave and can move in different directions, so digital 3D uses this fact to create two different images for your eyes, one with light waves moving in one direction for images for one eye, and another with light waves moving a different direction for images for your other eye. The movies still need to be filmed on two separate cameras, but theaters use one projector to play the movies. This projector has a filter that alternates between the two separate movie files so fast that your brain doesn’t even notice. Your new 3D glasses are polarized to filter the polarized projection so that each eye sees a separate image that is combined in your brain to look like seemly movement with a 3D effect. So think about that while you're eating your popcorn!

For more on how digital 3D works, check out these links:
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/digital-3d.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7976385.stm

Eye-Correction with Video Games?

First they said that text messaging might be improving our literacy, now researchers are shattering another common conception about the effects of new technology with a new study that indicates that playing certain types of video games can actually improve your eyesight!

For the study, published in Natural Neuroscience, one group of players played first-person action games like Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament while a second group played The Sims 2. Both groups played a total of 50 hours over 9 weeks, and at the end action game players averaged a 43 percent improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray, while the Sims players showed no improvement.

Improving your ability to see shades of gray might not sound too exciting, but the results show that you can teach the visual cortex new tricks, contrary to previous assumptions. Lead researcher Daphne Bavelier reported on the findings in articles with Reuters and Scientific American. “These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it," she said. “Action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."

Bavelier believes the findings will lead to the development of eye-correction procedures that involve video games, particularly for treating “lazy eyes”. But the study is careful to stress that such treatments would use gaming as a compliment to enhance other treatments, not an exclusive fix. And while certain video games can help people distinguish shapes and characters, that’s not an excuse to play endless hours of Call of Duty!

Mind Games

Fulfilling the dreams of Star Wars fans everywhere, two new games are coming out in fall 2009 that harnesses the power of your brain to move objects: “Mind Flex” by Mattel and Uncle Milton's "The Force Trainer”.

Both games use technology developed by NuroSky, a company that specializes in developing “Brain-Computer Interface technologies”. Players wear a headset with sensors that measure the activity of your brain’s theta-waves. These waves are the electrical activity that neurons fire when you’re focusing your concentration. Sensors in the headset register the theta-wave activity, translate that activity into a signal, and transmit that signal as a radio frequency to the game unit. The more theta-wave activity there is, the faster the little fan in the unit will spin and the higher you can make the ball rise. That’s right- you make the ball move by concentrating on it. Harness the power of the force!

The Force Trainer makes the most of the obvious Star Wars tie-in with sound effects from Yoda coaching you to concentrate harder and move to the next level. But despite the cool sound effects, the toy itself doesn’t look too exciting with just a headset and a ball in a clear cylinder. Mind Flex seems a little more interesting to play because once you raise the ball by concentrating, you then have to turn the board with your hand to move the ball through an obstacle course. Considering the toys will sell for $80-$100, I’d like to be able to do more than move a ball up a tube- even if I am doing it with my brain waves!

Check out the Mind Flex in action on You Tube and watch a video of The Force Trainer on NPR. This gives whole new meaning to exercising your brain!