Since 2017, the KB Foundation has supported Philadelphia’s youth through educational experiences and mentorship. This immersive Orlando trip combined two of the organization’s programs to advance learning for its KB Foundation mentees, including youth from 20 high schools who have participated in college prep or lunch and learn programs since middle school. Founder and CEO Kirk Berry says that he wants the students who participate in the program to learn about careers through immersive experiences and make the right choices for their future.

“At the KB Foundation Inc., our approach to career exploration activities is about exposing our youth to what it is like for a day in the life of any given career,” Berry says. “Hearing about a career is one way to learn, but spending time doing a small part of the career is a more impactful way to learn about it.”

College Possible, an organization working to broaden educational opportunities for youths, also attended this exploratory Orlando field trip for KB Foundation mentees.

Tyler Cholminski, a high school junior and mentee, says the KB Foundation and College Possible programs are helping him prepare for his future.

“I just started with the program a month ago,” Cholminski says. “They have already taught me so much. More than just preparing for college, I’ve learned about life.”

The KB Foundation recognizes UCF’s strong ties to the gaming industry through its successful FIEA alumni, which inspired them to visit the university.

“This partnership came about because our vice president of operations and programming, Justin Fishman,” Berry says. “He saw it as an opportunity to give our youth an opportunity to experience an extremely specialized career field. Since the ����ֱ�� has a direct career path to the gaming industry, it will show our youth what is required to pursue such a skilled profession.”

Berry says the trip will give students a fresh perspective on gaming, which already plays a significant part in many of their lives.

“This trip will have a tremendous impact on our youth because many of them play games and only participate as consumers,” Berry says.  “The opportunity to learn about the pathway into this specific industry will be life-changing for the students.”

During the students’ trip to FIEA, they had the opportunity to listen to executive director Ben Noel speak about what their future could look like with a career in gaming.

“FIEA has one of the top graduate programs in gaming for the past six years,” Noel says. “Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Iron Galaxy are all up the street from us. Twenty years ago, game development was not prevalent in Downtown Orlando. Today, there are 2,500 developers working in Orlando. Things like this happen in cities when they really focus on doing things.”

After Noel finished his talk with the students, they had the opportunity to tour FIEA to immerse themselves in the technology utilized for game development and education.

Students learned about the technology and work that goes into creating virtual reality games and, through a demo, stepped onto the sets of popular shows, movies, and games such as Mario Kart, Harry Potter, and Stranger Things.

Students went behind the scenes to learn more about the magic behind motion capture and try it for themselves. They geared up in motion capture suits and showcased their basketball skills on the court and the big screen.

Rahim Gardner, a sophomore attending high school in South Philadelphia, shares why this trip means so much to him.

“This experience means the world to me because I was granted the opportunity to come here,” he says. “I’m learning a lot, and I get to see what is outside of Philadelphia in the world.”

This year, we are honored to welcome guest speaker Daryl Holt, senior vice president and group general manager for EA Tiburon Studios and American Football. By leveraging industry partners such as Electronic Arts (EA), UCF Downtown strengthens Central Florida’s talent pipeline and contributes to the region’s economic vitality. Daryl will be joined by moderator Thad Seymour Jr., former interim president of UCF and current president of the Lake Nona Institute.

The , UCF’s graduate program in game design, has been ranked No. 1 in the world for four of the past five years. Additionally, the emergency management graduate program has earned a No. 1 national ranking from U.S. News & World Report.

Crossroads will take place Thursday, Nov. 21, in room 106 of Dr. Phillips Academic Commons at the UCF Downtown campus. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Parking is available in the Parramore parking garage at 316 N. Parramore Ave.

Five years ago, with the support of Dr. Phillips Charities, the largest private gift was made to create the newly developed UCF Downtown campus for UCF and Valencia College students. It is these deep roots in industry partnership that inspired UCF to commemorate the campus’s fifth anniversary with the fourth annual Crossroads Speaker Series.

For more information and to register, .

Guests are encouraged to submit questions in advance for Daryl Holt via email to donorrelations@ucf.edu.

A total of 16 undergraduate and 12 graduate/professional teams gathered in the largest classroom at UCF Downtown for the inaugural FIEA Collegiate Game Jam on Jan. 12. Teams made up of artists, programmers and other game developers raced for 43.5 hours with the difficult task of designing and developing a video game based on a theme that was announced at the beginning of the jam: sunshine.

Each team was comprised of up to four undergraduate students or graduate students from universities across Florida, alumni, or working professionals from several tech industries. While many UCF students and alumni participated, others from Full Sail ����ֱ��, Stetson ����ֱ��, ����ֱ�� of Florida, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical ����ֱ�� and Florida Polytechnic ����ֱ�� also participated. At the graduate/professional level, many FIEA alumni and grad students formed teams, as well as grad students from Full Sail. Professionals working at Third Time Entertainment, Iron Galaxy, Electronic Arts (EA), Game Sim, Netflix, Ubisoft Red Storm and other tech companies brought their experience to compete as well.

By 3 p.m. on Jan. 14, all teams concluded development and made their games ready for testing. Judges, participants, and supporters walked around and playtested a variety of games developed during the jam. While most games were developed for PC, a few virtual reality games made an appearance, and one-person team Day of the Dev — represented by Day Cho, a graduate student from UCF — created a game playable and loaded on a Gameboy.

Judges for the undergraduate division consisted of Paul Weiler and Stephen Cano from Iron Galaxy, and Raghib Tyler from EA Orlando. At the graduate/professional level, two judges from Florida Polytechnic, Christian Navarro and Brad Towle, and ����ֱ�� of Florida’s Nick Heitzman, stepped in to decide the winners.

“Through all the grind and sleepless nights, we knew that we could trust and support one another, and that was absolutely my favorite part of the game jam.” — Jeffrey Zhang, CAT 4 Team Captain

The first place prize for the graduate/professional division team went to FIEA’s own Cohort 20 team, CAT 4. Team captain Jeffrey Zhang described the object: “In CATastrophe: Sunshine Shenanigans, you play as a pair of greedy cats who are fighting the other cats for the perfect sunbathing spot. Your goal is to hog all the sunlight to yourself by creating a giant Rube Goldberg machine to lure, scare, or otherwise remove all the other cats from the center of the cafe.”

For CAT 4, developing a winning game under such a quick turnaround was no easy feat.

“We had set a goal to include all of the cats of our fellow classmates in the game,” Zhang says. “That sounds like a cute goal, but it’s much less cute when you’re up at two (o’clock) in the morning retopologizing four different 3D models of cats. Programming the game was filled with just as many challenges, like when I presented eight hours worth of work to the other programmer, and he responsed with a simple, ‘Wait, none of that is going to work with what I have.’”

Playthrough From CAT 4’s Winning Video Game Submission

All four members of CAT 4 received a $200 Universal Orlando gift card and a trophy for winning first place in the graduate/professional division. Team Chasm from Florida Polytechnic ����ֱ�� took first place in the undergraduate division with a cat-themed game, and each member received a Nintendo Switch Lite. Second place winners in both divisions received $50 Best Buy gift cards, and third place winners received $25 Best Buy gift cards.

“Despite all the hardships, I loved working on this game, and I loved working together with my teammates,” Zhang says. “From the beginning, it was clear that we all had the same passion — not only for cats, but also for creating a game we could all be proud of. Through all the grind and sleepless nights, we knew that we could trust and support one another, and that was absolutely my favorite part of the game jam.”

“I was always the kid who would stay in his room playing video games growing up,” he says. “A lot of those games left an impression on me and I thought ‘What kind of video games could I make?’ But, I always assumed I’d be an engineer.”

At 12 years old, Pring attended a summer camp for coding and game development. He was immediately hooked. He worked for the camp every summer after that teaching kids programming, programming languages and software to make video games. He would later move to private lessons and online tutoring, where he started to appreciate how much kids like to learn.

“I realized this is something fun and is both a creative outlet and art form.” – Thomas Pring ’20

“I realized this is something fun and is both a creative outlet and art form,” he says. When it was time to go to college, he told his parents he wanted to make video games. “Both of my parents work in incredibly different fields than anything I’ve ever been interested in. But they were quick to say ‘Go for it! We’ll help however we can to try to make sure you can do what you want to do.’ ”

Pring transferred to UCF his sophomore year and eventually settled on a game design major and computer science minor. Today, Pring is working at two research labs at UCF.

At , Pring works on the Video Game Training Team and is advised by assistant professor of Game Design Peter Smith ’05MS ’12PhD. The team develops video games to assist bionic kids as they learn the mechanics of their new prosthetic arm. Unlike purely entertainment games, Pring says these games “help kids learn to react to the game and flex their hands or make gestures through video games. It’s all about making their reactions natural or second nature.”

“Thomas has been one of our most accomplished game design students and has been a big part of the new training games arriving in both Android and Apple app stores as well as our bluetooth flex controller for the phones,” says Albert Manero ’12 ’14MS ’16PhD, co-founder and chief executive officer of Limbitless Solutions. “We are really proud of his accomplishments.”

“Thomas has been one of our most accomplished game design students.” – Albert Manero ’12 ’14MS ’16PhD

The second lab would fulfill Pring’s interest in virtual reality — and would help push him professionally. He applied to participate in The Harrington Lab, which investigates Virtual Nature, using augmented reality and virtual reality as a technical artifact to better understand perceptual phenomenon as it relates to human-computing-environment interactions that cause emotional, learning and aesthetic outcomes. Pring’s work hinged on discovering how people learn best, using a virtual recreation of the UCF Arboretum as the classroom. The idea is to understand how people can learn about nature and plants in a virtual environment.

“If you want to learn about plants, you could do a virtual walk and get information from a pop-up window,” he says. “Or you could go out into the environment with a phone and get information on your device. Or you could be sitting in a classroom and watching the tour on a screen.”

He and his fellow researchers started with a first-person version of the project to test how it worked. The team then moved on to VR to create a more immersive experience.

“In March, we developed a controller to work with a treadmill desk so you could literally take a walk through the Arboretum with a projector,” he says.

Pring is complimentary of the artwork in the game, which was worked on by others before he joined the team. “I’m not an artist in any way, shape or form but that art is amazing. The plants are as real as you can get. The team went out and took photos of the leaves and what they look like up close — same for the water, sand, even tree bark — and they made those in game as real images. It’s really impressive.”

Pring says he could see VR experiences like Virtual Nature useful in a variety of formats.

“For people who live in northern areas where you can’t go outside in the winter, imagine being able to go out and have a walk in nature,” he says. “Or even on the International Space Station. Astronauts are sitting in metal all day and night. They could use this to be around plants again, which is good for emotional and mental health. It’s also good for learning about plants and learning overall. I’m an experiential learner, so staring at a screen all day — I can’t take that in. But if I can interact, I can learn a lot more about the subject, enjoy the experience and retain more detail.”

Of all the projects he’s worked on, Pring says he’s most proud of his contributions to Virtual Nature, which both challenged him and allowed him to expand his skills among several disciplines. He credits Assistant Professor Maria Harrington, who directs the Harrington Lab, for mentoring him.

“She has guided me professionally, taught me, and gave me so many opportunities,” he says. “I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for her.”

He says an important lesson he learned from Harrington was getting over Imposter Syndrome, which he says is prevalent among game-design majors. “She taught me to be proud of my own work, not to downplay myself and believe that I can program and make products” he says.

“I always wanted to help others — it’s a lot of fun to teach people. At some point in my life, I’d like to be a professor.” – Thomas Pring ’20

“Thomas is an amazing undergraduate student whose work rivals what I have seen Ph.D. students do. He could easily make contributions to projects at NASA,” says Harrington. “Thomas has taken advantage of opportunities at UCF to help advance his studies. I know he will go on to do great things in this field.”

As for what’s next, Pring says he hopes to land a job in the gaming industry.

“Working for a VR company would be ideal for me, but whoever has availability,” he says. Ultimately, Pring says he wants to continue giving back and helping others learn. “I always wanted to help others — it’s a lot of fun to teach people. At some point in my life, I’d like to be a professor.”

, an anchor of UCF’s planned downtown campus, has been in the top five schools for each of the nine years the Princeton Review has done the rankings.

“I’m always happy to see the Princeton Review reward our innovation and effort to try and be a leader in interactive entertainment education,” said executive director Ben Noel. “The future success of our program will depend on the continued hard work of our students, faculty and staff.”

Since opening its doors in 2005, FIEA has graduated 606 students. Graduates are working at more than 139 companies around the world, including Apple, DreamWorks, Electronic Arts, Blizzard, Bungie, Zynga, Ubisoft, Disney, Microsoft and Nintendo.

The average starting salary for recent FIEA graduates is $62,600. Graduates are working on some of today’s most popular franchises. Those include God of War 2018, Fallout 4, Fortnite, Star Wars Battlefront II, Madden NFL 18, NBA 2K18, Call of Duty World War II, Extinction and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

The school is located in UCF’s Center for Emerging Media, across from the site of the former Amway Arena. Plans for UCF Downtown call for a renovated Center for Emerging Media to join a new academic building that UCF and Valencia College will share. FIEA is designed to graduate talented and well-qualified professionals to work in video games, new media, film and simulation industries.

“Orlando is an interactive-entertainment powerhouse with FIEA as a global leader in graduate education,” said Dale Whittaker, provost and executive vice president. “Our faculty and staff anchor an emerging media industry in downtown Orlando, where we’re excited to open a campus next year that will bring more students in related fields to benefit from the foundation FIEA has built.”

The Princeton Review chose the schools based on its 2017 survey of 150 institutions offering game-design degree programs or courses. The 40-question survey gathered data on everything from the schools’ game-design academic offerings and lab facilities to their graduates’ starting salaries and career achievements. More than 40 data points in four areas (academics, faculty, technology, and career) were analyzed to tally the lists.

UCF’s undergraduate game design program was also listed in The Princeton Review rankings for the first time this year. It came in at No. 36.

In addition to being published today on The Princeton Review website, the listing will also be featured in the May issue of PC Gamer magazine, on newsstands March 27.

.

The showcase featured student games from 12 game design schools from around the country, including Carnegie Mellon, Drexel ����ֱ��, ����ֱ�� of Southern California and New York ����ֱ��. The three award categories were Most Innovative, Best Gameplay and Best Visual Quality.

Recent FIEA graduates Summan Mirza and Derek Mattson led the game demo, which uses eye-tracking hardware called the Tobii EyeX to allow players to control the game with their eyes. The demo showed a player winking, blinking and looking at certain items to solve crimes in a quirky ghost world. A team of 12 students completed the game in seven months as part of their master’s thesis.

After each presentation, game industry judges asked questions in front of the 250 people in attendance. After “The Channeler” finished their presentation, one judge commented, “Uh, wow is all I can say.”

This is the fourth year Intel has put on the showcase, which coincides with the Game Developers Conference, the largest conference in the world for video-game developers.

The school combines traditional studio arts, design and art history with emerging media concepts that are the foundation of animation, game and interactive design. The new school will feature tracks that unite curricula from each school, such as emerging media and game design.

In addition to the previously existing and overlapping tracks, the school will feature two new degrees: a visual arts and emerging media management degree, and an architecture degree.

The visual arts and emerging media management program gives students a basic insight into the creation of art and media, but the focus will be more on preparing students for a work environment centered around emerging media and visual art, Lew said.

The architecture program will be a “two-plus-two-plus-two” program, in which students will complete an NAAB accredited architectural program. They will complete two years at Valencia Community College, earning their associate’s degree, then two years at UCF to earn their bachelor’s degrees. The program is offered at UCF at the Valencia West campus, located off of Kirkman Road in Orlando.

If architecture students choose to continue their education, they will complete another two years with the ����ֱ�� of Florida, earning their master’s degree at the Center for Emerging Media location in Downtown Orlando.

“What we’re doing with this interactive education is reflective of what’s happening in the industry, where different disciplines within the arts as well as related fields of the arts work together,” Lew said.

For more information, visit the School of Visual Arts and Design website, .

Source: Central Florida Future, ,  by Anthony Syros,  contributing writer. Published: Sunday, June 6, 2010,  updated: Sunday, June 6, 2010.