Category: Tech

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Holiday Wars: Battle of the North

Here at the Design Hub, we don’t play games.

We design them!

Brought to us by the creative mind of Design Hub intern Daniel, we have a game that has been slowly brought to fruition titled “Holiday Wars: Battle of the North”. The creative team behind the development of Holiday Wars also consists of 10 Design Hub interns including coders, visual artists, and designers for website management that have collaborated on the project. While at first the goal for the project was for all of the interns to gain experience in making a shipped game for their portfolio, it has evolved into something so much more. “The main goal of the game was to keep it simple, accessible, easy to pick up and play, while still being casually hard to master,” Daniel tells us. He also mentions that the game has had a few different iterations and developments, but it has now evolved into the RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game that it is today.

Inspiration for this game included games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2, and the game’s design aesthetic is very cute and fun, but with a subtle, dark undertone that’s sure to give players chills. 

The game is being designed for publishing on Steam with roughly 9-10 playable levels. As Daniel puts it, it is like chess but without the turns.  Players play as an army of Christmas Elves, commanded by a popular figure like “Santa” or characters like “the Snow Queen”.  While players explore the gorgeous snowy landscape, they come across other characters as well. Enter the Woppletingers-

Woppletinger character design by Daniel Todd

These mythical, beastly creatures were originally designed by Daniel and the Design Hub’s creative team, striking fear and awe into players as they encounter them. Everything players experience in the game was designed on programs including Blender for 3D modeling, Unity for the actual engine of the game, and Photoshop for art and concepts.

 The game, taking place in a chilly terrain surrounded by mountains,  is essentially a giant epic snowball fight between Santa’s Army and the Woppletinger tribe, along with other armies lurking in the cold as they fight for supremacy. While players are gathering resources to build their base, they are producing and controlling an army in hopes to defeat the enemy with the very same objective.  Daniel mentions that both sides are planned to be balanced, so it’s really a matter of skill who determines the victor in a fair environment.

Design Hub intern Daniel, working with team member on Holiday Wars game

Daniel has been working as an intern for the Design Hub for one semester, but has been nursing this project for the last few years. He tells us, “any game project requires a lot of work, and I’ve learned that the hard way over the years.  We couldn’t have done this alone, and I’m happy I met a ton of interns excited about the future of the game, and passionate for game design”.

Amazingly enough, the Design Hub has also actually helped Daniel start up his own company, Phoenix Ready Games. He is graduating this term, and unfortunately leaving the Design Hub,  but he plans to to cooperate with the Design Hub as an external business as he expands into other projects.

He tells us he would love to have this opportunity be available for students in the future; as he would’ve loved to have an opportunity like this when he first started ARC himself. And we at the Hub couldn’t agree more.

All the creativity, collaboration, and hard work from Daniel and his team that went into this game is truly remarkable, and is something that our Design Hub Team is extremely proud of.

Anyone interested in playing the game can send us an email, or keep checking our website and social media pages for updates on the game’s release on Steam. Thank you to everyone involved, and everyone who has supported the game thus far.

 

 As the war rages on, which side will you fight for?
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Dieselzilla

A project currently in progress in  the Design Hub of American River College is called the “Dieselzilla vs. Drones” Project.  We start with interns Kevin and Sean, who are collaborating along with James Mullerleile on this project in the Design Hub.  Kevin is the programmer, and Sean is the 3D Designer behind this project. When we first hear the word, “Dieselzilla,” of course we are left wondering “what in the world is this, and what does it do?”

Well, Dieselzilla is the huge metal sculpture in the front of the Student Services and Cafeteria area (the huge glass building behind the American River College Library).

Every day on the way to class, students who walk past it are seen doing double takes. Most can’t take their eyes off of it- as mesmerizing as a well-crafted, fantastically massive Godzilla sculpture can be.  Most students on campus pass Dieselzilla every day and have no clue as to how or why it got there. Even our photography intern, Angelique, told us “Ever since I started attending, I wondered what it was and why it was there- and now I had the chance to find out,” before she captured some pictures of the magnificent metal beast.

Parts of Dieselzilla. Photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

The Design Hub interns discussed the structure of the sculpture. It actually moves around with the use of a hydraulic system within the Dieselzilla! To the right, we can take a look at what goes inside of the massive metal body. 

These are the parts that were designed and put together by our interns, and this is what makes the magic happen. With everything in place, Dieselzilla comes to life!

This is a very cool, collaborative project, as well as an impressive and intriguing presence everyday on our campus. 

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Come and Get Your Grad Portrait Laser Engraved!

The Design Hub of American River College is now introducing a first time ever opportunity for students all around the campus who are graduating this Spring of 2018 to get their portrait taken by specially selected advanced photography interns of the Design Hub.  

The price per portrait ordered by each student is still yet to be determined, ranging in the area around roughly $10, as a vague estimate. In the last few weeks of April, we will set up a temporary photography studio in the ARC Bookstore.  We could take a certain set number of graduates on a first come, first serve basis. There would also be monetary gains for the photographers.  The portraits will be made using our laser etcher on 1/8″ thick birch plywood (5×7 or 4x6ish).  The photographs will be PS edited so that they come out best on the plywood.

The people involved in this project are Brandy Worsfold, Randy Schuster, Aaron Stanley, who works in the bookstore as a Bookstore Buyer, and all of the photography interns for the Design Hub.  Randy ordered this work and assigned the photography interns to this position. He created this fantastic opportunity for the graduates and the photography interns, and worked with Aaron Stanley from the ARC bookstore to help bring the idea to life!

This project is being created to give the graduates a long lasting portrait that they can take with them for the next steps in the life, and in their futures.  The Graduation Portrait Laser Engraver first was created in late February/early March, and is currently being set up to be executed in early May. The training for the photography interns to prepare for portraitures has been occuring during the month of March and April, and we predict to begin taking the pictures in early May. We plan on continuing taking portraits for other projects during future semesters.

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Design Hub Gives a Demonstration for Encina High School

Jason demonstrating the gesture feature for the DJI Spark drone Photo by Photography Intern Kyle Chan

Design Hub interns Sean and Jason gave a demonstration to three groups of students from Encina High School. They explained the advantages and opportunities that are available to them here at ARC as well as the Design Hub.

Sean spoke to the Design Hub’s ability to offer students the opportunity to not only learn how to fly drones, but to create them through 3D printing. He advocated that the students would also be able to bring their own ideas and passions and turn them into reality here at ARC.

Photo by Intern Kyle Chan

Jason gave a talk about the business aspect of obtaining a drone pilot license and how to start up a business flying drones. The two of them then gave a demo to the students, showing them how to fly the 3-D printed drones, the DJI spark, and a mini drone that allowed the students to have a first-person goggle view.

 

 

 

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Design Hub Interns Work to Save Our Water Systems

Photo by Intern Angelique Doty

Here we meet our Design Hub interns, Dave and Melissa, to explore their new project titled, “Constant Monitor Backflow.”  Dave and Melissa, as well as our Design Hub team lead Randy are involved in the fulfillment of the project. Randy was asked by a former co-worker, Bernie Clark, who does field research for Watts, Aims, Fab Co, and most of the back flow companies.

Pictured: Dave, Melissa, Randy, Bernie. Photo by Intern Angelique Doty

This project has to do with our water systems, where the industry today is faced with a challenge. From time to time, our potable water sources can come in contact with contaminants, and the problem our population is faced with is detecting when exactly this happens. Currently, there are annual tests that detect problems, but this is a cause of concern because they are not only costly, but we have to wait a year to see a problem. By the time any problems are detected from these annual tests, damage could already be done, and even more time and money would have to be spent in order to fix these problems.

Photo by Intern Angelique Doty

Of course, our interns saw a challenge, and came up with a solution: blackflow prevention monitors! What the Constant Monitor Backflow project is setting out to do is to eliminate this scenario by implementing a new system where we monitor the backflow prevention to detect problems before they happen. These backflow monitors detect the contamination of the pure water with the sewer lines quickly, providing data that is easily accessed. Now it can be constantly monitored, which will help to detect problems sooner so that they can be fixed in a timely manner.  This will increase productivity, and they do not need to turn off the water for the constant monitoring, unlike the annual tests, where the water has to be shut off.  

Photo by Intern Angelique Doty
Pictured: Intern Dave, hard at work. Photo by Intern Bailey Wineland

Without the hard work of our dedicated interns, this project would not have been made possible. It began about two years ago, and as this project has unfolded, Design Hub intern Dave has been responsible for the many hours behind the creation of these backflow prevention monitors. He tells us that everything that lies in place now within the confines of these little boxes, all started in his head. He coded the device in our Design Hub lab, making sure it would properly collect and display data, and hand-crafted the circuitboard, complete with all of the wiring and placement within the device.

Pictured: Intern Melissa, hard at work. Photo by Intern Bailey Wineland

Alongside Dave we have intern Melissa, who has been learning the ropes of this project and training as she assists in implementing these monitors. She will one day have the torch passed on to her as this project continues to evolve. Our interns predict that this project won’t end anytime soon, as it is constantly growing and they continue to brainstorm new ways to improve its productivity.

Photo by Intern Angelique Doty

We are hoping that by the end of the summer, there will be monitors set up all over the entire campus. Currently, we have one monitor backflow.  By the end of the summer, the interns’ goal is to have one monitor per backflow all over the campus. By increasing the number of monitors, this will help increase the prevention of problems.

Photo by Intern Angelique Doty

In the long run, we are seeking to collect enough data to prove that these devices, though small, are actually quite mighty. As our interns work to fine-tune these monitors, our hope is to have the opportunity to impact an important industry in a vastly positive way. Few things are as important as safe drinking water, and we are setting out to keep it safe in a clean, efficient, and budget-friendly way.

Photo by Intern Angelique Doty