What is VITAL?
VITAL Summer Camp is a 2 week camp which focuses on virtual reality and programming to improve construction management, stability, quality and safety. It is organized every year at the Moss and Associates Built Environment Informatics Lab with the help of Dr. Mario Eraso. This year's theme focused on Fall Safety. The Motto was "Be Smart, Don't Fall." While on construction sites, workers face all kinds of fall hazards. Statistically, 38% of accidents that deal with construction are due to fall hazards, with the closest being struck by objects at 9.4%. The camp was instructed by Sudip Subedi, a PhD student at the Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and Sustainability.
My expectations
My expectations for the Summer Camp weren't very close to what I actually achieved. I was initially interested in the summer camp because of my instructor, Rene Barge. He recommended that I do the Summer Camp along with the Summer Youth Internship Program, and he contacted Mario Eraso, the program coordinator for FIU, so that I could intern with him.
I was initially told that in the camp, I would be exposed to basic programming and virtual reality. I had no idea we were even using Unity! By the way, I pretty much love using Unity3D. After I finished creating my competition game for 2018, I began exploring independently about Unity, and what I could achieve using it.
Anyway, I ended up learning much more than what I expected! I learned some C# principles that I didn't know how to use before, such as a For Loop, and I refreshed my mind on If Statements and Variable types. I also learned how to animate a 3D mecanim, which I think was by far the coolest thing that I learned! I was always too scared of going into 3D because I feared it was too difficult. However, during the camp, I finally had a reason to do some research on it, and I found that it's not as difficult as I initially thought! This taught me a huge lesson about game development. I shouldn't be intimidated by the difficulty of something at first, because once I learn how to do it, I can do it without breaking a sweat.
Project Requirements!
For the 2018 summer camp, the project requirements were very simple. I was very happy that the requirements weren't so tough on us, that way we could have some free time to expand on the project and make it great.
The project requirements revolved around implementing the new things we learned in our project, and to make it fall related. My project was about a little girl who had to complete many different challenges which were related to falling.
At the end of the camp, we had to submit our projects to Sudip and we had to create a presentation which we would showcase to the director of the Moss School and some students. I truthfully enjoyed my experience at VITAL and if you like coding or making games, or even just a little bit of technology, I definitely recommend it. Don't be frightened if you feel like the beginning is too difficult, it will get easier later on! Plus, you always have other students to help you! It's always a great thing to spend your summer learning something new!
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