DigiPen Institute of Technology

Motto	"A serious education for a serious career."
Established	1988
Type	Private
Faculty	Claude Comair
Undergraduates	650
Postgraduates	19
Location	Redmond, Washington USA
Campus	Suburban
Website	www.digipen.edu

DigiPen Institute of Technology is a college located in Redmond, Washington which has a focus on art, computer science, and computer engineering with emphasis in creating video games. DigiPen is a high-profile college well-known in the game industry for producing capable graduates. Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... A motto is a phrase or a short list of words meant to formally describe the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. ... The date of establishment or date of founding of an institution is the date on which that institution chooses to claim as its starting point. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Private schools, or independent schools, are schools not administered by local or national government, which retain the right to select their student body and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students tuition rather than with public (state) funds. ... A faculty is a division within a university. ... Claude Comair was born in Lebanon. ... In some educational systems, an undergraduate is a post-secondary student pursuing a Bachelors degree. ... A graduate school or grad school is a school that awards advanced degrees, with the general requirement that students must have earned an undergraduate (bachelors) degree. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Official language(s) None Capital Olympia Largest city Seattle Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 18th 184,824 km² 385 km 580 km 6. ... Illustration of the backyards of a surburban neighbourhood Suburbs are inhabited districts located either on the outer rim of a city or outside the official limits of a city (the term varies from country to country), or the outer elements of a conurbation. ... The front page of the English Wikipedia Website. ... Official website: http://www. ... Official language(s) None Capital Olympia Largest city Seattle Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 18th 184,824 km² 385 km 580 km 6. ... Computer and video games A screenshot of Tetris for the Nintendo Game Boy A console game (better known as a video game) is a form of interactive multimedia used for entertainment, which consists of a moveable image displayed on a screen that is usually controlled and manipulated using a handheld...

History

DigiPen was founded in 1988 by Claude Comair in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. The school relocated to Redmond in January 1998. In May 1996 the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board granted DigiPen the ability to award an Associate and Bachelor of Science Degrees in Real-Time Interactive Simulation and an Associate of Applied Arts Degree in 3D Computer Animation. This made DigiPen the first university in the world dedicated to teaching how to create video games. In 2002 a sister campus was opened in Beirut, Lebanon. Currently the Lebanon campus only offers one degree in the programming aspects of video game creation. 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Claude Comair was born in Lebanon. ... Vancouver (pronounced ) is a Canadian city in the province of British Columbia. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... There is also a drinking game alternately refered to as Beirut or Beer Pong. ...

Campus

The campus is part of a rented building from Nintendo of America. The bottom floor is Nintendo of America's warehouse where games and systems are shipped out. The top floor is mostly DigiPen, with NST on the north-east quarter. In 2002, DigiPen expanded its hold on the second floor by acquiring approximately another quarter, adding four new classrooms and a new place for the library. Two-thirds of the rooms are filled with computers for student use — only one-third are lecture halls without computers. Frequently, speakers from the video game industry come to campus give talks and lectures. Nintendo (Japanese: 任天堂, ニンテンドー Nintendō; NASDAQ: NTDOY, TYO: 7974 ) is an international company originally founded in Japan on November 6, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards, for use in a Japanese playing card game of the same name. ... Nintendo Software Technology Corporation (often just Nintendo Software Technology, or NST) is Seattle-based second-party developer for Nintendo. ...

Education

DigiPen has three primary educational paths, Applied/Fine Arts, Computer Engineering, and Real Time Interactive Simulation (RTIS - video game development). The art programs are taught from a computer-oriented perspective, though many art students do not intend to work in the game industry and attend DigiPen for its unique curriculum and businesslike atmosphere. RTIS students are taught aspects of development including programming, design, and marketing. Though there are some liberal arts classes also in the curriculum, all required courses are pertinent to game development. DigiPen also offers a master's degree in computer science, and Comair plans to add a Ph.D. program as well. A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate or graduate course of one to three years in duration. ... Doctor of Philosophy, or Ph. ...

Students

DigiPen is the only educational institution whose students place in the professional category at the Game Developers Conference, and they have done so in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Additionally, DigiPen students have placed the largest number of student projects in the Independent Games Festival student showcase every year since it began, with a five-year total of 15 winning game projects. The next closest institution placing in the student showcase is Georgia Tech with five over five years. The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual gathering of video game developers. ... The Game Developers Conference has annually hosted the Independent Games Festival (IGF) since 1999 to reward innovative games produced by independent video game developers as well as full-time college and high school students. ... Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is located in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. With over 16,000 students, Georgia Tech is one of four public research universities in the University System of Georgia. ...

Other student run commissions include SAPR, DigiPen's student-run Public Relations committee and the CEC, the Campus Entertainment Committee. The CEC handles tournaments, movies, and other activities under the direction of Jamie Gault.

Student work (games)

Freshman year, Digipen students must collaborate to make two games. Sophomore year, student game teams must make graphical (2D) games. Junior year, the games must be 3D with multiplayer networking. The senior games are a little less restricted to allow for more artistic control, but must demonstrate technical competance.

The games are copyrighted and owned by DigiPen, but many of the best may be downloaded and played for free.

Some of the award-winning games are:

• RumbleBox - Finalist, innovation in game design, professional category, IGF, 2006. Slamdance Physics Award, 2006.
• Nabacular Drop - IGF Student Showcase, 2006.
• Orblitz - IGF Student Showcase, 2006.
• Sea of Chaos - IGF Student Showcase, 2006.
• Scavenger Hunt - IGF Student Showcase, 2005. Slamdance Audience Award, 2005.
• Rock Station - IGF Student Showcase, 2005.
• Kisses - Finalist, professional category, IGF, 2005.
• Bontãgo - Winner, innovation in game design, professional category, IGF, 2004.
• Ice Wars - IGF Student Showcase, 2004.
• Scrapped - IGF Student Showcase, 2004.
• Vektor Space - IGF Student Showcase, 2003.
• Crazy Cross - IGF Student Showcase, 2003.
• Valence - IGF Student Showcase, 2003.
• Mall Monster - IGF Student Showcase, 2003.
• Commando Attack Sub - IGF Student Showcase, 2002.
• T.H.U.G.S. - IGF Student Showcase, 2002.
• MatrixAttack - IGF Student Showcase, 2001.
• GenJox - IGF Student Showcase, 2001.

Notable staff

• Claude Comair — Founder, president, and pioneer
• Prasanna Ghali — Graphics professor and industry veteran

Claude Comair was born in Lebanon. ... Prasanna with The Trophy in 2004: Nothing good can possibly come of this. ...

Summer camps

Every summer, DigiPen runs three different types of high-school summer workshops (and middle-school "junior" workshops). In the most popular workshop, students create games using ProjectFUN (a 2D proprietary game engine). Each workshop is two weeks long and there are different levels of each workshop: Dimension (from Latin measured out) is, in essence, the number of degrees of freedom available for movement in a space. ... A game engine is the core software component of a video game. ...

• 3D Animation (Levels I and II)
• Robotics (Level I)
• Game programming (Levels I, II, and III)

Each two-week workshop costs $995.

References

• DigiPen Fact Sheet

External links

• DigiPen's site
• DigiPen Summer Workshop site