QI Internship Provides Pathway to Workplace for Neurodiverse Youth
QI Internship Provides Pathway to Workplace for Neurodiverse Youth
QI Internship Provides Pathway to Workplace for Neurodiverse Youth
September 15, 2022
By Xochitl Rojas-Rocha
Summary
This summer, 16 young adults from around the U.S., including students at UC San Diego, gathered at the Qualcomm Institute to create educational and research-based video games in QI's NeuroDiversity in Tech internship.
Aside from requesting that the game incorporate tasks that would help the player advance through the labyrinth he left the design and gameplay up to the team.
Michael Billingsley, a recent graduate of San Diego State University studying multimedia art who acted as his team's artist, said that he and his teammates-project manager Ryan Sfiligoi, designer Logan Wayman, programmers Kenta Yamamoto and Juan Groening, as well as Theodore Gigstad, sound designer for all three groups-dove into Maya architecture and aesthetics to decide on the game's look and feel.
Although the final game runs smoothly, the team of interns, including project manager Girish Subburaman, designer Kieran Solik, artist Natalie Waltz and programmers Andrea Kang and Shawn Joseph Porto, got to experience what it was like to work under a tight deadline while pivoting to meet client expectations and overcome hurdles.
The intern team, comprised of project manager Daniel Smalley, artist Clare Hidalgo, designer Em Findlay and programmers Jackson Singley and Alejandro Gomez, found themselves with the challenge of lending a complex process like the formation or death of a star to the game's format.
In their role as the team's designer, they were responsible for learning the code to program cut scenes, creating concept art and writing the game's script.
Easing the process of learning to program and streamlining the storyline and dialogue were the team's student mentor, Trent Simmons, and Ubisoft contact Lena Verstappen, whose credentials include contributions to Pokémon Go. Findlay grew up playing classic arcade games and other video games with accessible and easy-to-use controls.
Reference
Rojas-Rocha, X. (2022, September 15). Qi internship provides pathway to workplace for Neurodiverse Youth. Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://today.ucsd.edu/story/qi-internship-provides-pathway-to-workplace-for-neurodiverse-youth