Intern Andrea Kang with the Qualcomm Institute’s NeuroDiversity in Tech internship watches a visitor play a game.
This summer, 16 young adults from across the US, including students from UC San Diego, gathered at the Qualcomm Institute (QI) to create educational and research-based video games in QIs. NeuroDiversity in Tech internship. The program creates a path for young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder to receive valuable workplace training and prepare for a successful career in technology.
“This is something I’m so passionate about,” said Pamela Cosman, director of the NeuroDiversity in Tech internship program and a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. “There is a gap with neurodivergent young adults who have the skills and cognitive abilities to be productive in the tech workforce, but who face barriers to finding jobs and experience very high unemployment. We need programs that develop the hard and soft skills to bridge the gap between employee and employer.”
During this year’s eight-week summer program — the first to be held in person since the COVID-19 pandemic — the interns, most of whom are on the spectrum, worked to develop interactive games that embody a scientific or research concept. demonstrate. Each team had a dedicated coach, who provided both technical and behavioral coaching, and educators and professional mentors, including employees of the video game company Ubisoft.
Just like in a workplace scenario, each team of interns consisted of a project manager, artist, designer, sound designer, and programmers, all working together to deliver a final product to a customer. This year’s cohort covered topics as diverse as the birth of stars and the concept of radio interference.
Explore the labyrinth in Oxkintok
The team behind ‘Satunsat’. Front row, left to right: Team Coach Corly Huang, Programmer Kenta Yamamoto, and Project Manager Ryan Sfiligoi. Back row, left to right: designer Logan Wayman, artist Michael Billingsley, programmer Juan Groening and QI researcher Dominique Rissolo. Not in the photo: sound designer Theodore Gigstad.
For one team, the assignment began with an extensive 3D dataset of an ancient Mayan labyrinth at the Oxkintok archaeological site in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. In 2016, QI Research Scientist Dominique Rissolo and other members of the Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative at QI were part of an international team that traveled to Oxkintok to collect spatial data about the labyrinth known as Satunsat.
Rissolo asked the team to use these data points to create an adventure game that explores themes of archaeoastronomy, Mayan creation myths and hieroglyphic writing. Aside from asking for the game to include tasks that would help the player move through the labyrinth, he left the design and gameplay to the team.
The final game puts the player in the heart of Satunsat. The player navigates dark tunnels with torches and progresses by solving puzzles using the Mayan calendar and number system. The game rewards each victory with a “fun fact” about the Mayan culture.
Michael Billingsley, a recent graduate of San Diego State University and majoring in multimedia art and acting as his team’s artist, said he and his teammates — project manager Ryan Sfiligoi, designer Logan Wayman, programmers Kenta Yamamoto and Juan Groening, as well as sound designer Theodore Gigstad for all three groups – delved into Mayan architecture and aesthetics to decide on the look and feel of the game. Culture is intertwined with the game’s environment, music, and even the game’s font, which Billingsley says is inspired by popular motifs in Mayan art.
“Through the team’s creative vision of the game, I saw Satunsat’s labyrinth in a new light — literally,” said Rissolo. “I was so focused on illuminating this dark maze in our 3D models — to better explore ancient masonry techniques, for example — that I hadn’t really thought about what the tunnels would have looked like to Maya visitors making their way through the building so long ago. The torch that the interns created in the game, the flickering light and the flashing shadows, was revealing.”
Screen still of “Satunsat” with a torch lighting the corridors of the labyrinth.
From the labyrinth to space
Somewhere in the far reaches of space, a friendly cat in an astronaut suit makes his rounds, bringing food and snacks to customers in need. The only obstacles in its path are the strategically placed radio towers that disrupt incoming orders with signal interference.
To take the cat to the next level, players of the game “Interfurence” must act quickly to find a radio frequency that will allow them to clearly hear the customer’s order and make the correct delivery. The gameplay provides a fun, interactive way for elementary and middle school students to engage with the concepts of frequency bands and radio interference.
While 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 experienced what it was like to work under a tight deadline while meeting expectations. of the customer and overcome obstacles. Their coach was Corly Huang, ’21 Department of Visual Arts, who also oversaw the Labyrinth team.
Screen still from the game “Interfurence”, showing the delivery man passing a radio tower. The panel on the right shows the available radio frequencies F1 to F4.
When the interns were given their assignment, their client, the non-profit organization BSCS Science Learning, left the door open for change, but suggested that the interns could create a game in which the main character had the ability to travel different routes and switch frequency bands. to receive transmissions of secret codes in a military or historical setting. The Interfurence team won the customer with an alternate storyline that might appeal better to a young audience: that of a space-capable food-delivery cat.
“Everyone I met on the team has been amazing,” said Kang, a master’s student studying computer engineering at UC San Diego. “I learned a lot about team building and working in a more collaborative environment.”
Gamification of the life cycles of stars
Aaron Drews, an associate professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School NanoEngineering Department, came to the NeuroDiversity in Tech program with a year-old idea for a game. He wanted the interns to create a puzzle game, similar to the popular and addictive “Bejeweled” or “PuzzleQuest”, to illustrate the life cycles of stars.
A visitor matches helium and hydrogen atoms in ‘Star Swap’.
The intern team, made up of project manager Daniel Smalley, artist Clare Hidalgo, designer Em Findlay, and programmers Jackson Singley and Alejandro Gomez, faced the challenge of adding a complex process, such as the formation or death of a star, to the format of the game. They made a story where the user plays as an astronaut who receives transmissions from a mysterious figure who asks for help in creating new stars.
“Star Swap” invites the player to match color-coded elements essential to star formation, including helium and hydrogen, in patterns of three or more to earn points and clear the board. Elements such as carbon, which remain inert, create blocks that the player can eliminate with power-ups before locking the screen. Once the user has accumulated enough points, the mystery figure reveals itself as a supernova asking for help completing the final stages of its life cycle.
Findlay, a speculative design major in the UC San Diego Department of Visual Arts, came into play with less than a year of formal arts education. In their role as the team’s designer, they were responsible for learning the code to program cutscenes, create concept art, and write the game’s script. The team’s student mentor, Trent Simmons, and Ubisoft reached out to Lena Verstappen, whose references include contributions to Pokémon Go, to ease the learning process and streamline storyline and dialogue.
Designer Em Findlay (left) and project manager Daniel Smalley (right) hold a laptop with ‘Star Swap’ on it. Not pictured: artist Clare Hidalgo, sound designer Theodore Gigstad and programmers Jackson Singley and Alejandro Gomez.
Findlay grew up playing classic arcade games and other video games with accessible and easy-to-use controls. As a person with a partially paralyzed left arm, their experience influenced the change they would like to see in the video game industry.
“I was four classes away from graduating [on a premedical track] when I realized I really didn’t want to be a doctor anymore,” Findlay said. “I loved taking this opportunity to fully focus on what I wanted to do with my life. This internship made me realize that I was on the right track.”
Personnel development at QI
Founded in 2018, the NeuroDiversity in Tech internship program is currently supported by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Future of Work program, as well as funds from the State of California dedicated to QI’s workforce development programs.
As part of the NSF grant, Cosman and other UC San Diego researchers are also testing tools to prepare neurodivergent young adults for the workforce, including a fake virtual reality job interview to assess focus and eye contact in adults on the spectrum.
The NeuroDiversity in Tech program annually accepts applications in the spring from any neurodivergent young adult seeking employment or experience developing video games. For more information, see https://qi.ucsd.edu/neurodiversity-summer-internship.php.
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