My Full Sail job had me working at Otronicon, helping Sam Ewing as he taught a classroom full of students the basics of Animation. The students, both young and old, paid very close attention to what Sam had to offer, and got to work developing a 24 page flip book.
The Orlando Science Center was packed. I have never seen the place so crowded. After the class was over, I wandered around watching all the kids and adults playing video games. I stopped at this area where everyone was playing the same game. They were all involved in a game called VBS2 which is a military training simulator. The military bought a commercial video game called Armor 2 and converted it into the high tech simulator seen here. All the players were working together as teams in the game. One boy shouted out, “Ha, I killed you. That was me, I killed you.” Most of the time however they stared at the screens intently focusing on the flaming oil fields and enemy tanks. Some players were situated inside virtual tanks, while others were field infantry. The creepy guy with the gas mask wandered over to mess with the kids by reaching in while they weren’t looking and pressing arbitrary keys on the keyboard.
In another area, military men wearing field fatigues were showing kids how to fire of an authentic looking M16 which would blast out a laser beam at the target. Joking around with Evan Miga later that day, he said that the military is selling military service to kids with ads that make it look like every day is a game, where they get to enjoy using high tech graphics in the field. Evan joked that if kids join today they would get an extra life. Otronicon is now over so you will have to wait till next year if you are in the mood to kill.