Tomorrow my friends I will be spending the day in a local High school teaching kids how to use Bryce. Then I will be returning on Thursday morning to do it again.
I may not survive so if you don't hear from mr again, I either had a heart attack, or been reduced to dribbling nervous wreck.

Oh that will be fun..I had an interesting time back in the spring teaching 14 year olds how to use Photoshop in IT lessons and thinking how well they would take to Bryce..

So I envy you the experience.

LOL I gave a lecture once to 10yo's on Maritime History and my experiances at sea. At the Q&A afterwards all they wanted to hear about were sharks!!!

Goodluck and don't forget the baseball bat.

Yeh Bryster tell us about the sharks! If it goes tits up I may be getting in contact with you to do a webcam talk about sharks then.

lol ;)
hey, IMHO, more kids get the chance to learn about such tuff the better, as it's hard to learn abotu such stuff, oddly enough
kids are put off by cliques and ideas it's for "super dooper people".

Actually, thinking about it.....how do you go about teaching a class of kids how to Bryce?  This is a cube, this is a sphere? Make a quick landscape? OK Kids! Leave your puters on and by next week it should have finished rendering?

However you go about it, show NO FEAR! :lol:

Quote - Actually, thinking about it.....how do you go about teaching a class of kids how to Bryce?  This is a cube, this is a sphere? Make a quick landscape? OK Kids! Leave your puters on and by next week it should have finished rendering?

However you go about it, show NO FEAR! :lol:

Actually I would set up a power point tutorial if the school has those interactive whiteboards.Get them to do an easy lansdcape and then add the preset textures would take most of a lesson.
also there are lots of objects. in the presets they can have fun with and add.Keep to defaults in rendering  and I'm sure they will get a result they would be pleased with.

Booleans and metaballs are for another lesson.

I really do envy orbital.

*interactive whiteboards

*Most schools over here are lucky to have blackboards and chalk. (Although in this PC-ridden world we have to call them chalk boards.)

The school has downloaded Bryce on to 18 pc's, and they will be able to watch what I do on a large screen. I will then go through building a simple scene as they follow on. Hopefully I can keep their attention long enough. Theres no point getting too technical with booleans etc, so it will just be a quick introduction, then let them have 20 minutes to play about on their own.
I'm going to show them how to make a desert island. So it will be a couple of terrains, some rocks and grass, and some palm trees. Then they can mess about with different skies and add the obligatory sphere etc.

The after that, mayhaps you can hold a class for us too......

You don't need a class mate, your way ahead of the game!

Last time i was a "teacher" i ended up hitting on a student :-P

Good luck with the classes orbital! It just might work out well.. I started with bryce when i was 14, after a class mate gave me a copy of bryce 2 that came with a magazine! so its possible to start brytceing in highschool for sure :)

btw, interactive whiteboards are the shit! :-D Smart boards they're called right? you point a beamer at them, link it to a computer, and you can digitally draw on it with a "marker" (except its one without ink..the touch-sensitive whiteboard tells the computer where to draw lines with the beamer). I have one at work, but i have never seen one in a classroom...

I teach classic art (paint and paper) and the feeling when the students start to think for themselves and develop their own personal style is the biggest kick.

and your never so clever you cant learn a thing or two. so anytime your ready mate teach us, teach us hard....

well, there's always
1) Daz studio button

1. Import Vickie and Mike
2. forget clothes

that'll have the little @#@$%'s enraptured...;) j/k...;)

@Pakled: if they'd do that in my classroom my first question would be where the tentacle-monster button is :-P 

Quote - (Although in this PC-ridden world we have to call them chalk boards.)

Heh heh heh...too f**ckin true...(asteriks courtesy of thr PC Society)

Wear a hockey mask and carry a chainsaw.  That will scare them into paying attention for about 5 minutes.

After that, have them open Bryce and you run away to the teacher's lounge. 

Seriously, I envy you.  You will be surprised how quickly the computer literate generation will be getting way ahead of the game plan.  Best wishes to you.

 Just be glad you dont have to explain them the concept of good wire topology hahaha i couldnt even explain that to my teacher!

Best of luck Orbital - i'm looking at doing something similar in the new year myself

Best wishes to you on your project. Don't turn your back on the little buggers, lol.

Aha..orbital..you actually teaching?
rule one..
don't turn your back.. as Ang sez.. act like as if you have got eyes behind your back.
Anmd that's the only rule..
try making it fun.. create a story..say they are the president  and need to create a landscape to capture some weird alien..etc.. and then you are the militairy officer in command.. who has the secret key to creating the perfect landscape for the aliens to land etc.. and way to go.. you've captured their attention..and teach.
never go into detail..will get them bored..they've only got a time span attention of a bee..
have way loads of fun though.. if you can capture their imagination. you've won them over..
let us know how it went!

And have fun!!

rayraz..tentacle monster button?? Lol..

I've just finished the first session, and it's gone great. Plenty of SOWs and fit inducing terrains. The step by step tutorial went out the window as they just got on with it.

Lol..sounds like you got them eating out of your hands..or rathr..bryced hooked!
think any will go onto becoming bryce addicts?

Quote - rayraz..tentacle monster button?? Lol..

Have you ever heard of Tentacle hentai? its a sub-genre of japanese animation videos that combine women and tentacles (instead of women and men) in xrated scenarios.

There is a sub-section of the computergeekcommunity that is particularly perverted, and these tentacle animations are apparently a fetish to a sub-section of this perverted bunch of computernerds. 
Because the perverted sub-section of computernerds is often quite likely to get pwned and their behaviour appeals to nerd-humor as well they are much quoted on sites such as bash.org. which is why quite a few computernerds, including myself, are aware of these people's strange fetishes.
Ever since we had a colleague at work who made a joke about tentacles in reference to this particular breed of computernerds, its turned into a running gag to reference tentacle hentai at random occations... and ofcourse having a classroom full of teens with raging hormones play about with naked poser figures is a very good place for such a tentacle reference :-P

So first day finished and it went really well. I just let them mess around creating spheres etc  and they semed to really enjoy themselves. Two lads who the teacher said might be a bit troublesome actually were the best of the bunch. Roll on tomorrow!

rayraz.. gosh.. ugh.. are people sane??  well..I guess there are all types of people everywhere! Nver thought of stuff like that..it sounds so eek..and.. sci fi and ..ugh.. . Nopes..me not thinking..
Damn..I spend most of my time on the net..besides this forum and other design/art/ bryce stuff..reading up on news.. becoming a wee bit smarter.. and you have people who use it for stuff like that.. oh gorss...

Orbital..have fun..the best times you'll have is when they come up with something they have created..and is so worth putting up..and you'll see their excited faces...

Awesome opportunity, Kudos Joe!!

"Two lads who the teacher said might be a bit troublesome actually were the best of the bunch"

*Apparently the "Creative Unchallenged" of the bunch.

Orbital, I just hit the thread and wished to be in your shoes...  I think there's no better rewards in life to be remembered as an inspirational teacher.
I do not know of course what it will become to you all of this, but I know some of the students will certainly not forget Bryce and its potential.

YESS rosie is more than right, hit that imaginative button and you will have them "foverer" yours...

Just finished my last two sessions. They were with kids who are in the lower learning band, and I was warned that they might play up. But they loved it and the teachers were reslly suprised and also very pleased with the way the class went. I'd recommend any of the others giving it a shot if you get the chance.
The head of the art department was very pleased and mentioned that he'd like to do more in the future.

oh cool! start a session.. or  an after class activity.. you never know..

I've started teaching a 16 year old design and creativity class.. I love it when she gets excited over things.. got her to learn about focal point..gave her  hw..and she got her whole family mad coz she slurged on creating four art pieces with focal points. Sent her roaming the nt for paintings that she liked.. I asked her to do 5 a day..she does 8 -10 a day.. excited at seeing something new. It's beautiful..watching their minds open up.

Got her this time to shoot  pix of her dad'sgolf shoe..with three size perspectives.. before I even left her home.. she was beaming with ideas.

orbital..i can see you teaching them after class.. like an extra activity.. if they in the lower learnging band.. you're probably helping them bloom at something that school cannot teach them. Why not try your hand at making it a couple days a week session? Ask the school.. you're helping kids grow.

and yup.. you never know..

Three years ago..a student I taught in the 7th grade came to me when I was hospitalized for hepatitis. She had  a needle in her hand. . Groggy me.. did I fail you ? She laughed..nopes. She had become a Dr..said I was her favourite teacher. That still makes my day...

btw..why doesn't my terrible spellings get underlined anymore when i hit source?? has rendo changed while I wasn't around????

I wonder if they realise there's a Bryce-god teaching them?

Quote - rayraz.. gosh.. ugh.. are people sane??

I think history has proven on many occations that people in general are not that close to being sane yet. But lets hope the future of human evolution has something like general sanity in store for us :-P

Quote - well..I guess there are all types of people everywhere! Nver thought of stuff like that..it sounds so eek..and.. sci fi and ..ugh.. . Nopes..me not thinking.. Damn..I spend most of my time on the net..besides this forum and other design/art/ bryce stuff..reading up on news.. becoming a wee bit smarter.. and you have people who use it for stuff like that.. oh gorss... 

The interwebs are full of stuff most of us wouldn't miss if we never saw it i suppose lol

Quote - Orbital..have fun..the best times you'll have is when they come up with something they have created..and is so worth putting up..and you'll see their excited faces... 

Isnt it interesting that the supposed biggest troublemakers turned out to do so well? Art is excellent therapy / an exellent way to spend time!