Author Archives: admin

I-SITE snaps up four Horizon Interactive Awards

The I-SITE team is delighted to announce the addition of four 2010 Horizon Interactive Awards to the trophy cabinet!  The jury selected our entries for the iGorilla iPhone application, the Fuel Up To Play 60 website, the I-SITE’s Holiday Confessionals Video and the Welcoming Center For New Pennsylvanians website. The Horizon Interactive Awards is a prestigious international competition recognizing outstanding achievement among interactive media producers.

The awards represent the depth and breadth of our capabilities ranging from a mobile app, to websites, to a promotional online video. We were also excited  they represent topics that we have great interest in – animal conservation, health and fitness, economic development, and of course beer and whimsy!

Most notable was the Gold award for the iGorilla mobile app in the Education Apps category. iGorilla features up-to-date content from the Virunga National Park in the Congo including family and individual gorilla profiles, written reports and videos. We received a Bronze award for our work for the National Dairy Council and NFL on the Fuel Up To Play 60 website. Also in the education category one notable feature of the site is personalized dashboards for adults in the school to track how their school and students are progressing with the program. The Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians website connects new arrivals to economic opportunities in our region and was awarded a Bronze for the non-profit category. Last but not least we received a Bronze for our Holiday Confessionals Video – a candid and thought-provoking exposé of the trials and tribulations of holiday’s past as told by attendees of our December 2010 beer event. Holiday Confessionals is no stranger to  also received the Best Marketing Online Video at the IAC Awards earlier this year.

We’re happy for both the team and our clients to have received these accolades. But of course are on the look out for new exciting and engaging projects that will find a warm place in the I-SITE trophy cabinet come next year.

Build a Bird App Takes Flight

We’re happy to announce the launch of the Build a Bird mobile application in the App Store, Android Market and Amazon Marketplace! Build a Bird is an educational app that teaches children and all bird lovers about different types of birds, their habitats and behaviors – specifically how birds have adapted their beaks, wing shapes and sizes, flapping frequencies, body size and feet to survive and thrive in specific environments.

The “Build” part of the app provides an opportunity for the user to test their learning by creating a bird that is adapted to a specific environment. On completion the user can ‘fly’ the bird through its natural environment. The app has launched with the albatross, barn owl, hummingbird, peregrine falcon, sparrow, turkey vulture and I-SITE favorite the much maligned pigeon. Sorry no puffin yet!

In order to create this educational, fun and interactive experience we worked with the beautiful illustrations of Ioana and videos from our friends at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. We designed the app to appeal to the younger demographic, as well as to not distract from the important learning aspect.

Build a Bird Version 1.0.0 was created by using Adobe Flash Professional 5.5, Adobe Flash Builder 4.5, Adobe AIR 2.7, ActionScript 3 and made specifically for iOS 4x, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch and Android 2.2+. Special mentions go to Rob Hall for his development savvy and and Dana Pavlichko for the screen designs.

Th app was developed for Iridescent Learning, a science-education nonprofit that helps engineers, scientists and high-tech professionals bring cutting edge science, technology and engineering to high school girls, and underprivileged minority children and their families. Based in Los Angeles Iridescent has learning centers in LA, the Bay Area and New York City. The project was funded by the Office of Naval Research [ONR].

You can find and download the application through the App Store, Android Market and Amazon Marketplace. Since release in the App Store on July 13 the app has been featured in the ‘New and Newsworthy’ section and downloaded over 50,000 times.

 


 

 

 

 

 

Best of Class for Welcoming Center!

Last summer we took on the great challenge of designing and developing the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians website. The Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians connects new arrivals to economic opportunities in our region so that they can successfully integrate into their new homeland. (https://www.biolighttechnologies.com/) The result: A Shared Prosperity and an IMA Best of Class award for a non profit website! We thank our great client for providing a challenge and a great cause that helps fuel our fire. I personally thank all the amazing designers and developers who made this happen. We finally got the award so I can finally talk about it.

You Can Learn From Games?!

Last Thursday I-SITE attended a meet-up entitled “Demystifying Games & ARG’s for Learning” at UPenn featuring Koreen Olbrish from Tandem Learning (@tandemlearning). The talk began with an overview of game theory; Why people enjoy games, how we react to them, and the different styles of games that are out there. This led the discussion down the path of one particular style of gaming that is particularly fascinating, Alternate Reality Games (or ARG’s). In these types of games, players are submersed into an “alternate” world that exists within the real world, interacting with objects and people to accomplish digital tasks. Using these methods, Koreen and Tandem Learning applied these theories to games for clients to achieve various goals.

What types of success can a game have in a corporate world? Well, how about corporate leadership exercises or sales training techniques that your employees enjoy taking part in? When a game is properly implemented into a company, it can facilitate astounding results by providing a competitive, engaging and fun environment for those who participate.  Games aren’t just about sitting on the couch and racking up achievement points anymore, they can provide real results and I-SITE has implemented games for various clients to help encourage learning and growth. We look forward to creating innovative and engaging games as more and more businesses begin to realize the true potential that they can provide.

Connecting Creatives in Old City

Last Thursday night a few of us at I-SITE went over the street for the Old City Creative Corridor social at National Mechanics. Having been digital pioneers in the neighborhood back in the mid-ninties we love how this is the place to be for creative firms and minds.

The event was a great opportunity to mingle and gather new contacts for our Old City Creative mapping project. We are currently working on a mapping tool that will include all the creative firms and folks in Old City. This is not a new organization or website though – we have enough of those already! This is a tool that can be shared and integrated into the sites of anyone who loves or is promoting how damn creative we are here. In fact anyone will be able to put the map on their site and put their info on the map. It’s data, it’s maps, it’s fun!

Look out for our Old City Creative Map in the near future!

Android Alliance Meetup

Last night Sean and I attended the 2nd meetup of the Android Alliance here in Philadelphia (@androidphilly). The meetup was hosted on the 45th floor of the Comcast building and featured Arpit Mathur and Frank Panko as speakers for the event.

Arpit (@arpit) gave a good talk about design patterns, or paradigms, that have developed over-time on mobile devices. Highlighting different ways in which users interact, such as dashboard views, pivot views, and overall layout of key interactive elements, Arpit provided a great evaluation as to why certain methods have succeeded and others have failed.

Frank Panko (@aviewfrommyseat), developer of A View From My Seat, took a bit more technical of an approach to his talk. He provided a great introduction to utilizing XML in Android development to keep projects organized, efficient, and small. how to recover files autocad It was a fantastic starting point as a person interested in Android development to understanding good practices for starting new projects. recover amr files from phone

Check out slides from the event and visit the Google group for Android Alliance. Looking forward to the next meetup!

I-SITE Loves S.T.E.M. Education

This past week some of the I-SITE group took a trip with our friends at Iridescent to The Naval STEM Forum in Alexandria, VA.  Iridescent Learning, who shares our love of promoting the importance of science, technology, engineering and math, has a mission to use these tools to develop persistent curiosity and to show that knowledge is empowering. In order to do just that, we teamed up together to design and develop a mobile application that can help educate children on different types of birds, their habitats, their behaviors and even how they fly. It aims to inspire these users to be curious about the world. Fortunately, we got a chance to show off the Build a Bird application at the Naval STEM Forum last week. Pictured below from left to right are Sean-Paul Fenton, Chris Ell, Tara Chlvoski (President of Iridescent) and Ian Cross.

 

You can download the Build a Bird application in the Android Marketplace and Amazon Marketplace. And look out for our iPhone application that will launch in early July.

 

Active Transportation Summit

It’s summertime and that means if you live and work in Philadelphia you should be riding your bike everywhere. Tomorrow some of the I-SITE crew is heading over the the Active Transportation Summit.  The PENNSYLVANIA ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL and the DELAWARE VALLEY REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION are hosting the summit and multiple prominent speakers will be there talking about recent successes and opportunities for improving the region’s active transportation trail system. This is exciting news for bikers as we all know how dangerous is can be to bike around town and with the explosion of new riders we need more lanes and trails. Hopefully we will see some new ideas and changes in the near future. Hope to see you there.

 

WHEN

Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 8am

WHERE

The HUB at the Cira Center
2929 Arch Street, Mezzanine Level, Philadelphia, PA

 

Click HERE for more information.

 

 

Ian Joins Breadboard Advisory Board

Our very own Ian Cross has joined the advisory board of Philadelphia’s Breadboard! With his background in ergonomics, design and developing education programs he’s looking forward to collaborating with the diverse and talented team of advisors.

Breadboard is a program at the University City Science Center, whose mission is to offer public access to a new generation of fabrication technology and workspace in an effort to empower individuals and convene communities around creative applications of technology.

Breadboard programs support STEM (Science,Technology, Engineering, Math) educational initiatives and arts-based learning activities. Breadboard partners with The Esther Klein Gallery and NextFab Studio to engage the public in art and design that has been influenced by technology. Through NextFab Studio, artists, community groups, and students can work closely with entrepreneurs, engineers, and industrial designers in order to create these unique exhibits to be displayed in EKG.

For more information on how to get involved or where to view the exhibits, check out Breadboard’s website: http://breadboardphilly.org/