22nd year graduate virtual 1-day internship held! Simulated work experience through programming

My name is Fujisawa, and I am in charge of public relations and recruitment. I am glad that NiziU was able to make their debut safely

On November 11, 2020, we held a "Virtual 1-Day Internship"

(The person making the peace sign is Director Morita.)

 

As people were feeling bored with the COVID-19 pandemic, we wondered if there was an interesting way to hold an internship, and we came the online game company information session .

We felt that simply gathering on Zoom to talk would not be enough, so we decided to get the students involved in some hands-on activities during their internship . This time, we had them take on various missions using hackcraft

You can learn programming even if you can't write code

"Hackcraft" is a programming teaching material developed 8x9 (Hack)

The operations are done using a mouse, which is called visual programming, so even people who have never written code can learn programming from scratch.

Hackcraft details here

This time, the intern was Mr. Iwasaki from Hack, and the world was created with the help of Mr. Noboru, a current high school student!

▲From the front: genius high school student Noboru, Hack's Iwasaki, CEO Haraoka, Director Morita, and Administrative Department's Sakashita

 

This was the first time we had conducted an internship completely online, so we were a little worried about whether the students would enjoy it, but it turned out to a huge success .

This time, we will be sending you a report on this ``virtual 1-day internship.''

Gather at Hackcraft via Zoom

During the internship, we connected to Zoom to communicate and worked with Hackcraft on two screens

Students will connect to the server we have prepared and log in to HackCraft

When you log in to HackCraft, you will see a hermit crab avatar

By moving this hermit crab around, you can stack blocks to create objects or buildings

Instead of writing programming code, the operation method is based on Blockly, the same as Scratch, so you can stack and move blocks intuitively

▲Select items such as "movement" and "action" and arrange them in the order that best suits your purpose

 

In this way, Hackcraft allows even those who have never touched programming to experience the joy of programming .

Some of the students who participated this time had never used programming before, but they all learned how to operate the program in the first half and were able to proceed without any delays in the second half

Take on four missions

In this internship, the participants were tasked with four missions aimed at acquiring the skills , such as research ability, construction ability, troubleshooting ability, and teamwork

Mission Details

1. quiz
2. building
3. Light the server lamp
4. Team Development! Build a Tower!

A quiz where you can find answers on the website and recruitment site

First, we prepared a mission to help players get used to the controls: "answer a quiz about Beyond, and if you get it right you can proceed to the next room."

The winner was the person who could find the answer to such questions the fastest on the website or recruitment site (although in reality there was no specific winner or loser)

When we asked a student who answered all the questions correctly within the time limit how he found the answers, he , "Instead of looking at every site, I searched for keywords on Google and found the page," which was an eye-opener for us.

I think engineers who are able to think about these kinds of efficiency improvements are suited to the job, so it was good to get a glimpse of this ability

A building that becomes quiet when you concentrate

The second mission is "Building .

This mission is also designed to help participants learn the basic operations of HackCraft, and involves stacking blocks as instructed

Each block has an "ID" and "meta" setting, and you place the block by entering the correct numbers

Building is an individual activity, and once you start, it's easy to become absorbed in it, so I helped the students along the way without disturbing their concentration

Find the correct circuit and switch on the server

The third mission is a little more difficult

"light the server lamp ," and you have to light the correct circuit while avoiding obstacles so that the light comes on in the server on the right side of the image.

If you light a wrong circuit, the server will burst into flames (and it will)

Therefore, you need to program while thinking about the circuit in your head so as not to cause a fire

To be honest, as a non-engineer, it was so difficult that I couldn't do it at all (laughs)

However, some of the students were able to understand quickly and successfully light the lamp, and I was reminded that talented students have brains structured differently!

Finally, team development!

Finally, we held a team tower building competition, with the aim of giving it our all and showing what we had achieved today

The rule is that the team that builds the tallest tower that people can climb within the time limit

The theme for the tower will be chosen from among the tallest structures related to each base in Beyond

• Osaka: Tsutenkaku
• Yokohama: Landmark Tower
• Shikoku: Mount Tsurugi
• Canada: Monroeville

Each team was supported by our engineers, Kanbara-kun (graduated in 2020) and Nagato-kun (graduated in 2021), who discussed and decided what kind of tower they wanted to make and who would play what role

▲Kanbara-kun is an infrastructure engineer. He is a god-like being who also has knowledge of programming

 

▲Nagato-kun, a development engineer. He loves Crayon Shin-chan

 

At the end, both teams announced what towers they had built and tested whether people could actually climb them

▲The white tower is Tsutenkaku and the green tower is Mt. Tsurugi

 

What the two teams have in common is that they are conscious of "going higher," and after building a foundation, they stack the blocks like a spiral staircase

But take a look

a door attached to its base

After seeing this, the organizers quickly "artistic points" in the grading. (They should have said that from the beginning.)

While Mt. Tsurugi won in terms of being "higher," Tsutenkaku won in terms of "attention to detail."

▲Mt. Tsurugi is the highest mountain in Tokushima Prefecture. If it actually looked like this, it would be scary to climb it

 

And the results of the votes from the four judges were..

• Sword mount: 1 point for height, 1 point for artistic merit, total 2 points
• 3 artistic

Therefore, the Tsutenkaku team wins!

The Tsurugiyama team switched to a strategy of increasing height early on, using a dark green base and a yellow-green upper part, but the Tsutenkaku team was highly praised for staying true to the real thing and for including a proper spiral staircase inside the building, and they won in a spectacular fashion

In this way, both teams were able to demonstrate teamwork and create something together within a limited time, which I think gave the students a taste of what it's like to work as an engineer

Student Voices

At the end of the internship, we asked the students to share their impressions, and here are some of the comments we received:

"I think it's a really refreshing internship. I'm really impressed."

"I had never done any programming before so I was a bit nervous at first, but once I got started I found it fun and am glad I participated in the internship."

"I thought I'd try hackcraft again."

"Other internships often end with a group discussion, but working together was a fresh and fun experience."

"I learned a lot, but it also felt like I was playing, so it was fun."

"Seeing how employees communicate with each other, I felt it was a homely workplace."

It seems like everyone enjoyed it, so I'm really glad I did it!

This internship was possible only because we are currently unable to meet in person

I feel like we've proven that it's possible to convey a company's atmosphere and business activities online

We are doing casual online interviews!

This concludes the report on the "Virtual 1-Day Internship"!

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, I think many students graduating in 2022 are worried about how to go about job hunting and how to choose a company

In order to be able to properly interact with such people, Beyond would like to find new ways to meet with you all

The next internship is scheduled to be held at the end of February, so we will make another announcement

"I honestly don't know what kind of company Beyond is, but I'm a little curious."

If you are such a person, please come and have a casual interview and we will have a frank discussion

If you would like to find out more, please check out the information on our recruitment website

Beyond Co., Ltd. Recruitment site

*The application form for the 2022 graduates will be made public by January 2021

We will be updating our employee introduction page from time to time, so be sure to check it out!

Now, I'm Fujisawa, in charge of public relations and recruitment.