History of the Techrangers
No one can talk about the history of the Techrangers without the story of Barbara Truman. Both inspiring and bitter sweet, this brief documentary embodies the vision and heart behind what we do.
The First Techrangers
The Techrangers started in 1996 as a team of 5 students who would “code” online courses. At the time, this mostly meant converting documents to HTML, but included working with the Learning Management System (LMS) and general support tasks. 1996 was the same year UCF first offered online courses after being awarded the Florida Distance Learning Grant in August of 1995. The entire department worked out of a very small space in Millican Hall.
Pegasus Connection Disc
In 1998 CDL, named Course Development & Web Services (CDWS) at the time, distributed support materials for faculty and students. It took the form of a CD-ROM called the Pegasus Connections Disc. The CD acted as the starting point for many people, helping them establish dial-up internet connections, read their campus email, and access their courses. The Techrangers had a big role in the logistics and development of the CD. At this point, the team was working out of a portable located on Mercury Circle near the Communications building.
A Historic New Home
Around 2000, CDWS moved into the first floor of the John C. Hitt Library, the first building and literal center of campus.
Around 2001, Francisca Yonekura (an instructional designer at the time) started a new team to create media for courses called “New Media”. This group would be responsible for building UCF’s Virtual Campus Tour, numerous CDs, and develop advanced media for use in courses in technologies like Macromedia’s Flash and Director.
Expansion Into Research Park
In 2004, CDL opened offices on the 2nd floor of the Partnership II building in Research Park. New Media, Video, and iDev moved to the new offices with the vision fostering new partnerships and making room for further growth.
A Move to Collaborate
In 2010, New Media swapped locations with the Graphics team, relocating back to the Library. This move was made to foster collaboration between the different teams that were doing software development.
In 2011, CDL held its first Hack Day event. It has been held every semester, growing to include more organizations around campus. You can check out all the projects on Trello.
Around 2012, CDL’s software development team known as Advanced Systems joined together with New Media and the Techrangers under the new Learning Systems & Technology moniker. The Techrangers team would be relocated from the “fish bowl” to join all development teams in one space. We had to knock down a few walls. This is where we were really able to advance our box fort skills.
A Community of Craft
In 2014, Techrangers partnered up with Cloudspace, a local software development company, to start hosting regular tech meetups near UCF. The first was TechTalk BFF’s, held at Cloudspace’s office . The first talk worked so well that Cloudspace continued to host meetups until they closed their location near campus.
Our first open source project, UDOIT, was published in 2015 thanks a grant from Instructure. After that, there was no stopping the train, we had an army of projects just waiting for the gates to open. We proudly established UCF Open as the home for all licensed open source projects.
In 2016, the New Media team dissolved into the Techrangers to consolidate resources and remove barriers for student employee mobility across projects. Though, we still built box forts from time to time.
We maintain a list of all the Techranger Alumni on our site: https://techrangers.cdl.ucf.edu/past-techrangers.html. There’s a few interesting stats at the bottom you may want to check out.
A New Office for a New Age
In 2020, CDL moved to the new Digital Learning Center (DLC) in Research Park. This new space was designed by the team, a physical embodiment of our flexible, collaborative, and equitable ideals.