Platform Expos is This Week

At the end of this week things get really interesting if you are into anything digital, and games in particular. The latest incarnation of Platform Expos is hitting the centre of Hull. I always end up wondering how they get all the people along to speak, and manage to get so much industry involvement. But they do, and you can get the benefit of all their efforts by going along to the events this Friday and Saturday, all around the middle of Hull. You can find out the programme, and get tickets, here.

Simon and I will be joining in on Friday, when we are doing some fun and games with Python, Pi and hardware interfacing. Simon is also giving a presentation on the Saturday too. Platform Studios will be showing off their games and if you have any kind of interest in things digital you should get yourself along there.

Cool Printing

One more picture from yesterday. This stand had some amazing printers and a DJ as well.

Today I had a go at printing with some of the fibres that I got yesterday. It didn’t start well to be honest. I put in some lovely translucent green PLA that I’d been given and the printer produced some rather gooey looking outputs. Turns out the new material had a much lower melting point that the stuff I normally used. So when Una heated it up to 220 degrees I was printing with something very runny indeed. When I brought the temperature down to a slightly cooler 200 degrees things improved massively, and I ended up with some much more pleasing results.

That’s a tip for 3D printing folks. Try different temperatures. I’ve now started printing a bit cooler and my prints have a bit more detail, and the layers seem more even, which is nice.

3D Print Show London

A rather nice venue

So today it was up bright and early and onto the train for a trip to the London 3D Print Show. I went last year and I enjoyed it so much I’ve gone back this year. There was a bigger venue and more stuff going on. Same mix of presentations, stands and exhibitions, but generally just more of it. The business is definitely maturing. The general thrust of things is towards are more “appliance” type devices which folks could just get hold and use to print things. There was also a stunning display of how 3D printing is being used in medicine, from printing tissue and prosthetics to making 3D mock-ups of the patient for the surgeon to practise on.

Ultimaker were there with the new Ultimaker 2 and a wall of Ultimaker 1 machines. There were lots of other brands there I’d not seen before.

This printer was turning out pottery, which was very impressive.

They even had people selling parts. That heated bed looked very tempting….

There were 3D printed moustaches up for grabs.

This stuff looks amazing. PLA fibre with wood particles in it.Makes prints that look like tiny carvings. I got a little sample of the stuff which will be very interesting to play with.

On the way out I went past the shop and bought a bunch of Faberdashery colours that look really nice. I’m going to have a go at printing with them tomorrow. But I might have a bit of a lie-in first.

Angel Investor at the Rather Useful Seminar

At the Rather Useful Seminar this week we talked about how to market games that you write.
Next week David Clark of Cuba Entertainment will be visiting the department and telling us about the other side of the coin as he talks video game investment and angel investors.
If you are interested in how the games and entertainment industry work you should come along to this seminar at 1:15 pm in Lecture Theatre D in the Robert Blackburn Building on Wednesday 13th of November.

Triella WI ask the hard questions

One tough audience. No really.

Some time back I was invited to give a talk about computers at Triella Women’s Institute. So today I went off to strut my stuff. It was great  fun. I talked a bunch of what I thought was computer common sense and then I stopped and asked for questions.

I’ve forgotten what the first question was, but I won’t forget the second one in a hurry. “Why did Blackberry go bust?”. Hmmm. Tricky. And not quite what I was expecting. Anyhoo, I thought I’d better have a crack at the answer. Blackberry have managed to go from Hero to Zero in a few short years. There was a time when everyone who was anyone had a Blackberry phone. Now just about nobody does. Personally I reckon they took their eye off the ball for too long and assumed that people would always want what they made because they always had.

Blackberry aren’t the only ones who have taken a pounding from the new wave of touch screen devices spearheaded by Apple but they were the ones that were last with a proper response. And they are now paying the price. And it didn’t help that their service broke more times than it ever, ever, should have.

Next up was a question along the lines of “Why is Windows 8 so horrible?”. Hmm. Tricky again. Actually Windows 8 is not that bad. It is just irritatingly different when you first start with it. My top tip is to use the Windows key to start a search for your chosen program. I just press Windows, type “WO” and then hit enter. And up comes Word. Much easier and quicker than any mouse powered start menu. Of course I didn’t help my case by being horribly inept when I was trying to show this off, because the keyboard to my tablet was safely stored in my bag….

Then we talked about all sorts, from Smart TVs, to password policies, to the perils of dodgy power cables. Great fun, and thanks for inviting me.

You can find the slides here.