Media Magnet

Jake Zukerman of BBC Look North sets up Lindsay for another take….

In between all the lectures and labs and other stuff for today we had BBC Radio Humberside drop by for a chat with some of our students and then BBC Look North came by to find out more about Three Thing Game and Platform Expo. The radio session was a hoot. Steve Redgrave (someone I’ve known since before he was famous) came along and did a storming interview with a bunch of our First Year students who told him all about the joys of studying Computer Science at Hull.

The filming was fun too, although I never know where to put my eyes when someone is taking video of me. If I look at the camera I worry about seeming too intense, and if I look around I worry about seeming too shifty. And then there is the vexed question of which is my best side….

Anyhoo, it all passed off well enough. Yesterday we had a reporter and a photographer from the Hull Daily Mail come to see us and today I was delighted to find that the article had made it to print, with a great picture of some of our students and some quotes from a bloke referred to as “Rob Mile”. I’ll take that as close enough..

Later on Darren did a very good session about PS Suite, which is the new Sony game development they will be releasing later this year. We’ve got special permission for our students to use it in the Three Thing Game competition, and Stuart Lovegrove of Sony Studios in Liverpool will be taking a look at the things that they have made.

All gripping stuff. And then tonight I’ve managed to build a Gadgeteer device that can talk to my Eggbot. Exciting times.

Platform Expo 2012 Needs You

One of these could be yours…

Platform Expo 2012 is picking up speed. It is all happening on the University Campus over the weekend with a whole host of events including our little Three Thing Game programming competition. I heard today that the folks from Raspberry Pi will be making an appearance, along with all kinds of other really interesting folks. You can find the complete program here, an there are special deals for Hull students that want to come along and join in.

Or you could go for free. The organisers are looking for Helpful Souls who will be happy to take lend a hand. In return for spending some time showing people around the campus, helping folks set up and generally being a “Really Useful Engine” you will get free access to the event, a T shirt and a lovely Ubisoft goodie bag. This is the kind of helpfulness that also looks good on your CV.

If you are interested in this opportunity or would like to find out more details, please send an email to Brett Rogers at minigrim@minigrim.karoo.co.uk and specify which day you are interesting in working, either Saturday/Sunday or both.

Imagine Cup Preliminary Summary Due

Today is the last chance for submitting your Preliminary Summary document for your entries into the Imagine Cup Software Development challenge. You need to send in your document (at least 600 characters – so no Tweets) by the end of today.

Note that this is not something that will contribute to your judged score, it is more of a “sanity check” for the entry. For example if you said something like “We are thinking of creating a social networking site for everyone to use and we are going to call it "’Book of Faces’” then the Imagine Cup team might come back and politely suggest that something similar has been done before and you might like to change your approach slightly.

If you change the basis of your entry, perhaps targeting a different set of users or using a different technology in the light of your experience then this is absolutely fine, but if you completely change direction then you should send an update to the Imagine Cup team to let them know. As I write this (9:00 am GMT) you have around 15 hours to get your submission in. So get too it.

Three Thing Game Auction

These are the teams with the things that they bought.

Three Thing Game March 2012 is rolling. We have 33 teams (yes, 33!) with a total of 111 students taking part. Today we gave each team their Three Things to work with. Actually we didn’t just give them out. We sold them. Each team had 530 “Bank of Thingland” pounds to bid for things. If a lot came up that they fancied they could make a bid for it. We had to auction 99 things in 50 minutes, and we just about made it. Tremendous fun. The development starts now, with the 24 hour game development running over Saturday night.

Happy 40th Birthday Darren

Notice how Darren (HellBoy) has filed down his two horns to just a couple of yellow marks on his head, specially for his birthday…

It was Darren’s 40th birthday yesterday. He knew this. What he didn’t know was that we did too. So when he turned up for a “jetlagged drink” this evening he wasn’t quite expecting a whole bunch of folks to jump out and say surprise. So we did.

Great fun was had by all, lots of familiar faces, drink, and cake. Number one wife reminded me that the next “big birthday” for me will be my sixtieth. Can’t wait.