Backgrounds

MSP programme is Microsoft’s selection of community active students who enjoy technology just as much as the next guy and like to share their knowledge when ever possible. Each year the top few are selected to attend Tech.Ed Developers to get a glimpse of the cutting edge of technology and share all that with their local communities. With this in mind, I left off for Barcelona with three other fellow MSPs and our ADE, Jukka Wallasvaara on a foggy sunday morning from Helsinki-Vantaa airport!

Barcelona

I usually don’t like southern cities that much, but Barcelona stole my heart! A huge city full of awesome architechture and tons of interesting places everywhere. The night life was one of the best I’ve seen in a while with really nice little bars in each corner. We had a lot of fun with the other MSPs and Finns every night, with only barely enough sleep from all the chika-chika action. The venue itself was HUGE with very impressive organisation that allowed us to really just enjoy every session and booths with a full stomach and enough Cola. Pictures tell a thousand words here, so please check my photos from the trip via my Flickr stream!

Technology

Ah, the main dish, technology. As any active stalker knows, I’m more of a producer than an actual developer and thus focused more on sessions that had to do with the Big Picture and the evolution of work flow with new products.

At this point it’s apparent to me that Silverlight 2 is one of the best things to happen for browser plug-ins since Flash. I’m not gonna list the exact feature set (use the Google, Luke) but imagine .NET as a coding framework, Expression Blend as the UI composition software and add some XAML to tie it all together. Easy, fast, powerful and most importantly based on open standards to be ported by anyone to any platform or to integrate with their own IDE. Sl2 seems like the first serious platform to create RIAs with, because it makes the whole process easy from design to publishing. No, simple JS/AJAX can’t compete with this work flow. There were some amazing sessions on live developing really good looking (as in visually pleasing and usable) prototype software.

Concerning C# 3.0, I really like the direction it’s going. As said, I’m no serious coder, but can certainly appreciate what they are doing. The key development is directed towards making C# simpler to read, thus reducing the time required for someone to distinguish WHAT the code is ment to do instead of HOW it is doing it. I know a lot of low level coders don’t like this lack of absolute control over every detail, but in my opinion managed code is simply the future, because it lowers the bar for new people to jump in and make their ideas reality. C# 3.0 is also the new language of XNA 3.0 so I can’t wait to actually get my hands on it while attending Imagine Cup!

Apparently not everything can be changed with technology, since the were still some sessions on ”Why Software Sucks”. User experience crafting, that is. It is the sad truth that most coders are really bad designers, but can’t see it themselves. Luckily (as if luck has anything to do with it) the new direction with Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight is going for XAML to divide UI more from code. The task is up for us to rid the world from bad UI design, so join the cause and ask a designer first before assumig anything!

I’m not gonna comment on Windows 7 yet, because not that much info is actually out yet, but Azure sure was a pleasant surprise. I case you didn’t know, Azure is Microsoft’s new online platform based around distributed  .NET service hosting with a pay-as-you-play business model. I see it as an interesting way of publishing applications to the cloud and optimizing everything to withstand the wrath of the Interwebs. One can argue that for your average semi-successful web service you can’t get much advantage from the switch to Azure at this very moment, but I see it as an important step for preparing to the future way of remote computing and service providing to a wide variety of end user clients. The interesting point here is that these high-end developers have to have an in-depth understanding of how the Internet is actually built to really optimize their software for it.

Epilogue

All in all the whole trip was really incredible in too many ways to list. Having a look at the future of technology is really inspiring and makes you wanna replicate a lot of the cool demos they did with such ease. Now all that is left is to spread the word and actually develop something cooler than life!

- Teemu Haila, proud MSP

Just landed!

What's up with the facepalm?

During Nordic Game 2008 in Malmö we got a invitation to visit the Hedmark University College in Norway and keep a small presentation on what our club activities are all about, hopefully inspiring their students to found a club of their own. TAMK School of Art and Media sponsored us with the travel expenses along with our office of international affairs, while Hedmark University College was kind enough to provide us with an awesome room in Hotel Victoria and loads of food and drinks during our stay.

This is our wrap up from the best trip anyone has ever made!

New Game

Score on rails to Hamar.

Our current club president Juho did a lot of hard work to book our tickets and figure out different schedules beforehand, so for me and Heikki it was a leisure ride all the way. This was our first time as a club to go abroad and have presentations in English about our activities, so everyone was a bit nervous on how it would turn out. Luckily all our scheduled transports were golden and before we knew it we were walking around in the streets of Hamar! Nina was our main contact from their side on this trip and she gave us a ride to Rena, where we were supposed to have our first presentation to the programming students.

Stage One

Awesome bar!

We were expecting something like an auditorium full of students and a really formal introduction, but instead got to perform in a much cooler place: their very own student pub! They even sponsored free beer and pizzas for everyone during the whole night! So it was a combined IGDA Hamar meeting and an afternoon class of sorts. After our somewhat successful presentation we got the great opportunity to mingle around with the audience, that consisted of students from Rena and even some representatives from their local game companies! All in all we met a lot of fun people to talk with and they felt really interested in forming a local student club to boost their networking and coordination. After the party we said goodbye to our new friends and Nina took us to our Hotel in Hamar, where we instantly doze off, completely exhausted from all the talking and new people.

Stage Two

Think about it.

After a good night’s sleep the good fellows from Hamar took us in to visit their Incubator, a project that provides fresh startups with an office and related tools to support their growth. We got to see some of their projects and hear about how they got to where they are today while lunching away in their office. Awesome? Yes!

Shortly after the meeting we started off with our second presentation (this time in a real auditorium) for the game design students in Hamar. We got some nice questions flying around and again the school had free chicken wraps and lemonade for everyone to enjoy along with casual chatter. How much better can it get? A lot, because shortly after the presentation we got our first official love letter from an anonymous fan! (if anyone can track her down, tell her we’re not that far away on lonely winter nights)

Bonus Stage

Piloting a miniature helicopter inside was a fun challenge.

The god of random threw her dice again and for some reason we found ourselves from the Hamar students’ home party in their private game lab! There were a lot of really cool people and we geeked out with Rock Band and our own 5D project games leading the party through the night. It was a sad moment to leave knowing that we wouldn’t see any of our new friends again during our trip, but we promised to throw emails around and keep track on what everyone was up to.

Closing Animation and Credits

We were walking zombies in the morning but a small pillow deathmatch (result: tie) did the trick and I’m writing this as we close in on Helsinki-Vantaa’s airport. We’re all totally exhausted from meeting all these new people and talking constatly with someone, but it has been one of the greater highlights of our club activity and we’d definitely be eager to do it again at a later date! Next time we’ll double the days.

Walking back to the station.

We’re also really looking forward to seeing if the students of Hedmark University College decide to form a club that we could organize all sorts of cool stuff with. They all have such a great potential and opportunities open to them if they just raise their voices enough. Want to beat our Score? Get on with it!

With best wishes,
Teemu Haila
Founder of Score

Learn

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
- Leonardo da Vinci

We have all been there: try to learn something new (like a software, programming language, framework etc.) and end up just bashing your head to a wall because it’s just too complex or hard. Most of the time the only thing you can do is just give up and try again another day. Still there are universal drugs that keeps you trying again, looking for more solutions and sketching concepts: a purpose and friends. It’s nearly impossible to create with someone who lacks resolve and can’t be connected with, so our first and foremost mission in Score is to motivate people!

It’s not about what you are taught, it’s about what you learn. We wish for all members to have the experience of supporting peers while creating the best projects they can. Learning itself can be either enjoyable or a real drag depending on how you go off doing it. A healthy community of similarly minded individuals will not only enhance your learning rate but make the learning experience itself something you’ll cherish over the years.

Experience

A learning experience is one of those things that say, ‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.’
- Douglas Adams

The real, hidden power of schools is the possibility to experiment and experience. You get to try out all sorts of projects and are fully allowed to fail or succeed with nothing to lose and everything to win. That said, you have the full power to choose fun over burn out while planning what to do. There are a lot of ways to ruin a perfectly good development experience and we have gone through quite a few already. Why not network with “seniors” and ask for some tutoring? You might end up avoiding a lot of trouble and get to know them better. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the process of reaching it.

Share

To teach is to touch the heart and impel it to action.
- Louis Sullivan

Ask any teacher what’s the best way to learn and they will tell you it’s to teach someone yourself. At this point of your journey you have already learned the basics and experienced the advanced, so now it’s time to share and truly master your art. At first you might think it’s about teaching people the components of a framework, logistics of project scheduling or new journalistic approaches, but soon you’ll notice that there’s something far more important: sparking their wish to learn to a full flame and after that it’s really just about pointing them to the right direction. By doing this you really get to know your fellow students and strengthen not only both of your skills as individuals, but also as a group. The master-apprentice bond is respectful by nature and works miracles when you get from just teaching to actual projects.

Community

Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.
- John Dewey

Now we’re really getting to the (S)core: the community. While we have a lot of different members with different aims and priorities in life, some of us have chosen to really enjoy the moment rather than always aim for what happens after school hours. We believe that this upcoming season is going to be one of the most awesome years in our life if we make it so. Fun and enjoyment in life is not something you get after achieving things x, y and z, but rather something you can get right now just by tuning yourself to the right attitude. Why so serious?

Epilogue

I know that many will call this useless work.
- Leonardo da Vinci

So there are some of our core ideals. Does it surprise you that we actually focus more on bonding with people than planning something “more important”? It’s not once or twice that I have been criticised about suggesting things that don’t at first seem to lead to profit, such as helping junior students without them asking. Still I dare to say that my career is skyrocketing exponentially because I (and our fellow comrades) take the time to learn with other people. This ideology is unique to student organisations in schools as a medium of education and ours happen to be so successful that we have been invited to multiple schools to spread it.

The end is near so what now? I challenge you to reflect on your life and it’s goals. What do you really enjoy doing right now? Would you like to expand to some direction? If so, maybe, just maybe, you should give us a call. We’d certainly enjoy it.

Think about it.

—
Teemu Haila / iNF
Founder / Board Member of Score

For everything (and more), check out: http://score.igda.fi/5d