That could have gone better....

This component (the joystick) actually worked quite well, which is more than the rest of the system did.

I have strong opinions on the subject of software development. There are two things that I'm very keen on:

• Make sure that you sort out any "stoppers" (things that must be there for your system to work) as soon as possible during a project.
• Don't make any assumptions about what you are making.

Well, what's the point of making rules if you don't break them yourself every now and then?

One major stopper would be if the controller was unable to talk to the control elements. The idea is that you have to plug your fire button and joystick into sockets on the controller and during gameplay the sockets will fail and you will have to switch to other ones. In other words, a big part of the game is plugging and unplugging elements of the controller. It's kind of important that this works.  I'd assumed this would just work. It didn't. Plugging in a controller element caused the Arduino to crash, probably because as the plug goes into the socket it makes contact with power and ground signals and shorts them out.

In a sensible world I'd have checked this all out right at the start, before building anything else. In my world I left it until the last minute to find out that my choice of hardware had doomed our project. Oh well. We did win a special "Judges Award" prize - Most Ambitious Failure. The controller will rise again. I'll post some pictures once I've got a design I'm happy with. 

The judging passed off very well, with our judges doing a sterling job, going round each team in turn. Each team had to make a 3 minute pitch for their entry, which was videoed. I'll post videos, pictures and full details in an event report later in the week, once I've got all the pictures back. I wasn't able to take any snaps of the winners as I was helping with the presentations and didn't have my camera with me. 

Anyhoo, the whole affair was most excellent and everyone was very keen to do it all again. And I reckon that, since Grimsby College have been kind enough to come north of the river to visit us for the past two years, we should travel south next year and hold the Gamejam over there - if they would be happy to put up with us. With a bit of luck and a following wind, we can make that happen. 

Here's to 2015, and thanks again to everyone:: sponsors, organizers, judges, camera guys, security guards, pizza "disher-outers", general "make it workers" and of course the competitors, who made it so memorable. 

Making Hardware Under Pressure at Global Gamejam

I'd thought it might be fun to make a novel kind of controller with elements that could be plugged or unplugged. The plan is to use an Arduino Leonardo device as the controller. This has the useful ability to behave like a usb keyboard or a mouse, and also provides a serial port that can connect to a process on a host PC.

My idea was to use resistor networks in the controller elements so that the Arduino could identify particular a element by the voltage that it puts out. After purchasing some resistors and some tests by number one son the idea looked workable and so I set about designing the cases for the components. 

I'd taken Una the Ultimaker along and she was soon humming along making bits and bobs. We needed cases for the individual controls and the joystick, along with a larger box for the main controller which would house the Arduino and a led display that I planned to add. 

The rest of the team were working away busily and by the end of the day I'd got some of the boxes built and it looked like things were coming along nicely. Great fun. 

Global Gamejam Hull 2014 Gets Going

It doesn't seem like a year since the last Global Gamejam. But apparently it is. Last year we held our first Game Jam in Hull and it was amazing. We have high hopes for the second one, which starts today. We've got top level support. In the far right of the picture above you can see Lee Stott from Microsoft talking to local MP Alan Johnson (with his back to the camera) and Lindsay West and colleague from Platform Expos. And the student team on the left are definitely planning something.....

This year we've switched venues. We are in the Horncastle Building from Hull College, just across the road from the Hull Studio School were we were last time. The building is fantastic, and everyone has been wonderful, with lecturers giving up tables and chairs from their classrooms so that we can set up space for the developers in the dance studios in the building. And the Platform Expo crew have been busy setting up networking and power connections for all the teams. The Grimsby College students arrived on schedule and we all headed into the auditorium for the intro presentation from Simon.

I took this shot as students were arriving, I couldn't take many during the show as I was showing the briefing presentations and the video that sets the all-important theme.  We have around 120 students taking part from Hull College, Grimsby College and Hull University.

The way that GameJam works is that they set a worldwide theme for the competition, and we have to make a game that matches the theme. This year the theme was the phrase "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are". Deep stuff, raising profound questions about the nature of self and how we view the world. And certainly a bit tricky as the basis of that space shooter that I was planning to make, using a configurable controller that I was going to build, pretty much from scratch, in 48 hours. 

This year the "Beard Bandit" and "Spooky Elephant" teams have merged to produce a huge, eight person leviathan that will crush all before it. We have tentatively titled the collection "Elephant Beard", although this may change. 

Inventing a game to match the theme was a tricky task, and we continued the discussions long into the night. Simon was keen to make a multiplayer game which combined the attractions of Pacman and R-Type, along with a configurable controller to give an exploration of the human psyche. I could tell you more, but this would ruin the surprise when you actually play the game. Or something.

With work progressing nicely I headed home. There was a time when I could work all night on projects like these, but that has passed I'm afraid. But I'll be ready for action tomorrow. 

Comedy Rob

Since some folk think I've been doing stand up comedy since I started lecturing (it's not true, I set down sometimes) I've decided to have a go at "proper" stand-up. 

I've been given a chance by those brave people at LabRascals to do a slot at the "Geeks vs. Nerds" event on the 21st of March at the Piper Club on Newland Avenue (note to self, find out where the club is before the 21st). The blurb says: Several Fascinating and Hilarious ‘Geeks and Nerds’ Take the Stage to Tell Their Best Joke in Style. Whatever.

The organizers have taken the sensible precaution of having a proper comedian along as well. So for your 6 pound entry fee (5 if you book in advance) you also get to see the wonderful Helen Keen.  Find out more (and book tickets) here.

Lecture Capture is coming to Hull

I went to a rather interesting meeting this afternoon. The university is setting up a pilot scheme to test out lecture capture in Semester 2. With a bit of luck they will be capturing some of my lectures, which will be interesting.  Later the plan is to roll this out across the years of study, depending on how popular it proves. 

The technology looks very impressive. We can either capture on our laptops or use an lecture capture device installed in the theaters. The idea is that within an hour or so of the lecture the material could be available to view via the web or offline. 

The system that we are testing comes from echo360. Should be fun. 

The Single Headlight Theory

Driving home tonight I saw four cars with broken headlights. Me being me, I started to wonder why,

I've decided that it is the cold weather. Turns out that the electrical resistance of metal falls when the temperature drops. The lower the resistance, the larger the amount of current that can go through the filament. The greater the current, the more chance of the lamp failing if it has developed a weak spot somewhere. 

This is why bulbs often go "pop" just as you turn them on. The peak of current that they receive before the filament has warmed up and started to glow is usually when they are going to fail.

Up until now we have had a pretty mild winter, so lights with weak spots have had it easier. But over the last couple of days it has been proper cold, and I reckon that the extra current that has gone through the bulbs has finished them off.

That or I just noticed them more....

Marked for life. Or something

Just marked 70 or so First Year programming exam papers. I think it is fair to say that the novelty has definitely worn off....

4G in Hull

Oooh. 4G

I think I've found the best place to browse the internet on my Lumia 1520 phone. It is the Starbucks in St. Steven's in the middle of Hull. I'm on a 4G contract now and I've been pleased to see that the 4G indicator light up when I go up town. I wan't expecting the extra G to make that much difference, but pages seem to flick into place really quickly, even faster than when I'm using WiFi. 

I really like browsing on the phone. The entire site is under my fingertips and the screen is large enough to show an entire page without needing to pan and zoom around it.

The only problem is that because I'm not massively rich I'm on a capped contract, with only 1G of data a month allowed. I've a feeling that if I went nuts with the phone I could use that up really quickly. In the future (you know, the one where we all have jetpacks and work one day a month) when cheap, fast, data is ubiquitous, I can see all kids of possibilities for this. 

There goes my data allowance.....

What? Me worry?

Just got this email from KC about my internet. It is the kind of thing that happens when you have the family home for the holidays. I was quite worried until I saw the dates. I don't think it would be physically possible to go over my limit now, which makes sending the message a bit silly really...

Change of Venue for Global Gamejam Hull

Hull Global Gamejam is moving.. Just down the road. Last week, due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, the venue we used very successfully last year, Hull Studio School, suddenly became unavailable to us. 

But thanks to sterling work from Sarah at Hull College we now have a new location. And it looks to me like it is going to be even better. We are now at the Horncastle Building, which is just about across the road from the Studio School. It boasts a great open area, some dance studios we are going to fill with developers and a great place for serving pizza. It is the home of Hull College of Creative Arts.

We had a meeting today to set things up and the outlook is pretty darned good. If you've not signed up for the jam you should toddle over here and get your name down.  The perfect way to brighten your winter...

Hardware Group at C4DI

Tonight we had our first meeting of the new C4DI hardware group. There seem to be lots of peple who are keen on getting to grips with hardware and embedded systems, with interest in Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Gadgeteer to name a few. I took along some toys, as had other folks. Above you can see the insides of my Tagomatic device, along with some pinball machine related shenanigans which includes using an Arduino to capture messages inside the pinball table circuitry and some coils of electro-luminescent wire. That lights up and looks really cool. 

Stay tuned for details of future events, this looks like it is going to be great fun, and it's not too late to sign up over at the meetup page for C4DI.

American Hustle. Go See.

Nothing shifty about this lot, oh no.

I don't often go to "grown up" films. The next film I want to see is the "Lego Movie". Nuff said. But tonight I went to see a proper, grown up film. It even has swear words and raunchy scenes, although there is nothing particularly graphic and nobody dies in a gruesome way.

American Hustle is what I would call a "proper" grown up film. The characters are complicated and incredibly well acted. There are no people who are completely good, and only a few who are completely bad. The plot is well told and compelling and by the end you really care what happens to everyone.

The story, of con artists who end up having to corrupt a good man in order to stay out of jail, is not particularly American I reckon. It is almost Shakespearean in the way it unfolds, but there is a lot of hustle. 

The film is up for lots of awards, and rightly so. Go see.

Cleaning with Notepad

One of my many (and increasing by the day) New Year's Resolutions is to blog things that I find useful. This is a simple enough trick which I use rather a lot, but you might not know it. 

If you move data around from one program to another using the clipboard you often find things attached to the data that you don't want. Sometimes text can have HTML wrapped round it, or perhaps there is some formatting that you want to get rid of. I use Notepad to do this. Drop the text into Notepad and then copy it back out again. Notepad is only good for text, and so it will normally get rid of any unwanted data. It is even easier if you use the keyboard shortcuts:

Click in your Notepad window, CTRL+A to select all the existing text in the Notepad window, CTR+V to paste over it  the text you want to "clean", CTRL+A to select the cleaned and then CTRL+C to copy it. 

There are probably much neater ways of doing this, but it works and you can find Notepad on most any machine. 

Sign up for Global Gamejam Hull. Now.

If you liked Three Thing Game you will love, love, love, Global GameJam Hull.  You get more time, bigger teams, a chance to work with game creators from other disciplines and institutions. You get to participate in a world wide event. And, of course, you get pizza.  

We held the first one in Hull  last year and it was an amazing success. It takes place at Hull Studio School in the city centre. You can work for the entire 48 hours or you can sneak home for some sleep. Or you can bring a bed and camp out. We don't mind. We just want you to have fun making games. The Spooky Elephant Collective will e there taking part. along with game developers from around the region. 

The fun starts on Friday 24th of January, when the worldwide theme for the Global Gamejam is announced. Then you have around 48 hours to make your own interpretation of the theme, ready for judging on Sunday 26th. 

If you are serious about writing games you should be there too. Registration costs a fiver and you can do it here. Frankly, you'd be bonkers not to...

Farewell to Thor

For the last couple of weeks we've been looking after Thor, number one daughter's hamster. Last night for some reason he sat out in the top of his cage. It was as if he was posing for goodbye pictures, so we took some. 

We took him home today and he was awake for most of the journey, looking out of the cage and wondering why the outside was moving past so quickly.

Denying Fate with Chocolate

...if only I could...

Last Thursday I went to the vending machine to buy some crisps. It wouldn't sell them to me. In spite of using the right money and proper coins, options D6 and D5 refused to deliver the goods. But I managed to get a bar of chocolate, which was strange. It was almost as if fate was sending me towards chocolate in place of fried potato. 

When I unwrapped the bar I found that the wrapper had a winning code printed on the inside. All I had to do was go on the website and claim my prize. 

I've just remembered that I threw the wrapper away without doing that bit, which was rather stupid. It is as if I was destined to win a huge prize which would change my life, but have unconsciously turned away from that path.

Sometimes being fate must be hard work....

You Need to Get App Folders for your Windows Phone

It's quite simple really. If you've got a Windows 8 Phone you need to get App Folders. It lets you organize your applications into, er, folders, making them much easier to navigate. I've got tons of apps on my phone and scrolling through the list gets quite tedious. Of course, I can pin the important ones to the start screen, but then that gets kind of large too.

App Folders lets you create a folder that contains a subset of your apps. You can then pin this to the start screen, giving you quick access to those apps.  You can see it in action above, where I've put all my photo processing apps in one place.

When I tap the folder on the start screen I get instant access to all the apps in it. You can create as many folders as you like, and really get yourself organised. You can find the program (it's free by the way) here.

Retro Fun at C4DI

Tonight it was time for some Retro Fun at C4DI. Nothing on the agenda as such, just bring along your retro gear and be prepared to tell its story. We had some great stuff turn up, including a laser disk system and a Theramin.

Peter had brought the Apple II (by the way, the missing key is the | key) and a Palm Pilot. Ian brought the Sinclair Scientific calculator and I brought the hand cranked calculator. (did you know that people that used these were actually called computers?).

You can play "How many of these did you own?" here. I had two, and I really, really wanted an Apple Newton....

It was very interesting to see just what people had brought. There were Sinclair Spectrums, Walkmen (Walkmans?), Amstrad Portable Computers and all kinds of tech. It is sobering to reflect that these were all state of the art in their time, and that the iPhone that you adore so much is destined to become just as retro as these gadgets in a few years time. 

Thanks to Jon for setting it up. The next meeting of the Hull Digital is Thursday 16th January, when they are having the first Hardware Meetup, which should be very interesting. 

How to use Python in Visual Studio 2013

I've taken quite a shine to the Python language. Although I'm still strongly wedded to C# think that Python is also a great placed to do stuff. A bit like swapping the sensible Ford Focus for a Mazda MX5 for the weekend kind of fling.

What you might not know is that there is an implementation of Python that works a treat on .NET (so that you can combine Python and other languages), and that there is also a lovely plugin for Visual Studio that lets you write, and more importantly debug, Python in "The Best Place to Write Code in the Universe and Space".

I've written a tiny howto that tells you how to get started. You can find it here.

New C# Yellow Book Available - and on Kindle

The latest version of the C# Yellow Book is now available to download from here. There are a few fixes of typos and I've added some new content about array initialization.  But you'll be pleased to hear that the jokes are all exactly the same....

This is the "Rubber Duck" edition. The next one will have something else yellow on the cover. Probably custard.

My New Year Resolution this year is to finish things off that I've started, and with this in mind I spent some time last week preparing a Kindle version of the text. This is largely in response to some enterprising soul who has taken my PDF file and created a rather poor quality version of the text which is on sale at the moment. 

My version has all the diagrams and text and although I'm not completely happy with the format it is perfectly usable. You can download it from here.  Unfortunately it is not free, but it is well worth the nominal cost.