Imagine Cup UK Final

So, after getting up bright and early we headed onto the coach for the trip to Reading and our moment of truth...

"Team Pizza" with their bag. Seems about the right size.....

Ready for the off

Photo Op

The Seedlings shaping up

Is this a secret weapon?

Team Roundtrack

The "Pizza Eaters" doing some product placement

Team "404 File not Found" and their poster

Kevin from Microsoft gets things going

It was great to see James and Tom again. They were in last year's team and I went with them to Delhi for the world final. They now work for Content Master and had been given leave to come and tell us about the experience.

James in full flow

Tom watching....

..is this what Tom is thinking?

Nibbles

The food was good, and they just kept delivering it.

Halfway through the day the top three teams were selected to give their presentations. Sadly my team, "The Irresponsible Pizza Eaters", were not in the top three, but kudos to them for quality and commitment. You rocked.

Team "404 File not found" were selected for special commendation and "The Seedlings", another Hull team, were one of the three finalists. So, at this stage in the competition we had one commended and one in the top three. Not bad.

The Seedlings, preparing for the off

The pitch.

After the presentations and considerable deliberation the judges revealed the winner. None of this drum rolls and long pauses rubbish. Just a simple slide:

Hull Wins!

The Seedlings had prevailed. Huge congratulations to James Alexander, Michelle Goddard, Matthew Steel and Matthew Steeples. And also to their mentor from Black Marble, Rob Hogg. They all get to go to Seoul later this year to take on the world.

Flying the flag

That makes 3 out of the 5 Microsoft Imagine Cup UK Software Design Challenge competitions have been won by teams from Hull. Go us!

There are some more pictures on my Flickr site.