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Alumni Days Christmas Party 2009

It’s that magical time of the year again; when we take a week out of our ordinary programming to invite our industry friends and former students to the island. This year we arranged three full days for our guests to hang out and hold awesome workshops and lectures with our current budding game developers.

As you’ve come to expect from us we end the event (and indeed – the semester) with a big (christmas) bang: a mocap studio filled with games and happy GAMErs, invited VIPs and DJ Doctor Dryg.

GAME Alumni:
Mikael Hedberg – Frictional Games
Tobias Lundmark – Starbreeze Studios
Peter Stråhle – formerly with GRIN.
Johan Svahn – One Man Productions
Andreas Wieslander – Production Manager at Burning Man Studios
Annika Fogelgren – Founder and production manager at Cherrytech Studios

Industry Invites:
Nils Stadling – Microsoft Sweden
Carsten Orthband – Pixeltamer
Emma Mellander – Nordic Game
Charlotte Ryberg – Disco Volante
Martin Ekdal – Donya Labs
Koshjar Hamedi – Donya Labs

Posted on - Comments Off on Gotlands Allehanda: “Japanska spelforskare bygger nätverk på ön”
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Gotlands Allehanda: “Japanska spelforskare bygger nätverk på ön”

Our collaboration with Tokyo Tech has been ongoing for three years. Our Department head Steven Bachelder visited Tokyo a couple of months ago and this week we had Professor Akihiko Shirai and Professor Masayuki Nakajima on the island, to discuss our future plans together and to hold a world class workshop with our students.

Gotlands Allehanda: Japanska spelforskare bygger nätverk på ön

Gotlands Allehanda: “Japanska spelforskare bygger nätverk på ön” (machine translation)

Posted on - 2 Comments on Programming workshop with Akihiko Shirai
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Programming workshop with Akihiko Shirai

Prof. Akihiko Shirai teaching Processing and WiiMedia

Oh yes. The creator of WiiMedia and professor of interaction technology – Akihiko Shirai – quickly whipped our programmers into shape with Processing and let them loose with the Wiimotes.

He divided them into small teams of three to four students (each given a specific role) and – in just three short days – we saw them produce a pancake-frying simulation, darts, horse racing, space shooters, a classic artillery game and more.

The “winning” team (by votes among all participants) created a dueling game of spellcasting in a classic western setting, and were awarded Prof. Shirai’s personal blue Wiimote. 🙂

  • Prof. Akihiko Shirai teaching Processing and WiiMedia
Posted on - 3 Comments on Wii Workshop with Prof. Akihiko Shirai
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Wii Workshop with Prof. Akihiko Shirai

Prof. Akihiko Shirai Prof. Akihiko Shirai – creator of WiiMedia – is coming to GAME next week for a three day workshop on Wii-development!

Akihiko holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology and is currently employed as “science communicator” at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation where he does just that; introducing the general public to emerging technologies by building new types of computer entertainment and games.

That is: he experiments with new types of human-computer interactions by building permanent exhibitions using laser range sensors, haptic interfaces, and augmented reality techniques to let visitors play to experience bleeding edge technology.

Some of his past research projects includes:
• VR and entertainment system design and development
• Robotics and Haptics for entertainment
• Tangible Playroom series (Haptic interaction platform for infants)
• RoboGamer (Physically connected game playing robot using GPGPU)
• SPIDAR (String based haptics interface)
• Springhead (Open source real-time physics engine)
• Digital Cinema (Production and screening)
• Augmented Distortion (Efficient deformation for low polygon model)
• GPUVision (Ultra fast computer vision on GPU)
• LuminaStudio (Real-time video composing on GPU)
• Axi-Vision (application for HD resolution Infrared ToF depth camera)

He has written several awarded papers, most notably the SIGGRAPH 2007 Best Paper; “WiiMedia: motion analysis methods and applications using a consumer video game controller”. This workshop is not to be missed! The workshop is reserved for staff and GAME programming students in years 2 and 3!

Monday, December 14

Lecture by Prof. Akihiko Shirai
Time: 14:00 – 15:00
Location: HGO, lecture hall E31

Wii Workshop intro
Time: 15:00
Location: HGO, lecture hall E30

Tuesday, December 15

Wii Workshop cont.
Time: 13:00 – 17:00
Location: HGO, lecture hall E30

Wednesday, December 16

Wii Workshop cont.
Time: 13:00 – 17:00
Location: HGO, lecture hall E41

Presentation of workshop results
Time: 17:00 – 18:00
Location: HGO, lecture hall E41