Open Day. We invite lots of people to roam around the university campus and we give them talks on stuff. Did what I thought was quite a good presentation about Computer Science, with a reasonable turnout who seemed to enjoy it. Then adjourned to the display area. Then David (number one son) arrived with a new toy which we set up on the video projector. He had brought along an EyeToy. This is a new add-on for the Playstation II which is a webcam and a set of image processing programs. It is kind of difficult to explain what you can do with it, basically it lets you play a number of simple video games with you in the picture. The ones that went down best were the window cleaning one, where you wave your arms to clean windows, and a "keep up" game where you have to bounce a virtual ball for as long as possible. I'm not sure of the long term appeal, but it was great fun for the kids there. It would also make a wonderful "after the pub" game for grown-ups in a dance mat kind of way. For only forty quid, including the camera, it is also pretty good value.

Then home. Last week I bought Twin Peaks, series one, at half price and so we sat down to watch a couple of episodes. Number one son is getting quite hooked on it, I'm a bit worried in case they don't tell you the murderer after series one. I've a horrible feeling that they took the marketing decision to spin it out for as long as possible after its success. I hate it when they do that, and it means I'll probably have to get series two. Very obvious from watching Agent Dale Cooper where a certain Fox Mulder came from...

 

Spend a day tidying things up and getting ready for the open day tomorrow. We are still getting fallout from the Imagine Cup competition. Someone got in touch today wanting to hire the students! Nothing doing until 2005 unfortunately, but we should be able to set up some very interesting final year projects if all goes well

 

Today I was at an exam board in Doncaster. This was supposed to be yesterday according to my calendar, but seeing as I was the only on who thought this (having got the date wrong) we decided to go with the majority and have the event on the proper day. Quite a successful occasion, one of the students had produced a very impressive project which was a mix of hardware and software, and assembled plastic pipes. Fortunately, the chap in question works for a plastic pipe assembly company, so it all worked out very well in the end.

 

And so back to Hull. Where it is raining. More later, a bit busy catching up and sorting things out.

 

Blimey. Third Place. Blimey. Out of fifteen worldwide. Blimey.

You never dare to think you have a chance, and when we saw the standard of the other entries we very worried because they were all so good.

And then the team clicked. And sparked. And off we went. And came third. With a team of first years who learnt .NET just this year. To say we are happy about this is a bit of an understatement!

I've got to say a huge thanks to Gavin and Caroline of Microsoft, who have been fantastic in getting the project off the ground and then giving support all the way through. I also want to congratulate the team, who put in enormous amounts of work, particularly in the last three weeks or so. I'm pretty sure that they have all surprised themselves by doing this. If the aim of the competition is to raise horizons and build confidence it has succeeded beyond measure. It has been fantastic to watch a team build itself from the ground up. I've read books on team building and management (the best ones are from Steve McConnell and published by Microsoft Press - take a look) and it was fascinating to watch as the team just created itself.

 

Judgement day. The time that Team Random, made up of (in no particular order) Phil Price, Will Johnson, Andrew Sterland and David Waby, get to strut their stuff. To say that they were first years they put on a hugely impressive show. It was great to watch them moving from "I can't do this" to "Hey, I just did this" to "Lets do that again" in the course of the presentations. By the end of the day they really had everything nailed. They only had to do things three times, which I reckon was optimal. By a fourth presentation they might have been tempted to extemporise or start to get bored at which point they may have gone off the boil a bit. Or perhaps that is just me.

I had to try quite hard not to explode with pride whilst they were doing their stuff. They were just so darned good. And all around all the other teams were doing just the same. I've got nothing but utmost respect for all the contestants. By gum they were good.

And so to the competition dinner which was held in this converted monastery in the middle of Barcelona. Apparently, when the monastery was built all those years ago, they didn't put in air conditioning, but this time it was fine because the ceiling was much higher and they gave us all fans (I kept mine - it is going to Majorca with my daughter for beach use.) Great food, fine wines and good conversation (except when I was speaking of course).

And then to the judging. I had been pondering for some time how to handle the fact that there was a good chance we would not make the top four. We had decided that in that situation we had lost nothing, since we were all winners anyway. However, there was still some trepidation as the names were announced, in alphabetical order of institution. When they got past H we kind of figured we were out of the running. We were just in the process of "well, it has been great and we put in a good shot" when the man said "University of Hull". Which is our proper name. And we were in the final.

I'm kind of ashamed about how pleased I was, and how much I showed it. I'm thinking now about the ones that didn't make it; on the slimmest of margins. What they don't realise is that the experience and what they have achieved is now going to change the course of their lives and they have already won big time. They now know that they can beat the world at this business, right down to the last fifteen, and that is going to change the way they do things for ever. In five or so years they will look back at how things have changed since their experience in Barcelona, but at that moment all they would be thinking is that they had not made it to the last four. And some tall idiot involved with a team that has is dancing around and looking please with himself. Ah well, sorry folks.

Of course, the sting in the tail is now that we have to come back again and wait for another round of results. But that is another day.

 

Set up day. The venue is really nice, but on the setup days they don't turn on the air conditioning. In a very public spirited gesture I was not wearing shorts (anyone who has actually seen me in shorts will agree that this was a pretty public spirited thing to do) but it did mean that I got rather warm.

The setup followed the usual pattern of moving from "How on earth are we going to fill six hours?" to "Oh my goodness, how are we going to get everything done?". David Grey did a sterling job of finding little bugs and glitches and the team did a sterling job of putting them right. We had some lovely customer/developer conversations, where the team tried to argue that a some of the behaviours were "features" not "bugs". If nothing else, this competition has certainly improved their debating skills.

Once we had got the software polished we moved on to the presentation. I don't think that the team thought they needed a rehearsal. Until they tried one. And then they kind of saw the light. There is a pretty good Mark Twain quote about the huge amount of time it takes to prepare a spontaneous talk and it applies in spades. We worked until we were fairly sure that we could work no more (always a good trick - otherwise you start to go backwards) and then we all went out for tea.

The food was interesting in a "you can see where all the bits came from" kind of way, but the parts that I dared to eat tasted very nice. In something of a recurring theme the aircon in the restaurant was turned off as well, which meant that by the end of the evening you could have made the coffee on our heads. The coolest part, if not in a temperature kind of way, was the fact that as we walked out on to the balcony we could hear Rolling Stones music. Being played by the Rolling Stones. They were giving a concert next door. I took a picture of the wall of the stadium and hoped that my imagination would do the rest. You wonder what motivates them to go out there and strut their stuff after all those years but if they enjoy it, and audience enjoys it (and it certainly sounded like that) then what the hey. And anyway I guess you can always use another private jet/villa in Gran Canaria etc.