SIGGRAPH 2010 approaches

You can see I’m finally on the Game Papers schedule in the Advanced Program. Looking forward to my presentation!

Biometrics and Physical Controllers

Wednesday, 28 July, 9-10:30 AM

Vibraudio Pose: An Investigation of Non-Visual Feedback Roles for Body-Controlled Video Games

This paper describes a user study of the optimum use of vibration and audio

feedback in video games where players use their entire bodies as input devices.

Emiko Charbonneau, Charles E. Hughes, Joseph J. Laviola, Jr.

Grace Hopper wrap up

I really need to learn how to update this more frequently.

As part of our Women in EECS club at UCF, I wrote up a couple of summaries from Grace Hopper. I figured I might as well post them here!

“The Value of Awards and How to Get Them”

This panel was run by several professionals with a lot of experience
working with technical interviews and most of the award process: Katy
Dickinson from Sun Microsystems, Florence Haseltine from the RAISE
Project, Chandra Krintz from University of California at Santa
Barbara), and Robert Walker from Kent State University. To start out
with, each person introduced themselves and what they were involved
in. Of particular note was the RAISE project
(http://raiseproject.org/index.php) which uses their website and
resources to help women increase recognition for their achievements.

One suggestion which was discussed at length is to consider applying
to be a Distinguished Engineer. What makes this title important is
that it is always applied in addition to your regular job title, and
it transfers with you if you happen to change jobs. Unlike an award
which is given within a company, becoming a Distinguished Engineer is
something that is recognized throughout the community. Near the end of
the discussion, the subject changed to why it was important to
recognize women through awards. The answer is simply that by having
women in these positions encourages more women to apply and have their
achievements recognized, creating a positive feedback cycle that
benefits the entire field.

“Girls, Computer Science, and Games AND From Computer Games to a Career in IT”

This section ended up being only one talk; the second one was
canceled. However Gail Carmichael from Carleton University did a more than adequate job giving her presentation and then filling the rest of the time with meaningful discussion. Carmichael ran a week-long minicourse on game development, specifically targetted at females. The average age was 13 years old. While focusing on the fun aspects of
video games, she also taught the girls basic Computer Science
principles. Because of their age, she used a variety of learning
techniques past the basic lecture in order engage their attention,
such as videos, group discussion and lab time to work on the games.

The conversation afterward was lively and intimate. The subject of
possible confidence issues among women was broached in several ways;
first, by an audience member who admitted to having trouble taking
charge of her all male tech team whom she felt outmatched her in
technical skills. Other members of the audience became involved and
shared their own experiences to make her more comfortable. Later, the
difficulty of getting girls to ask questions was addressed. While no
straightforward solution could be given, the general consensus was
that encouragement and girl-targetted programs like Carmichael’s
certainly help the situation.

Next update will most likely not be too long from now… I hope~

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SIGGRAPH impressions (thus far)

Here are some quick impressions regarding what I’ve experienced in the first two days of SIGGRAPH.

• GameJams seem pretty cool, if you have the stamina. One of the sessions on Monday morning, “From Indie Jams to Professional Pipelines,” had a nice overview of the Global Game Jam project. The idea is simple; you get a short amount of time and a set of constraints, then you are let loose with your team to get the job done. SIGGRAPH itself is holding a GameJam which I’m hoping to see. It’s not for me, at least not during the conference, but I can see how this format nurtures teamwork and quick decision making, two skills which can really help small development teams.
• Spore is amazing, and its creators give great talks. I’m thrilled that I was able to hear Will Wright speak in person during today’s keynote speech. He is one of my game design heroes and the talk lived up to my expectations. Aside from being entertaining, I agree with many of his points. But I won’t list them here because it was a long, dense talk that may be impossible to summarize. Monday’s Spore API talk was equally captivating.
• I need to go back to math class. Working in user interfaces for the last couple years has been incredibly satisfying, but I have forgotten how captivating real-time computer graphics research can be. Not that I have any grand ideas or anything, but it could help out in ways I don’t expect…
• Information Aesthetics seems relevant to my life. The exhibit on this had some new ideas that could be really helpful in research, but it also seems like the solution to the knowledge overload I’ve been feeling lately. Especially I can see this being useful for museum exhibits.

Now I’m going to go to the gym for half an hour and spend the next couple hours working on my talk for SIGGRAPH Sandbox tomorrow morning, during this session:

Kinesthetic Movement in Games I
WEDNESDAY, 5 AUGUST | 8:30 AM – 10:15 AM | AUDITORIUM A

I hope it goes well