Kainos AI Camp and Hackathon Birmingham 2019

As was the case last year, Kainos once again ran a two week AI Camp in Birmingham, taking place 9th – 21st September 2019, with around two dozen participants from across half a dozen Universities taking part. The AI Camp was again hosted at BCU Computing. One of the key highlights of the AI Camp occurred in the second week, that being the AWS Deep Racer (online) (online).

The camp was capped off with a Hackathon event at Kaino’s Office in Alpha Tower which required the participants to work in teams to develop and idea making use of AI, implement and present same to a panel of Judges with a number of prizes being awarded. The following tweets below should give you a good sense of what the event was like.

AI Camp 2019 Summary
Kainos AI Camp and Hackathon – Week 2 Summary (online)
Kainos AI Camp and Hackathon – Week 1 Summary (online)

AI Camp 2020 Registration
If you wish to participate in 2020 then you can register your interest (online).

That's a wrap in the Kainos AI Camp 2019. What an amazing evening with amazing projects presented, great achievement. Well done everyone! 🤓 #BhamAICamp2019 #Kainos @KainosSoftware @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/VxHmHG4E2Z

— misskayanne (@misskayanne) September 21, 2019

Was great to see all the demos and presentations @KainosAcademy #bhamaicamp2019 #hackathon today, looking forward to next year.

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 21, 2019

Team Intelligence representing women in technology 👏🏼 @KainosAcademy @KainosSoftware #bhamaicamp #kainos pic.twitter.com/fSzg27Y4t5

— misskayanne (@misskayanne) September 21, 2019

Presentations for AI Camp have began! 2 weeks of learning put to the test for our campers! 🤓 @KainosAcademy @KainosSoftware #Kainos #bhamAIcamp pic.twitter.com/1yDL3Lg13C

— misskayanne (@misskayanne) September 21, 2019

Prizes are waiting for their winners at #bhamaicamp2019 #Hackathon @KainosSoftware Including some subscriptions provided by @PacktPub ! pic.twitter.com/l6paKpZxRP

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 21, 2019

Have you cracked our code challenges yet? This one is all about #SQL. Write the right SQL queries below to get the requested data from our challenge database. How far can you get in 20 minutes? 🎮😆#KainosChallenge #KainosGradLifehttps://t.co/pMnzkodwgG pic.twitter.com/td9BcJkG3Y

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 20, 2019

After a week of learning #NLP techniques we have the winners for our second Kaggle #Competition on Amazon reviews sentiment analysis with 88% accuracy! Congratulations to @bunaciubianca, Sam Dowell, German Lopez! #bhamaicamp2019 #textclassification pic.twitter.com/lZy5iyz62a

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 20, 2019

Last recap session of the #bhamaicamp2019 before tomorrow's hackathon! Campers are also enjoying an interactive presentation skills workshop today. #presentations #hackathon #ML #AI pic.twitter.com/o2gelqsnE9

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 20, 2019

This summer, we masterminded some custom coding challenges. Designed for undergrads, play them now on our website! Crack the code, find the password, unzip the file, organise the puzzle – there's a challenge for everyone! Get cracking, coding and sharing! https://t.co/zG6vf62YGM pic.twitter.com/VXOuv9fBDu

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 20, 2019

Another great talk at #bhamaicamp2019 by @pedsm one of our @KainosSoftware software engineers about #AI and graph databases. Pedro also talked about his final year project on web crawling and knowledge graphs, sharing his lessons on the explore-exploit tradeoff! #Neo4j #NLP pic.twitter.com/lLhKFfCOmh

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 19, 2019

The AWS DeepRacer workshop took place yesterday at the #bhamaicamp2019 run by @M_Nevin and @awscloud. The campers had fun racing their cars driven by reinforcement learning! #ReinforcementLearning #MachineLearning pic.twitter.com/DpF07vikHL

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 19, 2019

Have you tried out our #CodeChallenges? Sharpen your wits before you go back to class with our #JavaScript #SQL and #Linux challenges! Play them today right here #KainosChallenge #KainosGradLife https://t.co/m7MguRKDXh pic.twitter.com/RpNC8TcWD4

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 18, 2019

Great event yesterday at #bhamaicamp2019 with the best time being the fastest time lap time the #AWSDeepRacer staff on site had seen in person! https://t.co/EVUtX51oxl

— Marc Nevin (@M_Nevin) September 19, 2019

Have you been following #AICamp #Birmingham this year, and want to be a part of it next year? Sign up for updates! 🔜 https://t.co/GbqkARiSXl pic.twitter.com/Gw2PEGfM92

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 18, 2019

Undergrads – we designed these code challenges just for you 😆! Use our Linux emulator to crack the code, grab the password and unzip the folder – how quickly can you complete the challenge? PLAY NOW 👩‍💻🕹️ #Bash #Linux #KainosChallenge https://t.co/39VT6gHT4p

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 18, 2019

Our first #bhamaicamp2019 car has made it around the track! pic.twitter.com/XG2G6HXNAv

— Marc Nevin (@M_Nevin) September 18, 2019

Quick update from @KainosAcademy #AI Camp here at @MyBCU … 👀‼️

This afternoon students will be racing AWS Deep Racer Cars around an 8 x 4 meter racetrack! 🚗💥

Visit Curzon C581 to see the race LIVE! Plus, if you like a challenge try this ➡️ https://t.co/NxQyWeC1YL 🧐 pic.twitter.com/uqsuc0R7E1

— BCU CEBE 💻🛠🏙️ (@bcucebe) September 18, 2019

Enjoyed this session with the #bhamaicamp2019 team https://t.co/BimlReGF1t

— Austin T (@AustinTanney) September 17, 2019

Data Scientist @PiersCampbell was at #bhamaicamp2019 yesterday talking about the award-winning work done by @KainosSoftware and DVSA improving the MOT test! #innovation #MachineLearning pic.twitter.com/2EbK4fwipy

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 17, 2019

One of yesterday's speakers was Dr. @AustinTanney Head of AI Engineering at @KainosSoftware talking about the hype behind AI, how AI greatly benefits the healthcare sector already and what the future may hold! #bhamaicamp2019 #healthcare #AI pic.twitter.com/NTxdarVElB

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 17, 2019

We have our winners for the first Kaggle competition! @bunaciubianca and @samchatfield97 classified images to one of eight different classes with >95% accuracy. Well done! #bhamaicamp2019 #Competition pic.twitter.com/PgC5iXagUb

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 16, 2019

Second week of the #bhamaicamp2019 starts with a recap quiz! pic.twitter.com/kyPCSnvoXn

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 16, 2019

Ending the week with an AWS Sage Maker workshop delivered by @ChloeMcAteer3 and @ScottKelso07, this year's Belfast AI Camp mentors! The campers also started a Kaggle competition with great prizes on offer! #bhamaicamp2019 #kaggle #AI #AWS pic.twitter.com/DqvrViTntQ

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 13, 2019

Today we had a special guest @KariLawler giving a talk & workshop about media perception and data ethics in AI, which is on a lot of people's minds nowadays. Looking forward to having Kari as a judge at our hackathon! #ethics #data #media #Hackathon #bhamaicamp2019 pic.twitter.com/kie3LbAXIn

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 13, 2019

Had a great morning guest speaking on the subjects of #AI Perception & #DataEthics to the students attending this year's @KainosAcademy #BhamAICamp2019 at @MyBCU. Can't wait now till Saturday's #Hackathon to judge the AI projects the teams come up with!🤓 @Youth4AI #Youth4AI pic.twitter.com/cEMK2lBXZ3

— Kari (car-ee) (@KariLawler) September 13, 2019

Yesterday we had @dolhasz sharing some tips and tricks to the #bhamaicamp2019 campers about how to get started with a career in deep learning! #DeepLearning pic.twitter.com/y41qUyO9Vn

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 13, 2019

During today's practicals we learned more about image classification and even covered Style Transfer! Lots of interesting results from our campers #BhamAICamp2019 #StyleTransfer #MachineLearning pic.twitter.com/SSOzX41Ear

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 12, 2019

CNN intro task – our picture of peppa pig… I honestly cannot tell the difference #bhamaicamp2019 pic.twitter.com/6qULtDJGHN

— JMillar (@Jayjay8722) September 11, 2019

It's drawing time! Who knew Peppa Pig would help us understand how Convolutional Neural Networks work? #BhamAICamp2019 #peppapig #CNN pic.twitter.com/D9JiqHFoas

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 12, 2019

It was a hugely enjoyable day. Nothing like enthusiastic and enquiring young minds to keep you on your toes.The questions were insightful and equally interested in the technology and the social impact of technology. Exactly the type of questions we should all be asking about Tech

— Tom Gray (@thomas_d_gray) September 11, 2019

We're excited to have @thomas_d_gray talk about his roles as the Kainos CTO and Innovation Leader, touching on insightful topics like the impact of AI on software development and different industries! #innovation #BhamAICamp2019 pic.twitter.com/lLLdjSA1Vg

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 11, 2019

Starting the third day of Birmingham AI Camp with Neural Networks. Dom is keeping everybody on their toes with the Fashion MNIST exercise.#BhamAICamp2019 #NeuralNetworks pic.twitter.com/SsxTyXVmsR

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 11, 2019

Our amazing Bham office Lead @tonyamcmorrow offered a Kainos overview to our campers today! Oneeb and Sadiq also talked about Data and how it can be biased, as well as the different roles available within the Data and Analytics capabilities! #bhamaicamp2019 #data #AI pic.twitter.com/fsFKE46Fov

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 10, 2019

Sadiq sharing an overview of roles within the Data and Analytics capability with in @KainosSoftware at #BhamAICamp @KainosAcademy #kainos pic.twitter.com/1hmognQzTf

— misskayanne (@misskayanne) September 10, 2019

Oneeb talking about Bias in data for AI at #BhamAICamp @KainosAcademy @KainosSoftware #Kainos pic.twitter.com/Wle96krEH0

— misskayanne (@misskayanne) September 10, 2019

@tonyamcmorrow doing her thing and introducing @KainosSoftware at AI Camp in Birmingham @KainosAcademy #Kainos #BhamAICamp pic.twitter.com/B764Jwac6f

— misskayanne (@misskayanne) September 10, 2019

First recap of the previous day in Birmingham AI Camp and we are delighted to see the campers are really engaged with the course!#bhamaicamp2019 #Recap #MachineLearning #AI pic.twitter.com/Pz5Y8biuhB

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 10, 2019

What a great way to spend my birthday!🎁🎉 Learning about AI and machine learning at #bhamaicamp2019 💻 followed by my favourite large falafel meal 😋then chill with family! 😊

Can't wait to learn more over the next two weeks @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/laekZi8yR9

— Chloë Allen-Ede (@EdeChloe) September 9, 2019

First day of the Birmingham AI Camp is now over having covered an introduction to Artificial Intelligence, icebreakers, python challenges and the very first practical machine learning exercise about linear regression! #bhamaicamp2019 #AI #Python #MachineLearning pic.twitter.com/HTCQuxK6ch

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 9, 2019

Icebreakers! #bhamaicamp2019 pic.twitter.com/9ftXcbZZE9

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 9, 2019

Icebreakers! #bhamaicamp2019 pic.twitter.com/9sUhUaTdF7

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 9, 2019

Birmingham AI Camp has officially begun! #bhamaicamp #kainos pic.twitter.com/ydfhFMfqdW

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 9, 2019

Looking forward to @KainosAcademy two week #AICampBirmingham starting 9th Sept, taking place @BCUComputing @bcucebe @MyBCU https://t.co/A2WgTJV8Fy

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 3, 2019

#AICampBirmingham kicks off next week! Make sure you're following us to get all the updates after what was an amazing edition in Belfast. pic.twitter.com/rAkR6wrApI

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 3, 2019

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Kainos AI Camp and Hackathon – Week 2 Summary

This post gives some idea of what the final week of the Kainos AI Camp and Hackathon was like. The start of the second week commenced on Monday morning by reviewing what was explored the following week. A number of people from Kainos also attended in order to capture some interviews and video of the AI Camp in action. Around the middle of the week Kainos’ CTO Tom Gray (online) visited to give a talk about the company followed up by a Q&A session. During the final two days of the week two further tutors took part to explore the world of computer vision.

A day long Hackathon took place on Saturday 15th with teams consisting of two to three people developing some really excellent and interesting ideas. The hackathon concluded with all teams presenting their work to a panel of Judges, with some really great and fun prizes available to the winning teams along with a number of individual prizes as well. The previous day – Friday 14th Sept, the participants spent much of the day thinking of the ideas for the hackathon, getting into teams, and exploring the possible data sets they could use. It was really great to see the amount of in-depth detailed discussion and enthusiasm that electrified the room with creativity. A huge shout out to all the tutors must be given particularly to Chloe (online) and Jake (online) who ran most of the two week event.

The tweets below should help to give you a good sense of what Week 02 was like along with the capstone Hackathon event.

Summary of Week 01 (online).

Social Media Feeds
Kainos (online)
Kainos Academy (online)
Kainos CTO – Tom Gray (online)
AI Camp Tutor – Chloe Thompson (online)
AI Camp Tutor – Jake Young (online)
AI Camp Tutor – Mary-Jane (online)
AI Camp Tutor – Liam Ferris (online)
AI Camp Co-ordination – Don Le (online)
Guest Speaker (Convolution Neural Networks) – Alan Dolhasz (online)
Guest Speaker (AI & the Media) – Kari Lawler (online), Youth4AI (online)
BCU Computing (online)
AI Camp Hashtag (online)

AI Camp Week 02 in Tweets
The following embedded tweets below should give you some sense of what the second week of the AI Camp was like along with the final Hackathon event that took places at Kainos’ Offices located at Alpha Tower (online), Birmingham.

The four weeks of the #AICamp 2018 have come to an end. 37 amazing students, 2 cities and 2 full day Hackathons 👩🏼‍💻 think it’s time to go home. pic.twitter.com/ND6sGv5V9S

— Chloe Thompson (@Chloe__Thomp) September 16, 2018

Had an amazing time with amazing people at #AICamp pic.twitter.com/Usy8zY9n4D

— Harry Levick (@H_lev1) September 16, 2018

A couple of interesting @kaggle links

Machine learning free course: https://t.co/mJOWYeNTho

Machine Learning for Insights Challengehttps://t.co/81O8KFQec4

— Juliano Saunders (@akaJSaunders) September 16, 2018

Well done B(iased)S(ource)Busters, who came in second place with their app to detect bias in articles! 📰 #Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/86GNQY6AlF

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 16, 2018

Congratulations to Coeus, the winners of the #Birmingham #AICamp! 🏆Thanks to @PacktPub for sponsoring and providing the winners with access to their huge collection of ebooks for a full year! #packt #ebook pic.twitter.com/CgQagTB2Hh

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 16, 2018

I am so happy to participate at #AICamp #Birmingham as a #judge , many thanks @dcdoolan for the invitation. https://t.co/kkQVRIzhT5

— Adel Aneiba (@AAneiba) September 16, 2018

Can you guess which of these paintings was not made by a human? https://t.co/89iA6mI0CB

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

Was great participating in the #AICamp by @KainosAcademy @KainosSoftware . Would like to thank @Chloe__Thomp and @JakeYoung2410 for their amazing work teaching us. Also some trully brilliant people with amazing projects.

— Juliano Saunders (@akaJSaunders) September 15, 2018

Omg its me ❤ https://t.co/HYYDSxDZJI

— Juliano Saunders (@akaJSaunders) September 15, 2018

A huge thanks to @JakeGameDev and @AAneiba for being on the judging panel of the @KainosAcademy #AICamp Hackathon Capstone event.

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 15, 2018

A really great ending to the @KainosAcademy #AICamp #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/xDRi2VKclW

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 15, 2018

Finally, we have Litter-alley! They have developed a way to predict how much rubbish we will produce in the UK! #Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/AbBt2Yw1eh

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

Prizes, Prizes, Prizes @KainosAcademy #AICamp #Birmingham Hackathon pic.twitter.com/M683tdTFUX

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 15, 2018

Fraud AI have built a way to detect fraudulent money transactions! 💷 #Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/cyCpxIOdrO

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

#SpheroBB8 by @Sphero for all on one of the winning teams #AICamp #Birmingham @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/Ez7htxvHsS

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 15, 2018

Prizes at the @KainosAcademy #AICamp #Hackathon #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/xGYaLzItaG

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 15, 2018

More prizes @KainosAcademy #AICamp #Birmingham Hackathon pic.twitter.com/BvWPLdCpHs

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

End of #AICamp Hackathon Presentations @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/tXJ3dcxDiz

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

Lots of team Presentations @KainosAcademy #AICamp Hackathon #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/nuYCmNcxvs

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

Some discussions about #Kainos @KainosAcademy #AICamp #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/f3NidzfuFK

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

B(iased)S(ource)Busters are up now at #AICamp! A tool that you can use to detect bias in any article that you can read! 📰 #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/4MUrnUD9nc

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

Now we have Themis! A service for both the public and police to help make cities safer from crime! 👮 #Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/of3nWTyNEF

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

Coeus is third at #Birmingham #AICamp! An app that can convert your handwritten math equations with the goal of digitizing old research papers! pic.twitter.com/vG21VSO7iG

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

Next up is AI Doctor! A chatbot which can tell if you have diabetes, cervical cancer or lung cancer based on your symptoms! #Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/bH1EuhX1Nz

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

Great views from @KainosAcademy #AICamp Hackathon at Alpha Tower #Birmingham of @ParadiseBham pic.twitter.com/okFtix9eH7

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

Great to see #BobaFett @KainosAcademy #AICamp Hackathon pic.twitter.com/1Vq9hZfrDU

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

Great to see The Force was strong @KainosAcademy #AICamp Hackathon #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/QDqyNTWq0E

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

The Lights are on, lots of coding taking place at Alpha Tower #Birmingham @KainosAcademy #AICamp Hackathon pic.twitter.com/EY5nz8RheF

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 16, 2018

Presentations are under way at #Birmingham #AICamp! The first team is up talking about Fly By, a way to predict accurate flight times and delays! ✈ pic.twitter.com/InvkdRLa1K

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

Here at #AICamp for the final day’s hackathon. Chilling in the awesome new @KainosSoftware Birmingham office 😎 pic.twitter.com/uOcokGJTDp

— Liam Ferris (@liamkferris) September 15, 2018

Hackathon planning going well at #AICamp in our new #Birmingham office 💻 pic.twitter.com/IWNYToiwwE

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 15, 2018

MIT taught a neural network how to show its work https://t.co/ajDMeh6cab

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 13, 2018

Awesome day running computer vision workshop 💻😎 with @a_crafty_coder at #AICamp #Birmingham @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/wajVuZFc6M

— Liam Ferris (@liamkferris) September 13, 2018

The lady from first class and the boy from the working class. She survived, I didn't 😥😥
Week 2, Day 3 at #AICamp with @KainosAcademy creating a #Chatbot that can predict if you'd survive the Titanic pic.twitter.com/pGnKIdCa7f

— Modest – Constantin (@ModestLungociu) September 13, 2018

@a_crafty_coder and @liamkferris are in taking the #Birmingham campers through their RCNN and chatbot workshop! #AICamp pic.twitter.com/8SyTSqD55K

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 13, 2018

At Birmingham @kainos #AICamp18 today with @liamkferris teaching the students Computer Vision with hotdogs and notdogs 🌭 pic.twitter.com/t5if1WN7vw

— Mary-Jane (@a_crafty_coder) September 13, 2018

BBC News – How artificial intelligence can edit your pictures https://t.co/BpKcvW5yJ5

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 12, 2018

After hours at #AICamp waiting for the #Apple Keynote with take out 👩🏼‍💻 pic.twitter.com/YE9f0BK1PM

— Chloe Thompson (@Chloe__Thomp) September 12, 2018

A machine learning algorithm is picking up fast radio bursts from a distant galaxy that researchers might have missed. https://t.co/mC3ky48odm

— Astronomy Magazine (@AstronomyMag) September 11, 2018

Really enjoyed speaking with the AICamp group today in Birmingham – super questions, folks. My thanks to Birmingham City University for the support. @KainosSoftware @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/3KsdnwNJvD

— Tom Gray (@thomas_d_gray) September 11, 2018

Me: What do I want!?
Computer: Natural language processing!
Me: When do I want it!?
Computer: When do you want what?#funtimes. Week 2, Day 2 at #AICamp with @KainosAcademy learning about NLP, JS and Chatbots @KainosSoftware @BCUComputing pic.twitter.com/7D1hIHmRoV

— Modest – Constantin (@ModestLungociu) September 11, 2018

Thinking of making a career move? Find out what we have to offer: #Top100Companies #SundayTimesBestLists pic.twitter.com/nK1vd2jakQ

— Kainos (@KainosSoftware) September 11, 2018

Lt Cmd Data "I believe Commander Shelby erred… there are no known avifaunal or crawling vermicular lifeforms on Jouret Four." > "to err is human" – What of an AI #AICamp #Birmingham #KainosAcademy

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 10, 2018

“Self-driving cars using Deep Learning” https://t.co/HHTEFFTu7P

— Mohamed Medhat Gaber (@mmmgaber) September 10, 2018

Congrats to Team Bullinaria today for winning the #Birmingham #AICamp kaggle competition! 👏 pic.twitter.com/JBQgYLnTXi

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 10, 2018

Week 2 of #AICamp2018. Learning about image processing 🤓👨‍💻@KainosSoftware @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/vF9TzgVfxH

— Modest – Constantin (@ModestLungociu) September 10, 2018

And let’s not only ask what AI can do for human rights, but what human rights can do for AI. #AiEthics #AI #humanrights #ArtificialInteligence https://t.co/TDahmLJRnz

— Prof. Barry O'Sullivan, MRIA (@BarryOSullivan) September 10, 2018

This is AI – Documentary – Discovery Channel 19:30 to 21:00 Sun 9th Sept, or watch online at https://t.co/sYrsPKPLts Take a look #AICamp #Birmingham @KainosAcademy @BCUComputing

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 9, 2018

Created an account on https://t.co/crE62816pE, really sweet way to visualize your model's hyperparameters, epochs, and so on. Should make life much easier 😀

— Juliano Saunders (@akaJSaunders) September 9, 2018

After trying to increase the validation accuracy of my neural net for the past 2 hours, I have finally managed to get a 1% increase. Time to crack open a cold one #AICamp @KainosAcademy

— Juliano Saunders (@akaJSaunders) September 9, 2018

Kainos AI Camp and Hackathon – Week 1 Summary

Over the first two weeks of September 2018 Kainos has been running a AI Camp and Hackathon event (online) hosted at BCU Computing. The AI Camp schedule runs from 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday over the two week period, with a final Hackathon taking place on Saturday 15th Sept at Kainos’ office located in Alpha Tower, Birmingham. Around twenty of those who signed up were selected to participate in the AI Camp and Hackathon. The group consisting mainly of Computer Science / Computer Science and AI undergrad students along with some from Physics as well, spans a number of university institutions across central England.

Just prior to this event another had been held in Belfast during the last two weeks of August with the final Hackathon taking place on Saturday 1st September. That left the tutors running the AI camp with just the Sunday to get packed and fly to Birmingham to get going again first thing on Monday morning with the second instance of the camp.

Social Media Feeds
Kainos (online)
Kainos Academy (online)
AI Camp Tutor – Chloe Thompson (online)
AI Camp Tutor – Jake Young (online)
AI Camp Co-ordination – Don Le (online)
Guest Speaker (Convolution Neural Networks) – Alan Dolhasz (online)
Guest Speaker (AI & the Media) – Kari Lawler (online), Youth4AI (online)
BCU Computing (online)
AI Camp Hashtag (online)

AI Camp Week 01 in Tweets
The following embedded tweets below should give you some sense of what the first week of the AI Camp was like.

Thx 4 the invite @KainosAcademy! Really enjoyed being a #GuestSpeaker today at @MyBCU & talking about my experience on how #AI can b perceived 2 the @BCUComputing students currently undertaking the @KainosSoftware #AICamp! Can't wait 2 come back next week 2 judge the #Hackathon! https://t.co/G8cjNSTuOq

— Kari Lawler 人工智能 (@KariLawler) September 7, 2018

That's a wrap on week 1 at Birmingham AICamp💻! Find out more and register your interest for next year here: https://t.co/FY7vF8JOoh pic.twitter.com/cGyxiPk8yH

— Kainos (@KainosSoftware) September 7, 2018

@KariLawler was in talking about her story with AI! Very interesting! Keep an eye out for her introducing young people into the world of AI through @Youth4AI 🤖#Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/q7dwIh5ab6

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 7, 2018

LIVE with @KariLawler discussing the media perception of #AI @KainosSoftware @BCUComputing #AICamp pic.twitter.com/l7HpKZQcG7

— BCU CEBE 💻🛠🏙️ (@bcucebe) September 7, 2018

@KariLawler Giving a Talk during the Two Week @KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp hosted @BCUComputing pic.twitter.com/N2EcMVQnp0

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 7, 2018

Audience taking in the world of Convolution Neural Networks (CNN's) @KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp – DMT Research Lab Talk @BCUComputing pic.twitter.com/iZbXNAZCe6

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 7, 2018

Talk from the DMT Research lab @BCUComputing part of the @KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/fypD0lcXwB

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 7, 2018

Working hard at #AICamp @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/2HIUiAnEBC

— Invigorant (@Invigorant) September 7, 2018

We're looking forward to 15-year-old digital tech #entrepreneur @KariLawler's talk @KainosSoftware #AICamp at 1.30pm today! Kari won the UK Space SatelLife Challenge 2018 & we can't wait to hear more about her work🛰️ https://t.co/lOS8SRl9WK #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/kCaMkwnplk

— BCU CEBE 💻🛠🏙️ (@bcucebe) September 7, 2018

Great talk on CNN’s and Image processing by @BCUComputing PhD student @dolhasz 📷🌸 #AICamp #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/1gMyPnYa4F

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 7, 2018

Sentiment analysis on Twitter… literally 🙂 #AICamp day 4 @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/SSTpRu5T9X

— Modest – Constantin (@ModestLungociu) September 6, 2018

Our #Birmingham office is going from strength to strength! Read all about it from Digital Services director @russellsloan and remember, we're hiring! #careers #ITjobs https://t.co/029SoOkitQ pic.twitter.com/ZHD7rpnftn

— Kainos (@KainosSoftware) September 6, 2018

Everyone is hard at work classifying TED video descriptions into different categories! 🎥 #Birmingham #AICamp pic.twitter.com/LhJuAQzYxJ

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 6, 2018

Reducing the loss and improving the accuracy of the classification between cat images and dog images #AICamp @KainosAcademy pic.twitter.com/YFwMQLcdfG

— Modest – Constantin (@ModestLungociu) September 5, 2018

@KainosAcademy #AICamp @BCUComputing Take a look at: Future of work: How to upskill and get a job in AI https://t.co/UgY852qmSZ

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

@KainosAcademy #AICamp @BCUComputing Take a look at: How will AI change the workplace of the future? https://t.co/qjYTgNq1y7

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

@KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp hosted @BCUComputing Just in case you want to watch it again or missed it – BBC4 – The Joy of AI is on again Thurs 06/09/18 BBC4 03:00 – https://t.co/oQoVROwJiE

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

@KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp hosted @BCUComputing Lots more #AI tomorrow – Wed 05/09/18 BBC4 21:00 – Made by Machine: When AI Met the Archive https://t.co/PmGUOuSC0U

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

@KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp hosted @BCUComputing More to see on #AI – Wed 05/09/18 BBC4 01:00 – Towards Tomorrow: Robot https://t.co/TbYMgaxHSR

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

@KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp hosted @BCUComputing More to see on #AI in less than an hour – Wed 05/09/18 BBC4 00:00 – Hyper Evolution: Rise of the Robots https://t.co/DiCtgq4Vhi

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

@KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp hosted @BCUComputing More to see on #AI right now – Tue 04/09/18 BBC4 23:00 – Horizon Dawn of the Driverless Car https://t.co/OJGoqpxMBr

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

Watching the A.I. documentary on BBC Four @KainosAcademy #AICamp pic.twitter.com/HNN19XgJD7

— Modest – Constantin (@ModestLungociu) September 4, 2018

Day 1 recap of #Birmingham #AICamp! We have already learned a lot and it has barely begun! pic.twitter.com/ZlqJh1tUNK

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 4, 2018

@KainosAcademy #AICamp Check this out: Talk Shop: Driverless Cars, STEAMhouse 5th Sept 18:00 to 20:00  https://t.co/WgP8IdosKp

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 4, 2018

Couldn't have timed it better @KainosAcademy #Birmingham #AICamp hosted @BCUComputing – Tue 04/09/18 BBC4 at22:00 – The Horizon Guide to AI https://t.co/P7Cn6ZuJM7

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) September 3, 2018

Good🍀luck 2 all attending the @KainosAcademy 🤖#AICamp🧠 at @MyBCU #Birmingham over the next 2 weeks! Really looking forward 2 being a #GuestSpeaker🗣️ & being part of the judging🏆 panel for the final #AI #Hackathon. Can't wait 2 see what #ML/#DL awesomeness the teams make!👍 pic.twitter.com/v2DYfCTUOL

— Kari Lawler 人工智能 (@KariLawler) September 3, 2018

Great being part of this. Awesome people, and lots to learn! https://t.co/lhETpUL7Rs

— Juliano Saunders (@akaJSaunders) September 4, 2018

Big welcome to our Birmingham A.​I.​Camp students! Find out more about our completely free and unique two-week artificial intelligence camp here, and register your interest for next year: https://t.co/pzHG5ryolB pic.twitter.com/NwKNILYpLm

— Kainos (@KainosSoftware) September 3, 2018

Birmingham’s first Artificial Intelligence camp starts today! The camp will be held here at BCU for 10 days. Students will have the opportunity to learn the theory behind #AI and machine learning https://t.co/A3s2TjKeCe 🖥️ pic.twitter.com/TuuznNxb3u

— BCU CEBE 💻🛠🏙️ (@bcucebe) September 3, 2018

Reading about A.​I.​Camp #Birmingham kicking off today, and interested in what it's all about 💻? Read the blog post here https://t.co/ZESTmcWcqZ pic.twitter.com/FKwoAV3VIh

— Kainos (@KainosSoftware) September 3, 2018

Counting down to 10am when #AICamp in #Birmingham kicks off 💻 we’re in early getting set up for a great two weeks of AI and Machine Learning pic.twitter.com/fUWtsqSXLt

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) September 3, 2018

#AICamp team flying out ready to take on Birmingham ✈️ @JakeYoung2410 pic.twitter.com/0QvAFThFkM

— Chloe Thompson (@Chloe__Thomp) September 2, 2018

Enjoying the updates on #AICamp and want to know where it all began? Find out here! https://t.co/lVfviYix6j pic.twitter.com/gFXpk5idVa

— Kainos Academy (@KainosAcademy) August 23, 2018

University incoming Class Photos – (Examples in Video), an engaging Start?

It seems that quite a number of Universities start off the academic year by organising a class photo for all the new incoming students. A number of such examples can be seen in the videos below.

As can be seen in the video directly below, such group photographs aren’t just limited to the University arena but also spans across the Universe, in particular with this example of the 10 year anniversary group photo of the Marvel Universe.

Marvel Universe 10 year Class Photo

1. Is this a good method of building a sense of community, pride and belonging right from the very start of the University experience?

2. Do many other Universities create incoming class photos?

3. Is it nice to receive a hardcopy print of the photo, or is it better & more environmentally friendly for it to be available online through the likes of Facebook so participants can be tagged, given we are nearing the end of the second decade of the 21st century?

4. Have you seen any institutions outside of the US taking on this form of welcome activity?

5. Have you seen any other interesting forms of welcome activity that generates a sense of community and excitement?

6. What is the smallest & largest gathering you have seen for a University class group photo, 3000, 5000, more?

7. Are such incoming class photos generally taken at the University level for all incoming students, or have you seen any that are at College/Faculty or School/Department level?

8. What was the most fun / interesting incoming class group photo you’ve seen?

Butler University – Class of 2021

Butler University – Class of 2020

Butler University – Class of 2019

Butler University – Class of 2018

Butler University – Class of 2017

University of Chicago – Class of 2019

University of Chicago – Class of 2018

University of Chicago – Class of 2016

University of Connecticut– Class of 2016

Cornell – Class of 2016

Duke University – Class of 2020

Duke University – Class of 2019

Duke University – Class of 2018

Duke University – Class of 2016 (Over 40 minutes duration)

Duke University – Class of 2013

Emory University – Class of 2021

Emory University – Class of 2016

Emory University – Class of 2014 (First ever class photo)

University of Iowa – Class of 2019

University of Iowa – Class of 2015

University of Massachusetts – Class of 2020

Michigan Technological University – Class of 2013

Michigan Technological University – Class of 2012

University of Minnesota – Class of 2020

MSOE – Class of 2018

University of North Texas – Class of 2019

Northwestern University – Class of 2021

Northwestern University – Class of 2020

Northwestern University – Class of 2018

University of Pennsylvania – Class of 2016

University of Pittsburgh – Class of 2021

University of Pittsburgh – Class of 2020

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) – Class of 2018

University of Southern Indiana – Class of 2018

SMU – Class of 2021

SMU – Class of 2020

SMU – Class of 2016

SMU – Class of 2015

University of Texas at Austin – Class of 2021

University of Texas at Austin – Class of 2020

University of Texas at Austin – Class of 2019

University of Texas at Austin – Class of 2018

University of Texas at Austin – Class of 2017

Wesleyan University – Class of 2018

West Point – Class of 2012

BCU Global Game Jam 2018 – Tweet Summary

The 2018 Global Game Jam event took place over the weekend of Friday 26th Jan to Sun 28th Jan. In the case of BCU registrations commenced around 17:00 on the 25th, with the opening ceremony starting at 18:00. The theme for the 2018 event was “Transmission” the previous year was “Waves”.

The event started to finish up around 13:00 on Sunday 28th Jan with the teams uploading their games (online). At 14:00 presentations kicked off, with a number of companies and organisers present to judge and give prizes. The Vice Chancellor also attended for most of this final presentation session along with half a dozen academics from the School of Computing and Digital Technology. After the handing out of a number of prizes, one being to visit Fish in a Bottle (online), the two day event wrapped up around 15:30.

In all over 70 people took part, from universities across the country along with a number of graduates out in industry as well.

The following tweets below, may give you some idea of what the event was like. One can also see a collection of tweets from last years event (online).

10 years of GGJ. An amazing weekend #GGJ18 with such high quality work from everyone. Thanks to Professor Plowden for supporting us too it was such an honour to show off our studens talent both @myBCU and the region.

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 28, 2018

Professor Philip Plowden our VC opening the closing ceremony of @MyBCU #GGJ18. pic.twitter.com/jBCylYLHjK

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 28, 2018

Tic Toc last couple of hours of @MyBCU #GGJ18. Then the pitches begin. pic.twitter.com/SUDVWglieX

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 28, 2018

Last day of @myBCU #ggj18. Only a few hours left until we see all those games. Hope all our jammers enjoyed the weekend. The Cocao nibs not so much. 😋😋

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 28, 2018

Back again and fully rested for the final stretch #GGJ18 pic.twitter.com/2nl10Sh3zN

— Dan H (@OnlyDanH) January 28, 2018

The formula of success for a productive gamejam #GGJ18 @BCUGAMESTECH pic.twitter.com/AYBHlLSxtV

— Dan H (@OnlyDanH) January 27, 2018

The fuel of @myBCU #GGJ18 #GameDev champions. https://t.co/f7eQnj0EH6

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 27, 2018

We take health and safety seriously here @myBCU #GGJ18 pic.twitter.com/J2qVtJ6h50

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 27, 2018

Don't forget to take a break away from the screen #GGJ18 pic.twitter.com/z6hYGK83Wa

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 27, 2018

Over 36,000 jammers registered so far for #ggj18! Make sure you are properly signed up to your site so that you are counted too! https://t.co/Fas5999B4o

— GlobalGameJam (@globalgamejam) January 27, 2018

Well it's good to see the #GGJ18 gorilla is still hard at work in @NDewell and @SpilledCakeMix 's team. pic.twitter.com/xNSQHXg9j9

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 27, 2018

Good morning from @myBCU #GGJ18. So the theme is Transmission. We look forward to seeing all those great games over the coming days.

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 27, 2018

Drumroll please… the theme for #GGJ18 is TRANSMISSION! https://t.co/9L9RWsa7Eu

— GlobalGameJam (@globalgamejam) January 27, 2018

@bcucebe #GGJ18 stress balls. Not being used just yet. pic.twitter.com/kiBqO7dTjV

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 26, 2018

@lee_stott pizza very popular tonight at computing events. #GGJ18. pic.twitter.com/r6Hs75wf2r

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 26, 2018

@bcucebe room 2 busy too. #GGJ18 pic.twitter.com/tJ9lbwnF9p

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 26, 2018

@myBCU #GGJ18 #BCUGGJ18 kicking off pic.twitter.com/t44TFb6GtX

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 26, 2018

We're off to get the edible seaweed. Another @myBCU #GGJ18 tradition. Just over 3 hours until registration.

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 26, 2018

12 hours to #GGJ18 pizza. Jammers getting excited yet?

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 26, 2018

100 #GGJ18 jammer next weekend @myBCU. Wonder how many pizza's we'll need? #AnnualPizzaProblem.

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 21, 2018

I also made a further post during the weekend of the Game Jam – highlighting a good few tweets that depict the use of Tents at these events and Hackathons in general (online). Some large hackathon events have been in tents that would have taken days to construct. Some teams bring tents with them and have in-tent coding going on during the event, while others take more a campfire approach. In the case of one hackathon held in a sports hall, a large portion of same was taken over with tents.

Bring your Tent: Global Game Jam & Hackathon Examples

Over the past couple of years one can see that Tents have been deployed during Game Jam and Hackathon events. You can see in the tweet directly below that a whole section of a sports hall was taken over with tents during the 2017 Global Game Jam.

Bilgoritma Topluluğu ve TEKNOKENT olarak düzenlediğimiz Malatya GGJ 2017 (Global Game Jam) den kareler

48 saat buradayız

Herkesi bekleriz pic.twitter.com/Hgcget8Rbb

— Adnan Fatih KOCAMAZ (@A_Fatih_Kocamaz) January 20, 2017

Another tweet from Global Game Jam 2017 shows a tent and “campfire” in operation. The theme for the 2017 event was “Waves”.

All the jammers present & working hard around our jam campfire.
#GGJ17 #GGJ2017 @Milieux_news @Concordia #indiedev #cute pic.twitter.com/esd9afDtja

— TAG Lab (@TAG_News) January 21, 2017

Is our indoors jam camp going viral? Well, here is another photo! ❤@Milieux_news #GGJ2017 #ggj17 #montreal #indiedev pic.twitter.com/Cn5vKWrr2D

— TAG Lab (@TAG_News) January 21, 2017

Looks like one group are undertaking “Tent Projection Mapping” for the 2018 Global Game Jam, therein incorporating the camping experience into their game idea. The theme for the 2018 event was “Transmission”.

It works! We have a projected tent! Now just to make some art, and code, and sound, and get our controllers working, and… wow, maybe that just was premature! #AGLJam18 #GGJ18 pic.twitter.com/gkTozS2lfJ

— Lynn Parker (@toadrick) January 27, 2018

We’ve got projectors (of course), sheets, balance boards, a design doc and a cuppa! Time to make In Tents ⛺️ happen at #AGLJam18 #GGJ18 pic.twitter.com/po8OY14XiO

— Lynn Parker (@toadrick) January 27, 2018

Drumroll please… the theme for #GGJ18 is TRANSMISSION! https://t.co/9L9RWsa7Eu

— GlobalGameJam (@globalgamejam) January 27, 2018

Looks like a “Fort” was constructed for the events below.

Our cozy #GAMERella blanket fort made by the official TAG blanket fort engineer, @jekagames pic.twitter.com/troyvoYYEi

— TAG Lab (@TAG_News) November 4, 2017

How do you get some sleep at a hackathon? Build a tent! #UseDigitalForGood #hackingsleep #innovation pic.twitter.com/We29ZfNBtu

— Gift the Code (@GiftTheCode) November 5, 2017

Here we have an entire team doing some in-tent game development.

Tent Game Jam @PLAYfest_hh: looking forward to playing the finished game 🙂 pic.twitter.com/dJDapXt4pL

— Eric Jannot (@_fnord_prefect_) November 4, 2016

This event from Sydney suggests brining your own tent to the Hackathon

Register as a team or individual and bring your tent to make the most of the #Hackathon experience. #HackTheStack https://t.co/PJ6f2d3yHz

— OpenStack Australia (@OpenStackAU) October 12, 2017

These Hackathon events from 2017 takes the idea of a Tent to a whole other scale.

Let's head into the mouth of the "Codezilla" tent to get a glimpse of the largest private hackathon on the planet. #MicrosoftLife pic.twitter.com/MxjlshALqn

— Microsoft Life (@MicrosoftJobs) July 26, 2017

Best themed tent ever. 🦑 #Hackathon #Hacken #ReleaseTheHacken #MicrosoftLife #OneWeek pic.twitter.com/p1J0t0X7vt

— Ilse (@ThisIsIlse) July 26, 2017

Here’s one from 2016 with a major Hackathon Tent under construction.

This is the hackathon tent under construction outside my office. We don't mess around when it comes to hackin!!! pic.twitter.com/5scfazsqrD

— Jenny Lay-Flurrie (@jennylayfluffy) June 29, 2016

Here is the “Peach Pod” Tent from a 2016 Hackathon event.

Update: Hackathon tent has a name: "The Peach Pod". A friendly competitor just offered them #fuzzypeaches. @rbc pic.twitter.com/iSg9ekk9bN

— Christine Silva (@ChristineS416) June 4, 2016

First tent as a production studio I've ever seen at a hackathon, creativity unleashed at @RBC! pic.twitter.com/AjnaZrEzGh

— Christine Silva (@ChristineS416) June 4, 2016

In Tent coding from 2016.

do you even tent? #engagenamely @namelyhr #hackathon @Robertoross pic.twitter.com/LEW3L0nndm

— Teresa Dietrich (@teresadg) April 28, 2016

Looks like this 2015 Hackathon is at quite some scale, with quite a significant entrance way in place.

RT Lining up at the "New Hack City" tent … #microsoft #oneweek #hackathon by cocoageek pic.twitter.com/zyyg978cvb

— GameKnucklesTV (@GameKnucklesTV) July 27, 2015

A Microsoft Hackathon from 2015.

Love the tent for Microsoft's huge Hackathon next week 🙂 #oneweek #mobile #ai #wearables pic.twitter.com/6JQnUuWcCh

— Carlos Bohorquez (@ca_boh) July 23, 2015

A tent in place for a 2014 Hackathon Event

That’s intense! MT @DubHacks: The first tent has been pitched at DubHacks, the largest hackathon in the PNW #DubHacks pic.twitter.com/uLdrVhcehG

— Nick Quinlan (@YayNickQ) October 18, 2014

A slightly different style of “Tent” than many of the examples above.

Onze tent staat klaar. #dewarmsteweek #warmsteweek #hackathon pic.twitter.com/JF8cfVfMmF

— De Warmste Website (@WarmsteWebsite) December 18, 2016

Here’s just a few other examples of Hackathon Tents.

Woke up to a fantastically unusual view from my tent. #shutterstockesb #hackathon pic.twitter.com/f0pbDhs87M

— Nova Patch (@novapatch) September 26, 2014

Tent in the @Shutterstock lobby? Could only mean one thing: #hackathon last night…. #tw pic.twitter.com/159M087lac

— Jon Oringer (@jonoringer) September 26, 2014

Only at a hackathon will you see a tent on stage. @hacknashville #HN5 pic.twitter.com/c26K7RyHyN

— Ben Slayton (@bslayton) May 5, 2014

The following tweets below, highlight some nice examples of Post-it note art on the walls adding a good splash of colour and fun to the environment. Post-its can be useful for many things and not just for planning out your Game / Hackathon idea. Here’s a previous post (online) highlighting some post-it note art on campus.

Ya tenemos a las primeras caras despiertas manos a la obra!!!! #GGJ18 @globalgamejam pic.twitter.com/zUgj4k9K2h

— CEEI Burgos (@ceeiburgos) January 27, 2018

Hoy sesión triple: 1° Warmup + 1° Sprint + 1° Reto @ExplorerByX @ceeiburgos @UBUemplea pic.twitter.com/Po7FcyvrJw

— Explorerburgos (@Explorer_Burgos) January 17, 2018

1° Tutoría del 2018. Los participantes conocen a sus tutores y exponen sus ideas! @ExplorerByX @ceeiburgos @UBUemplea pic.twitter.com/obMCJ3Pl49

— Explorerburgos (@Explorer_Burgos) January 15, 2018

Having some mascots at Game Jams and Hackathons are always fun too.

Well it's good to see the #GGJ18 gorilla is still hard at work in @NDewell and @SpilledCakeMix 's team. pic.twitter.com/xNSQHXg9j9

— BCU Games Technology (@BCUGAMESTECH) January 27, 2018

Each team has its own mascot, color and space. This is the #Hackathon pack for team leader ! pic.twitter.com/9eBoxyfQjY

— ContentSquare_RD (@ContentSquareRD) June 7, 2017

April 21, 2017 637p EDT Brackets for Good mascot AT&T IoT Civic Hackathon Launch Fishers Fishers, IN pic.twitter.com/JfP7ym1EqX

— Jim Bowden (@bowdenj) April 21, 2017

European Parliament Hackathon has a mascot, rivaling @puffles2010 in charm RT @freefrosch: Soooo viel zu tun! #hackep pic.twitter.com/hqA56t1Cr9

— Robert Richards (@richards1000) January 25, 2014

Post-it Note Art on Campus

Following on from my previous Blog Post (online) highlighting a number of YouTube videos depicting Post-it note art, this post gives some idea of the Post-it Note murals that have materialised around the School of Computer Science and Digital Technology, Birmingham City University. As previously mentioned on a visit to the Google London offices over the summer, myself and a dozen other academics really enjoyed seeing the Post-it note art they had adorned their offices with.

To add a greater splash of colour around the School we purchased 15,300 3M Super Sticky Post-it Notes, this is sufficient to cover an area of around 88 square meters. The images below give some sense of the murals that have already been created, with many more likely to follow. These murals have been created by a number of placement students we have working here at the School. As can be expected they have all had a very distinctive Computing/Gaming theme to them.

What other Post-it Note murals do you think would be interesting to see?

A Visit to #HackTheMidlands Hackathon 2017

On Saturday 23rd September 2017 a 24 hour Hackathon called “Hack The Midlands” kicked off at Millennium Point in Birmingham. Around 150 attendees turned up to share in the adventure of writing some code in teams. Quite a variety of participants took part including students from Birmingham City University, Aston University and the University of Birmingham. Other participants included a number pre-university and several whom had graduated several years before. It wasn’t just students of computing taking part either, but also had participants from disciplines such as Maths, Physics and Psychology. Some of the participants travelled quite a distance to take part in the Hackathon, with several coming from St Andrews up in Scotland and one all the way from Italy. Nine Workshops were also taking place during the event, covering things from web development and Node.js to VR (online).

It wasn’t all just about writing code either with many teams working of electronic based projects such as a 3D Printer, Arduino, Breadboards and the like. A good bit of soldering and de-soldering was also taking place. Was really great to see a diverse range of ideas and projects being brought to light. For some this was their first Hackathon, for others they had been to many before as some of the images below of laptops covered with Hackathon stickers can attest to. A few mascots were also to be found dotted around the desks such as “Otto the Octopus”.

Useful Links
Hack The Midlands Website (online)
HaCS Hackathon and Computing Society, Birmingham City University (online)
HaCS Twitter Feed (online)
Aston Computer Science Society, Aston University (online)
ACCS Twitter Feed (online)
Computer Science Society, University of Birmingham (online)
CSS Twitter Feed (online)

Keeping Cool
The 3D Printer Project was really quite interesting on two fronts. Firstly for the seemingly random parts deposited in the base and secondly for the innovative use of soft drink cans to elevate the printer to help facilitate systems cooling.

Day 1 Tweets
Below can be seen a selection of twitter posts from the first half of the Hackathon event.

We are proud to be part of #HackTheMidlands , support the next generation of coders and celebrate #NationalCodingWeek pic.twitter.com/KXuRcFwa7J

— Nexmo Developer (@NexmoDev) September 23, 2017

It begins! #hackthemidlands #hackathon pic.twitter.com/wOJrb3C5o3

— LiamSorta @HTM (@LiamSorta) September 23, 2017

Programmers beavering away at #HackTheMidlands 2.0! We're proud to be hosting lots of #Birmingham #STEM talent. 💻🎮💾 pic.twitter.com/gwjEij45rN

— Millennium Point (@millenniumpoint) September 23, 2017

It's time to #HackTheMidlands! We're proud to be supporting this fantastic invention marathon nurturing young #STEM talent & innovation. pic.twitter.com/aad1HyNeFI

— Millennium Point (@millenniumpoint) September 23, 2017

Our final talk of this evening is Super Scale Mobile Apps with Mark Olleson from @Bloomberg #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/cHNXQxyTGP

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Let the hacking begin! #Hackthemidlands pic.twitter.com/flXcRd2cgD

— Nexmo Developer (@NexmoDev) September 23, 2017

@bedekelly & @algebraadams just won a bash bunny courtesy of the wonderful @Hak5 💖 #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/tLCmtic7FQ

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Learning the basics of web development in a workshop by @PandelisZ #Hackthemidlands pic.twitter.com/IEpqWxw81X

— uve (@uveavanto) September 23, 2017

And we're off! #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/834328pLpo

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Plenty of swag at #HackTheMidlands with every attendee receiving a free t-shirt! pic.twitter.com/tmMPqi1T9i

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Another beautiful photo of the workshop area 💖 #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/JuChRXGDIW

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Volunteering at #HackTheMidlands and SO excited to see what people come up with this weekend! pic.twitter.com/XNTMTF7aWi

— Helena (@bowerhe) September 23, 2017

ASCII Art via SMS 🤓 Just part of the crazy hacks at #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/C0UfYOVUpH

— Nexmo Developer (@NexmoDev) September 23, 2017

The first workshops are underway from @eLife & Scott Street #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/0hY0wCBHGl

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

The Opening Ceremony is underway! #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/3hNhKDYMpa

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Next at #HackTheMidlands are the Intro to @Docker and Newbies Guide to API's workshops! pic.twitter.com/yN4liFRW6y

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Retweeting because I'm proud of this photo #HackTheMidlands https://t.co/cvAROSwIbG

— Helena (@bowerhe) September 23, 2017

Currently we've got our Intro to Web Dev and Intro to Node-RED workshops! #HackTheMidlands @NodeRED pic.twitter.com/PsOtw2adi4

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

On my way to #HackTheMidlands 😄

— Lily (@LilyHoskin) September 23, 2017

This is probably the grandest hackathon opening ceremony I've seen. #Hackthemidlands pic.twitter.com/kKFd0qr8ZD

— uve (@uveavanto) September 23, 2017

This evening we've got our Intro to Web VR Games and Getting Started with the Nexmo Voice API workshops! #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/LoHg68ir5w

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Hackers, don't miss @sammachin 's workshop at 4PM : Intro to Nexmo Voice API #HackTheMidlands

— Nexmo Developer (@NexmoDev) September 23, 2017

Can we encourage #collaboration in #research? Any examples out there? Anyone publishing proposals before starting work? #Hackthemidlands

— ⭐Pauline Roche⭐ (@paulineroche) September 23, 2017

To gain insight into Computer Science, our Y13 student is participating in #Hackthemidlands with Miss Valibhai #LetTheHackingBegin pic.twitter.com/mx4mWCoL3j

— TGAS STEM (@STEM_TGAS) September 23, 2017

If anyone is wondering snacks & drinks are upstairs! 🍴☕ #HackTheMidlands

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

The Opening Ceremony is at 11! We're looking forward to meeting you all 💕 #HackTheMidlands

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

Make sure you come check out the hardware lab for some cool tech to use in your projects! #HackTheMidlands #hype pic.twitter.com/brYfirIZUU

— HackTheMidlands (@HackTheMidlands) September 23, 2017

I've forgotten my Asus zenbook laptop charger and maplin was out – anyone fancy sharing? I'm really nice I promise #hackthemidlands

— Guy Mac (@BeingGuyMac) September 23, 2017

https://t.co/eD1ossmR1K This, all weekend #geek #HackTheMidlands

— ⭐Pauline Roche⭐ (@paulineroche) September 23, 2017

Anyone at @HackTheMidlands got a SIM tool? 😒 #HackTheMidlands pic.twitter.com/VFzQlEFmeo

— Hugh Wells (@CrabLabuk) September 23, 2017

On my way to Birmingham for @HackTheMidlands and travelling in style 😎 #HackTheMidlands #hype pic.twitter.com/1HFKjcIYTp

— Helena (@bowerhe) September 22, 2017

1 more sleep until the 24-hour invention marathon #HackTheMidlands returns to #MillenniumPoint! #NationalCodingWeek https://t.co/KQTVaNOwpF pic.twitter.com/y8qTFqh4h4

— Millennium Point (@millenniumpoint) September 22, 2017

Visit to the UK’s Biggest Gaming Event – EXG 2017

Last year during University Welcome Week, several bus loads of BCU Computing students along with a number of staff headed off on an adventure to visit Bletchley Park (online). This year The UK’s Biggest Gaming Event EXG 2017 happened to be taking place during welcome week, so several hundred students and staff ventured to the NEC to explore the world of computer games – past, present and future. The photos below should help to give some small sense of what the event was like.

One could find several hundred retro games available to be played – a detailed list available from the Retro Strand (online).

EXG 2017 is running from Thursday 21st to Sunday 24th Sept inclusive, so plenty of opportunities still exist to check out the event and play some games. The 2016 EGX event had over 75,000 people in attendance (online), will this year be even bigger?

Useful Links
EXG Website (online)
EGX Facebook Page (online)
EGX Twitter Feed (online)
EGX on YouTube (online)
EGX on Twitch (online)

This EXG 2017 Trailer on YouTube may also help to give a good sense of the event.

The following embedded videos are of various talks that took place during the opening day – 21st Sept. These talks include Andy Serkis discussing Planet of the Apes, Xbox One X & the Future of Console Technology with Digital Foundry, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Designing The City of Kings, a MMORPG inspired board game with Frank West and How Firaxis saved XCOM from complete disaster with Jake Solomon.

The Carbon Journey Event – What does the Future Hold

At the start of the week a day long event was held focusing on what the future holds for the world in which we live. It was organised by Aston University and Birmingham City University and held at the Genting Arena. As you will see from the images below it was quite an amazing and eye opening event, attended by a large number of staff and students from both universities.

The world of tomorrow is likely to be a good deal warmer than it is today. The degree to which the average world temperature will be warmer will have an enormous impact on the lives of billions. The population of the world continues to grow and by the end of the century could very well reach anything from 9 to 11 billion people. A growing population needs ever more resources thereby growing our carbon footprint. However if we are to combat dramatic climate change then exceeding a 2 degree change from per-industrial times will have very serious consequences for the planet, population, plant and animal life.

Many countries have signed up to limit their carbon footprint, but with current commitments, estimates put the average global temperature increase at a good bit over 3.5 degrees. Anything beyond a 2 degree increase will have drastic results, therefore it is clear that far far greater measures will need to be taken by everybody whom call planet Earth their home.

The event was well timed as just a few days before (27th Oct) it was announced that global wildlife populations had fallen by 58% since 1970 (online). What will the global wildlife population be like by 2050 or 2100 if immediate measures are not put in place to curb this dramatic decline?

A good few tweets were generated throughout the day with the hashtag of #carbonjourney (online). Further details about the event and the days programme can be seen (online).

The images below should give you some sense of what the day was like. As can be seen quite a number of speakers were on stage throughout the day. Painting the a picture of what the world of tomorrow may be like from a number of perspectives.

The following video – gives some sense of what the news could be like just 30 or so years from now – in the year 2045.

Looking Back at George Boole’s 200th Birthday Celebrations

Today 2nd November 2016 is the 201st Birthday of Professor George Boole, the first professor of mathematics at University College Cork, known the world over as the “father of the information age”. On this very day last year I had the opportunity to be on campus to witness some events celebrating his 200th birthday. As you can see from the photos below quite a sizable cake decorated with 0’s and 1’s was on display. A number of talks also took place on the day. One of the talks I attended was given by Professor Anant Agarwal from MIT (online) about working in the realm of Digital Systems. Also in the audience was Professor Donald Knuth (online), well known for the multi-volume book “The Art of Computer Programming”, he had given a talk / Q&A session just prior. Hopefully some of the images below will give a sense of what the campus was like this day last year for the 200th Birthday celebrations.

Some time ago I wrote a post going through all the dates on the calendar listing the Key People and Events in Computer Science (online). Another person whom was also born the very same year as George Boole was Ada Lovelace, well known for her work with Charles Babbage on the Analytical Engine and the creation of the first algorithm intended to work on a machine. Its probably safe to say that without the work undertaken by both of these people born in 1815 none of the digital world that has permeated the very fabric of our lives today would exist.

Visit to Bletchley Park

On Tuesday 20th Sept, five bus loads of students and academics from @BCUComputing went on a 75 mile trip to visit Bletchley Park. A selection of photographs from the trip can be seen below, most being from the mansion, huts, cottages and museum (Block B). Some further images are available on flickr (online).

Around the same last year I attended two lectures organised by the BCS about Enigma (online) which gave some very interesting insight into the work of Bletchley Park. The post contains an embedded video from one of the lectures that is very much worthwhile to take a look at, as it gives a good deal of background to the Enigma, the Battle of the North Atlantic and the work undertaken at Bletchley Park.

We spent around four hours at Bletchley and really only managed a quick glimpse of the facility, which makes a lot of sense considering the many many thousands of people who were working their throughout the war. There is just so much to see, one could easily spend two full days having a quick look around. Will most certainly have to visit again as I didn’t visit all the huts and blocks or The National Museum of Computing.

Upon arrival at Bletchley Park around 11:00 the students had the opportunity to have a look around the estate before heading to the Teleprinter Hall at 12:00 for an hour long series of talks by Academics from BCU Computing. These talks included a general welcome, a talk on placement opportunities (as seen in the tweets below) and some discussion around keys / security.

Richard & Daniel discussing their placement years at Cisco & JWG Group with our new @BCUComputing students! pic.twitter.com/OZyZEBCPD4

— Rebecca (@itsRebeccaMG) September 20, 2016

Great turnout for the @BCUComputing talks at @bletchleypark! 😄 pic.twitter.com/IOXoNBDmjA

— Rebecca (@itsRebeccaMG) September 20, 2016

After this series of talks it was now around lunchtime so many ventured to the Canteen situated in Hut 4 located right next to the Mansion. With lunch sorted it was then time for some further exploration of Bletchley Park, taking in all the various Huts, Cottages, Garages and the Museum located in Block B. All attendees were provided with a very useful Multimedia Guide comprising of map, imagery and audio / video segments to help guide one around the parks and augment ones tour with some very useful information about the various locations and their function. Some staff and students also had the opportunity of getting in a few rounds of table tennis in the scenic grounds before climbing aboard the busses for the journey back to Birmingham.

In summary it was a really great day out, meeting up at 08:30, setting off a bit after 09:00, arriving a bit after 11:00 and eventually returning by 17:30. A huge word of thanks to all involved in organising this fantastic adventure.

One can visit the following websites for further information
https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
http://www.tnmoc.org/

RGUHack 2016 Hackathon – Tweet Summary

Following on from my previous two posts, this one captures most of the Hackathon’s essence played out on Twitter. A few of the tweets may not be in chronological order as the tweets below are a collective from searches, hastags and @RGUHack tweets.

• RGU Hackathon 2016 in Video (online)
• RGU Hackathon 16-17th April 2016 – Event Photos (online)

@macannabelle Thanks for reaching out to us, Annabelle! We were so excited to participate! #RGUHack

— Brightree (@Brightree) April 18, 2016

This is great!! #RGUHack https://t.co/FufJOUxQk8

— Brightree (@Brightree) April 18, 2016

Overview of this weekends @MLHacks powered @RGUHack Hackathon (https://t.co/YKTTCkJezU) – Flickr: (https://t.co/sv1ufPDLT8)

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) April 17, 2016

A @LeapMotion controlled Basketball game developed at the @MLHacks powered @RGUHack https://t.co/sqwsnuEOOx

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) April 17, 2016

Gesture Controlled AR Parrot Drone – RGU Hack 2016: https://t.co/p3ekGQqcBv via @YouTube

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) April 17, 2016

Thanks again for coming and making the weekend a brilliant one which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Until next year… #goodnighthackers

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 17, 2016

The time-lapse of RGUHack 2016 is now live! How's that for quickness 😉 See if you can spot yourself!https://t.co/gXhc9Wz4mu

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 17, 2016

Thanks to everyone that attended #RGUHack, what a success and loads of fun had by all! Until next time… #GoodnightHackers

— I'm Rhys btw (@Blankeh) April 17, 2016

RGUHack is a wrap, until next year; thanks everyone! #RGUHack

— annabelle macleod (@macannabelle) April 17, 2016

Long weekend @RGUHack over, great to see all the effort put in by all our @RGUComputing students. You do us proud.

— John Isaacs (@wildfireone) April 17, 2016

Thank you Aberdeen and @RGUHack for having me! It was a top weekend, had so much fun and will be back soon – but for now – flight + sleep! 💤

— Bilawal Hameed (@bilawalhameed) April 17, 2016

Congratulations to rm -rf for winning Best Developer Tool by @GitHubEducation #RGUHack pic.twitter.com/8edP9viIET

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 17, 2016

Last day of #RGUHack (@ Robert Gordon University) https://t.co/1J0Oyx3xye

— Bilawal Hameed (@bilawalhameed) April 17, 2016

Not long left now hackers! #RGUHack

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 17, 2016

I want to be on the wall too #RGUHack

— Stanislav Hamara (@StanislavHamara) April 17, 2016

Congratulations to Cosmin Mare who won the !Light mini event at #RGUHack. Enjoy the @DellHome Bluetooth Speaker! pic.twitter.com/NKLW7VJA4h

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 16, 2016

First person to send me proof of beating Stan Hamara on Fifa gets a steam game worth up to £5. #RGUHack

— Lewis Cooke (@DrumCookies) April 16, 2016

Love it! Pizza and code…unbeatable combination! #RGUHack https://t.co/2aUyIvADIA

— Ryan Gibson (@RyanGibson_ACR) April 16, 2016

Shoutout to the #hackers at @codefestinfo @copenhacks @rguhack & #ninjahackscy! Get your free #domain at https://t.co/Nn19qLjTZh.

— Domain.com (@Domaindotcom) April 16, 2016

Breakfast is here hackers! #RGUHack

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 17, 2016

#droneflight @RGUHack pic.twitter.com/VInOwAdc1w

— John Isaacs (@wildfireone) April 17, 2016

it's so quiet… sleepy #RGUHack

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 17, 2016

An SQL statement walks into a bar and sees two tables. It approaches, and asks “may I join you?” #RGUHack

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 16, 2016

We've started the !Light mini-event at #RGUHack. Can't wait to see what you all submit after 20 minutes! pic.twitter.com/2eNVI2tBKh

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 16, 2016

Story time to get through #RGUHack with Ms Stewart! pic.twitter.com/Tvr1uLg3X5

— Brad Thomson (@Brad_Thomson97) April 17, 2016

Accidentally found like 3 API keys on 1 website during research #RGUHack @dasomeone

— Jack Wilson (@iJackWilson) April 16, 2016

FEED ME MORE PIZZA #RGUHack pic.twitter.com/8shyvHq2nn

— Roger (@Grrrrrrroger) April 16, 2016

And the sandwiches are out @RGUHack pic.twitter.com/Zh5AN7bCAl

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 16, 2016

Somebody got a nice badge @RGUHack @redgate 🙂 pic.twitter.com/xSLrm6F8PW

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 16, 2016

All the mind control @RGUHack pic.twitter.com/VtvDGq4AKb

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 16, 2016

Love it! Pizza and code…unbeatable combination! #RGUHack https://t.co/2aUyIvADIA

— Ryan Gibson (@RyanGibson_ACR) April 16, 2016

@Dominos_UK I present to you the leaning tower of Dominos Pizza Boxes! #RGUHack pic.twitter.com/P9apLzfmEw

— I'm Rhys btw (@Blankeh) April 16, 2016

Pizza time @RGUHack #RGUHack pic.twitter.com/hT6fGkhZT1

— annabelle macleod (@macannabelle) April 16, 2016

A picture of the tweet wall… ON THE TWEETWALL?! #tweetwallception @RGUHack #RGUHack pic.twitter.com/2DupFBspux

— I'm Rhys btw (@Blankeh) April 16, 2016

when drones go wild #RGUHack

— BigSpud (@SpudGaming97) April 16, 2016

#RGUHack Is underway @LeapMotion

— CORRIΞ GRΞΞN (@corriejgreen) April 16, 2016

Already a few hour in for a cracking hackathon at #RGUHack. The teams are all quiet while we are too busy playing fifa.

— Rubeus Hagrid (@hagrid1994) April 16, 2016

It should be a crime to go to Scotland and not have a drink of @irnbru! #RGUHack pic.twitter.com/Sev12noVj4

— Bilawal Hameed (@bilawalhameed) April 16, 2016

All the things @rguhack @rgucomputing pic.twitter.com/L92iBYbAXp

— John Isaacs (@wildfireone) April 16, 2016

The opening ceremony for #RGUHack has officially kicked off! pic.twitter.com/3C2a7V96CG

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 16, 2016

Hackers are really enjoying the free @GitHubEducation, @AWSCloud, @Domaindotcom & MLH swag at #RGUHack pic.twitter.com/i2U3tKEKoD

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 16, 2016

Just arrived in Aberdeen, Scotland! We can't wait for #RGUHack to kick off in a couple of hours! pic.twitter.com/EWRyl8J5dZ

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 16, 2016

Just arrived in Aberdeen! I'm so pumped for #RGUHack tomorrow! 🔥🔥🔥

— Bilawal Hameed (@bilawalhameed) April 15, 2016

About to board a flight to Aberdeen for #RGUHack. Super excited for this weekend ♥️

— Bilawal Hameed (@bilawalhameed) April 15, 2016

Video from last year's #RGUHack event. Looking forward to this weekend! https://t.co/1dLSSLR7kJ

— Brightree (@Brightree) April 15, 2016

Who's ready for another big weekend! In the EU we're kicking off FOUR events! Will you be there? #ninjahackscy pic.twitter.com/84Ke8jg3Bs

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 15, 2016

It's another one of those crazy @MLHacks EU weekends again! Have fun @RGUHack @CopenHacks #NinjaHacks #CodeFest! See you see Copenhagen 😉

— Joe Nash (@jna_sh) April 15, 2016

Just in: another very generous sponsor for RGUHack: Thank you Graduate AI pic.twitter.com/vZkjCJwF8T

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 13, 2016

Less than 48 hours left until RGUHack starts in our beautiful building!!! Are you ready? @RobertGordonUni @MLHacks pic.twitter.com/cMg8kRc91i

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 14, 2016

The @RGUHack hack is going down on April 18th-19th in the #UK. Don't miss it! https://t.co/3onqHDB84d

— Hackathons (@hackathons) April 13, 2016

Look at all the cool swag we have ready for you! Only 5 days to go! @RGUComputing @TeamCodify @redgate @MLHacks pic.twitter.com/N7ei6wRQph

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 12, 2016

Who's excited for @RGUHack this weekend? What will you make? https://t.co/dyVfAQqD8A

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) April 12, 2016

@ProductForge In case you've not heard about this – sounds like a good one! @RGUHack https://t.co/3Tsk5Rq2IC @RGUComputing

— AJ Enterprises (@ajentscotland) April 12, 2016

.@RGUHack brings students together to code, create, and network. More in our blog: https://t.co/9x17Q1gQX5 #tech #hackathon

— Brightree HH&HO (@BrightreeHHHO) April 11, 2016

Excited to be a sponsor of this weekend's @RGUHack. More in our blog: https://t.co/8zIRZbMEnO #tech #hackathon

— Brightree (@Brightree) April 11, 2016

New, well to me, toys @RGUComputing may be seen @RGUHack soon. #hackathon pic.twitter.com/RgjgAJ1nBm

— John Isaacs (@wildfireone) April 11, 2016

Hey guys, thanks to all the support from you and our sponsors we have even made it to the P&J! Not long to go now! pic.twitter.com/8RPHFASDmi

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 7, 2016

Fancy getting involved in a 24-hour #hackathon at RGU next weekend? https://t.co/yVP2IDseDQ @RGUHack pic.twitter.com/uqnu5NbUl8

— RobertGordonUni (@RobertGordonUni) April 7, 2016

And yet another sponsor announcement!!! @redgate will be at RGUHack so make sure you get a ticket!!! pic.twitter.com/yYDLcEl7tw

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 4, 2016

Very excited to announce @ThePropAngel as our next sponsor for @RGUHack!!! @MLHacks @RGUComputing pic.twitter.com/ZOcmgVrZ8K

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 4, 2016

Will you be joining for us for @RGUHack? Now part of the Spring Season – sign up now! https://t.co/tubGgMVsd7 pic.twitter.com/8VftTBvdBy

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) March 31, 2016

@RGUHack @RGUComputing We can't wait!

— Major League Hacking (@MLHacks) March 31, 2016

Waiting for the massive email chain from the @RGUHack email since they didn't use BCC

— Jack Wilson (@iJackWilson) March 31, 2016

@PaulHoskisson @genotripe if you know CompSci students pass on the word #RGUHack https://t.co/Wknj2nLAGq

— annabelle macleod (@macannabelle) March 31, 2016

RGUHack! https://t.co/ScYS4tTMbF

— Colin Beagrie (@cbeagrie) March 26, 2016

Interested in sponsoring or suggesting a challenge for @RGUHack 16/17 April? Great recruitment opportunity! Rguhack.uk

— John Isaacs (@wildfireone) March 26, 2016

@RGUHack – See more about Hack the Burgh at https://t.co/gogR8a1ua7

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) March 20, 2016

@RGUHack – Hack the Burgh 2016 Presentations taking place now – See the Live Stream https://t.co/FimNP2kK5h

— Daniel C. Doolan (@dcdoolan) March 20, 2016

One more announcement for today:) Very excited to announce Qcode Software as our another sponsor @RGUHack 2016 pic.twitter.com/hQVibyylT6

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) March 17, 2016

Following with an introduction of our another awesome sponsor: Here comes @_sie_ , excited to see you @RGUHack 2016 pic.twitter.com/DXJCEpvNZV

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) March 17, 2016

@RGUHack is happining again, 16&17th April and is looking for sponsors to make this event even better. full details rguhack.uk #hackathon

— John Isaacs (@wildfireone) March 16, 2016

Excited because I'm going to be in Aarhus, Denmark 🇩🇰 for AUHack and Aberdeen, Scotland 🇬🇧 for RGUHack next month!

— Bilawal Hameed (@bilawalhameed) March 16, 2016

Really excited to announce codify as our first sponsor for @RGUHack 2016! @RGUComputing @TeamCodify pic.twitter.com/GxJ3DtDf9Y

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) March 17, 2016

Back for a fun filled week-end 16&17th April. #rguhack visit us at https://t.co/W4ny2fbBJn

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) March 16, 2016

And we got tons of food for you!!! @RGUHack pic.twitter.com/pLmMIUbg9g

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 15, 2016

Making sure our hackers will not be thirsty! Only 24 hours to go for @RGUHack pic.twitter.com/RAymhIhEwF

— RGUHack (@RGUHack) April 15, 2016

#RGUHack is back on the 16&17th April. Visit https://t.co/CDRAqb3dF8 and get your tickets! https://t.co/mqpYskVa5p pic.twitter.com/KLEwzNJq0f

— RGU:Union (@rguunion) March 16, 2016

RGU Hackathon 2016 in Video

Following on from my previous post highlighting events of the RGUHack 2.0 Hackathon (Online). This post focuses on some elements of video captured during the event. First up is a time-lapse of the 24 hour hackathon, this is followed by some interesting apps that are controlled by a Leap Motion. A Youtube playlist of these videos may be found (Online).

The first of these is a game of basketball, as you can see it takes a bit of practice to get the hang of it, however it makes for a really interesting way of interacting with a 3D environment and is really fun to play.

The other videos available below show the use of a Leap Motion to control the flight of an AR Parrot 2.0 Drone. Its is quite responsive and is easily controlled, – closing your hand will start it up, while raising or lowering your hand will have a corresponding effect on the drone as you could expect. Tilting your hand will result in the drone moving forward / back. It was really quite fun to fly, and would recommend that everybody should have a go at flying a drone via gesture control.

RGU Hackathon 16-17th April 2016 – Event Photos

On Saturday and Sunday 16th – 17th April 2016 the Second RGUHack Hackathon (RGUHack 2.0) took place with 51 participants coding for a 24 hour period starting at 13:00 on the Saturday afternoon.

Setup on the Saturday began a little before 08:00 to ensure the venue was ready to go for registration, kicking off at 10:00. The various challenges were presented at 11:00 followed by a spot of lunch. Then at 13:00 the main event kicked off with 24 hours of solid coding and problem solving.

One of the key ingredients of code generation is fuel, therefore at 18:00 a supply of around 45 pizzas from Dominos arrived to keep the coders going well into the night. Further refueling took place again around midnight with plenty of snacks in between until Breakfast around 07:00 – 08:00 on the Sunday morning. Then it was into the final stages of testing and debugging before getting ready to present the work.

Coding time eventually came to an end at 13:00 on Sunday and once again it was time to refuel in preparation for the presentations and prize giving. After that it was time to say farewell to the Coders/Hackers around 15:45, finishing up with some Group Photos.  Then it was time to tidy up after the event, all this was done and dusted by around 17:00. Just a few little bits remained to be packed up and posted off to MLH, with the last person leaving the building at 17:45.

Its likely that over the next few days some more photos, videos and the like will be made available online. As a few people were involved in taking pictures during the event & we had 3 GoPros setup around the venue recording a time-lapse at 30 second intervals. I hope you enjoy the 2^7 pictures available below and via the flickr album (Online).

The photos below and (Online) via flickr, should give a good sense of what the event was like, starting with the final group photo and working back to the the very start and the display of the hardware devices available to  explore. One can get a good sense of what last years Hackathon was like by taking a look at the following Blog post (Online).

A big word of thanks goes out to all the Sponsors – ThePropertyAngel, Codify, GraduateAI, QCode, Sie, Redgate, Brightree, MLH & the School of Computing Science and Digital Media. In particular ThePropetyAngel and Brightree whom had representatives present during the afternoon of Saturday and again on the Sunday to view the presentations at take part in the judging panel. Myself @dcdoolan, John Isaacs @wilefireone and Sean Sturley @TheBitShepherd were present from the School to help ensure the event could take place & help out the student team with the logistics of running the Hackathon on campus.

You may wish to checkout the RGU Hackathon Website (Online), Twitter Feed (Online), or Facebook page (Online) to see more.

A big round of applause should certainly be paid to the team of half a dozen students who were instrumental in making this event a reality. Hopefully this annual Hackathon event will go from strength to strength. I’m sure we all can’t wait to see what RGUHack 3.0 will be like next year.