You can find the interview here.

But not this time. Congratulations go to to Dominic Green from Manchester University and Ben Nunney from Greenwich University who won with their entry “EnviroMatch” which uses a series of games to help to educate young people on environmental issues.

However, the long reach of Hull extends even into the winners for this year. Tom Randell, an ex-Hull graduate and Imagine Cup winner from 2006, was the industrial mentor for the winning team. Tom now works at Content Master and has been giving them the benefits of his experience in perfecting their entry. He will now be going to Paris with the team for the world final.

Rob Miles from Hull will also be going along as a judge for the contest.

Kostas did our game development MSc course some time back. He is famous in the department as the winner of one of our programming events. I took some pictures this afternoon, but I've not got them with me at the moment, so I'll put them up later. Instead, here is a blast form the past, Kostas is the one right at the front looking thoughtful (as well he might..).

Thanks for coming guys, it was good to see you.

The pictures turned out OK as well.

Game in Progress

How to stop your laptop overheating

Artistic Camerashake

There are some more on Flickr.

Congratulations to Stuart, Kamilla, Callum, Ashley, David, Kenny, Sam, Nicholas, Anthony, Jon and Jonathan who make up the winning teams. Well done everyone! What is especially interesting is that at least two of the teams are made up of first year students who only joined the department in September last year. This is a very impressive performance.

Last year (and the year before) we also managed to win the UK Finals and go on to the world finals, here's hoping for similar success this year.

The next stage for each team is a trip to Manchester to further develop their competition entries and perfect their pitching skills, leading to a Dragon's Den style final in London later this year.

Rob Miles of the department is currently finishing off his XNA book which he is writing for Microsoft Press. This teaches C# programming and the XNA framework and shows you how to create games for your PC and the Xbox console. As part of the effort Rob has set up a website called verysillygames which will host a bunch of very silly games based on the material presented in the book. You don't need to buy anything (or even own an Xbox 360) to get started with XNA programming, and it is a great way to learn the craft. The book will be published later this year.

The whole magazine is a good read actually. They have always had a really good retro section and I've found their game reviews to be pretty much spot on.

Ed and Ben in the Large (lecture theatre)

Some of the students limbering up

Keeping your audience watching....

The talks, about SilverLight, XNA, Embedded Development and why everyone should enter the Imagine Cup this year, were excellent, despite some comings and goings from students who had to head for timetabled lectures.