Academic Achievements

Just Read This Job Description: “You must have a 1st class degree from a respected University, technical degree subject.​ You must have 3 “A”s at “A” level, one must be Maths.​ You must have evidence of a passion for programming.​”

They must be dreaming, to be perfect academically AND have *evidence* of a passion for programming? Dream on!

For a start, I can count the number of people I’ve met in my life who have a real passion for programming on ONE hand; of those, most would say that while at UNI their passion for programming was all but entirely extinguished.

Secondly, relying so heavily on academic performance is grounds alone to ignore this company for the rest of time. Academic performance is by far and away the worst indicator of how good an individual is at programming. Particularly because most universities are woefully out of date.

For the most part, GOOD programmers are hackers; people who don’t (or cant) accept authority readily and march to their own drum. These kinds of people rarely find themselves getting all-A’s, quite often the exact opposite is true.

A couple of names come to mind: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Steve Jobs (Apple), Richard Branson (Virgin).

What kind of company would outright exclude such people. Its madness.

SmartGate Demo available for download

SmartGate is an electronic learning game, that aims to teach and measure the performance of the players. It is fun and engaging, whilst also teaching the player and improving maths skills.

The game focuses on mathematics, each level with their own varying degrees of perceived difficulty. The player should never presented with precisely the same set of puzzles or puzzle types, thus giving the game a high replay value.

The project was completed on the Microsoft XNA framework, using the XNA game studio software; as such the programming language used was C# and where necessary XML.

You can Download the demo of SmartGate at [www.SmartGateGame.com]

Students place call to Astronaught on DIY Equipment

The International Space Station care of mpancha on Flickr

The [GlobeAndMail] via [Engadget] report that a group of four college students from Toronto, Canada have accomplished a technological feat by constructing their very own astronaught-phone; with which, they managed to place a ten minute call to the International Space Station using a radio system they built themselves.

While school contacts with the space station are routinely made through the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program, many of those contacts are made using a traditional ham radio.

“It’s an incredible feat of undertaking and technology, and I’d just like to say I’m really, really proud of this team,” said Humber instructor Mark Rector.

“They’re playing way, way above their league today.”

more at the [GlobeAndMail]

Starting my own business

Logicswarm is a business I’ve been waiting for an oportunity to get off the ground. One of the few advantages of this recession we’re all feeling, is that the market is such that its incredibly hard for some to get work, especially it would appear, undergraduates. The main problem, one assumes being the typical problem of companies being disinterested in anyone who doesnt have a degree. This is not true of all, but nevertheless I digress.

The reason this is an advantage (for my specific situation), is that wheres ordinarly I expect colleges would be less likely to agree to students working for themselves as ‘work experience’, in doing so I’m able to take 3-4 people and put them to work, which defers the colleges need to find them work and/or project(s). Its a win-win situation.

For my work experience, I’ve been pitching the idea that I’d start my own business to my college for sometime now. Its been an ambition I’ve sorely wanted to make a reality for longer than I can recall.

Wish me luck, because starting next week we’ll begin development on a Windows and Xbox 360 electronic learning game using Microsoft’s XNA Framework, much in the same vain as SmartGate (my 3rd year software project).

There are also some competitions, social networking ideas, etc. aspects to this, so forgive me in advance if I shamelessly plug our work in the near future.