digitalfreeform

So the university news is promoting the university degree show so I guess its official; IT’S NEARLY HERE!!!  As a digital media student I will be at the degree show for three days and trying my hardest to showcase all my amazing work (If I find any!).

Anyway the idea of the degree show is to promote what we have learnt, what we have discovered and what we are capable of. To do this we need a big display because we technology students love to show off and we can’t show off without lots of colours and a big show to boot. So we get three A1 boards and desk space to turn into a show stopping show-reel of super erm… well creative work we have produced. Some have opted to print out their work but in much larger scales while others have implemented a theme.

For my group work we had to make a game and ours has become known as “RABBIT RESCUE”…. Yeah we kinda ran out of juice on the name but it is a good little game that surprisingly took a lot of work to complete. As it’s a rabbit game we’re going all out on the rabbit idea even so far as to attach rabbit ears onto the headphones!! Anyway the degree show promises to be a culmination of talented people demonstrating what they do best! If you want to come along remember the opening night is Thursday 2nd June and the show is open to the public on Friday 3rd June and Saturday 4th June at the Greenwich Campus.

http://df11.org/

@digitalfreeform

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Reflections

This week it has started to dawn on me that soon I will no longer be a student and I will have to enter the world of adults! I know it’s already happening as I have started watching the news instead of cartoons or music on the other channels and I am also sitting down to countdown! I have considered doing a postgraduate course but realistically there is not many courses related to games that you could study beyond under graduate level. Also the games industry do not like students being in education too long (me neither) and so I am gathering my portfolio together to show off to all the potential employers. First of all it was boring but when I started digging up work from my first year I started to remember all the good times I have had and also started to worry about what happens to all my friends as we are all going to split up soon. Luckily I have facebook and who really needs face to face contact?? :p

I also had to make a trip down to Cornwall on Monday after lectures which is not at all fun. I left my university lecture at 7.30pm then had to get the train to London Bridge. Then get the tube to Baker Street then another tube on a different line to get to London Paddington and finally I had an hour wait for my train (Managed to get a McDonalds Deli which actually tastes pretty good!) which went all the way to Exeter. I finally got into Exeter at about 1am and it only took another hour to reach Cornwall!!! When I finally got indoors I then was up early the next morning for a hospital visit....

It turns out that my mother-in-law had taken a fall and broken her ankle in three different places, bruised her eye and had marks all over. We still aren’t sure how it all happened but she seems ok (as well as can be) and she goes in to have an operation later on today. She was due to have the operation three days ago but it seems in her wisdom she decided not to eat and drink so she didn’t have to go to the toilet but overall it meant she was put on fluids. But hey ho she should soon be all fixed and ready to begin physiotherapy. So my three day trip to Cornwall was pretty much hospital runs and visits to the local shops and no sightseeing!!! Hopefully when I am next down I will go visit the Eden project and actually remember to renew my yearly membership. If you have not been go visit the Eden project as it is amazing what they have done. Basically they turned a barren piece of land into a green paradise with a Mediterranean themed area and a very warm jungle area (not sure if it was meant to be Amazon or something but it was really hot in there!).

In other news I have to create 2 stands at my degree show and I am actually not too scared about meeting the deadline; which is a first. The degree show as I said before is a way to showcase your work to potential employers, friends, families or whoever. It’s your one chance to shine and hopefully get a job! Although I am slightly worried my display may become cheesy but we shall see. The other stand is a team effort and displays the game we created for our games development coursework. I want to put bunny ears on the headphones for the game but I am yet to persuade the others it’s a good idea!! Oh yeah if you are wondering why I would want to do that i mentioned previously we have done a kids game about rabbits.

Apart from that I shall be working my way through the months at the Enquiry Unit and hopefully earning some well needed money. I also want a holiday but I’m not sure where I want to go. The last two holidays I had snow and it was very cold and I even started to get chilblains. Although I didn’t mind too much as the sites were amazing in both Holland and Paris. I think I would prefer somewhere which is really interesting to go rather than really hot with amazing beaches. From my last blog you may gather I am trying to avoid the sun as I managed to get badly burnt by it only a few weeks ago!

Anyway that’s all I can think of this week so I will end with this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9489000/9489104.stm

It talks about how sci-fi novels have tried to predict the future technologies and in some cases been quite close to the mark. But the overall message is “How do you see the future turning out?”

Image Stolen from:

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How time flies...

I am not sure how long ago my last blog was but I am sure it was ages ago! Being a third year student does have its plus points but it also can be a bit hectic at times. Anyway here goes the past few weeks of my life...

It all starts off with my camping trip I had in Kent which was about two weeks ago at the weekend. We decided that we definitely wanted to go camping but not sure where we could go that would be good and also fairly cheap. Luckily a friend recommended us to a place in Romney called Marlie Farm (TN28 8UE). It was just a little over £30 and we had access to a shower room, toilets and if you paid a little extra they even give you an electric hook up if you can go too far from civilisation!!! I must also say that you should get there a bit early as it did take us 2 hours to get the tent up (and 3 to get it down!). We stayed for two nights which is why it was around £32 but with the saving on accommodation we was able to explore the local area and go on all sorts of attractions. The attractions ranged from miniature trains to beaches (the weather was scorching!) to trips down to see old lighthouses in Dungeness.

Overall it was a really good trip but I would have to say don’t forget sun cream as I frazzled in the heat and went a lovely shade of beetroot red! (It’s also important to note that while there are buses and trains it would be easiest to travel by car :D)

After my camping trip I then was back into work mode and putting the final touches to my final year project which was due two days after I got back. All I had to do was to make sure all references were up to date and I had to make the project look professional. Finally I had to add a few features to my game (the product I had to create for my project) and I was done. Well I say I was done I then had another coursework due in two days after my project hand in and the next week I had another coursework hand in. And today I am in work yay! I think the main thing I have learnt from this experience is “man cannot live on will alone” he needs sleep and/or coffee and definitely not red bull and haribo.

I think the best way to describe coursework is like a giant tidal wave heading towards you. Some people attack it head on and ride the wave (by doing coursework early), some people build up barriers against it in hope it will all be ok (doing coursework the week before) where some people will just not worry at all and end up drowning (doing coursework on the day its due in!). I usually fall into category two but I do honestly prepare in advance I just never do the coursework in advance. I would never advise leaving it till the last day but for me I find it much easier to wait till the last few weeks as the pressure of getting the coursework done means I am more motivated!

In other news I am trying to get back into baking cakes as I used to bake a lot but with constant deadlines and just not being bothered I have stopped baking! I also tried to cook flapjacks at my mum’s at managed to cremate them. I have cooked them a dozen times before but it seems my mum’s oven likes to burn things. I also have heard of a type of icing dough called sugar paste which is apparently really good for sugar crafting. I decided to make this from scratch using an internet recipe but was unable to find anywhere that sold all the ingredients. I managed to find the last ingredient from a chemist and was given strange looks when I said I wanted it for baking and it actually turns out that the ingredient I wanted can also be used to make bombs! I just hope that when I do make the paste it is edible!

I think it’s time to end my blog so I will just quickly mention about the votes that have went on recently. I hope you all went out and voted yesterday and all those outside London hope you voted for your local councils. Apparently the result for AV will be released on Saturday and I hope enough people have voted yes to Alternative Voting. I believe it’s a much fairer system than the one we currently have and while it’s not perfect, by any means, it has more plus points that the current voting system. The one thing that upset me was the Tories campaign to make people scared of AV by saying that soldiers need bulletproof vests and not AV etcetera. It annoyed me because if soldiers need bulletproof vests then the government should give them to them!!!

Anyway hope you all voted and I also hope that everyone is managing to enjoy the sunshine when we get it (and don’t forget the sun cream!).