Imagine Cup
The world’s premier student technology competition, the Imagine Cup is one way Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today. Now in its fifth year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues. The competition is made up of several categories to challenge all types of students ranging from digital arts to software design. Come to Student Day to see some of the 2007 teams demonstrate their prototypes and hear what they have to say about this year’s event. IC 2008 registrations will be opening later this year!
Regional Competition
The software design (SDI) category is made up of two stages, a regional competition and a global competition. The regional teams compete to represent NZ in the Worldwide Finals. This is a great opportunity for students to compete with their peers and to represent their tertiary institution on a national scale.
Microsoft Sponsored
Microsoft NZ plays a large part in facilitating the SDI regional finals, by providing resources and industry contacts. This is your chance to start building your network of corporate friends. Get access to the latest tools and gain experience in using the latest technology to build your prototype. The skills attained are a benefit in themselves.
Student Benefits
Students are also able to benefit from this role by networking with the industry experts and Microsoft MVPs. They gain a better understanding of how Microsoft tools are used and have the chance to win some awesome prizes.
Imagine Cup Regional Software Design 2007
This year we saw 100 students registered across the country compete for the software design challenge, with the theme "Imagine a world where technology enables
a better education for all".
Software engineering, information system and computer science students presented to a team of judges and the top three teams qualified for the final round.
Imagine Cup Regional Software Design Finals 2007
On Friday 22 June, the top 3 teams competing in the New Zealand Imagine Cup Software Design Invitational presented their project ideas to an audience of academics, media, industry and Microsoft experts at Microsoft’s Auckland offices.
The teams representing Otago, Waikato and AUT Universities each had 20 minutes to wow the judges. It was a tight race with Team Ackermen from Waikato coming out on top! As first place winners, the team is now planning their all expenses paid trip to Seoul, Korea to take part in the Worldwide Finals.
Second place winners T4 from Otago won a XBOX and game package and the third place winners AUT Champs from AUT took away a plethora of Microsoft software.
IC2007 Winners and Finalists
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Project Outline
There is solid research coming out of universities which shows a decline of interest in physics among secondary school students. The purpose of Gary’s Lab (GL) is to reverse this decline, and provide a mechanism to build students confidence in physics. GL aims to motivate physics students by providing them with an immersive 3D environment in which they are required to solve a physics based problem. Users are tasked with the creation and execution of lab experiments using equipment and basic construction techniques. A simulation of this type gives tremendous freedom, allowing users to explore the results of different experiment setups. It gives users insight into practical physics problems, and a look at the concepts behind them. Furthermore, experiments are not limited in scale. Experiments become more engaging for the user when the items in the simulation are 'full sized'. The framework of XNA and the AGEIA physics engine facilitate this flawlessly. This is demonstrated in GL through the use of terrain and correct scaling of the player height.
Press
"Making Science Fun" - Close Up, TVNZ (includes video)
