I just read a great interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She talks about her experience of being the lone woman on the Court for the past three years and how she thinks the future looks for feminist legal issues. Check it out: The Place of Women on the Court - NYTimes.com
I have been slightly annoying Andy with multiple playings of Matt & Kim's Daylight. It came out last year, but i only heard it a week or so ago. You can download the track for free at Green Label Sound.
So, you guys know i teach robotics in an after-school program, right? Well, this past weekend was a robotics competition between the six different TechStart classes in the Seattle area. The turnout was great: lots of students and families along with TechStart teachers, TAF (our parent organization) staff, and volunteers.
I teach at two different schools, so i had two teams to coach in the competition (besides having helped set the thing up). One of my teams took third place, which was very cool, and my other team tied for fourth. The enthusiasm and focus shown by these students was incredible; we're talking about kids aged 10-14, who spent a beautiful Saturday morning in a hot gym pitting robots against each other.
The events were: Tug-of-war, BasketBot, Archery, and Drag Racing. Sofia served as the ball girl for BasketBot, an event that required the students to use the robot to shoot a ball into a cardboard box. She did a great job picking up all the stray ping pong balls while staying out of the line of fire. Archery was later called "the surprise excitement" by one of the audience members. It didn't actually involve any arrows, and i had assumed it would be a bit of a bore for the audience.
We had a target on the floor, and the students were told how far the center of the target was from the starting line (they were only told this at the competition, not beforehand). The kids then had to program their robots to go that distance, but there was a twist. The software doesn't have an option for plugging in a distance for a robot to travel; the teams had to use the speed of the robot (which they had worked out in class) and figure out how many seconds or wheel rotations the robot had to run for.
It ended up being pretty suspenseful, and there was a little drama when the robots actually ran. One team ran the wrong program on their robot, so they ended up about five feet from the target, while another team hit it dead on center. My teams unfortunately had some steering issues, and both robots veered away from the target at the last moment.
All in all, it was a great event, and i hope we do it again next year. The winning team got to take a trophy back to their school. I myself built the trophy out of yellow and red Lego bricks (eBay is the place to find specific colors for cheap, by the way), and i think it turned out pretty well:
Technology Access Foundation (TAF) unfortunately had a pretty serious fundraising shortfall this year due to the recession, and a number of administrative staff including my immediate supervisor have been laid off. In addition, one section of TechStart (luckily not the section i teach) is in dire straits and may not return in September. If any of you are looking to donate a little money to keep a well-deserving non-profit above water, please consider our global giving campaign. Thanks:
Photos from the Great Kilted Run are up on Facebook. If you want me to email them to you, just let me know; we apparently didn't take any pictures of crazy people in kilts, so there's nothing worth sharing here.
Andy and my mother have offered the following quotations from various media sources reviewing inFAMOUS.
From Andy:
Gaming Age
The audio in inFamous is incredible, especially when piped via HDMI to a capable 5.1 receiver. The dynamic and interesting score slowly builds when something noteworthy is about to happen and fades when ambient effects are more important. The positional surround sound effects are nicely done, and as always, very helpful in determining the location of those more sneaky enemies. Since everything is voiced, there's definitely a large amount of narration and voicework throughout the game and the acting is quite good. Cole's gruff voice pretty much fits his character, and his buddy Zeke provides a little comic relief at the right moments when you meet up with him.forum reader "blue" on teamxbox.com
...And so far, my most favorite part, is the sound design! The crackles of electricity are spot on, and the explosions have a nice "Oomph!" to them. Excellent dynamic soundtrack, the tunes are appropriate for the action unfolding...."
comment #120 "...The little touches are great, like the sound of Cole dragging his hand across brick as he hugs a building's wall, or the varying banter of civilians as you either help, or kill, them....I will tell you that inFAMOUS does possess a mess load of fantastic looking graphics and incredible sound. I will only play this game cranked up on the surround sound because it makes everything seem so much more involved. Great sound effects, great voice acting and it all comes together beautifully.
Reading the local paper today, on the back page of Sidelines under Gaming is an article about your game. It is written by Derrik J. Lang, Associated Press and rates it with 4 stars. It has a large photo of Cole zapping something and the whole article is about playing the game except for the last paragraph which reads:
Sucker Punch Productions started from scratch, creating an epic story that's not at all familiar. Without a back story to debate or previous editions to parallel, everything about "inFamous" feels fresh. From the moment players first hit the start button, there's no reinvention, just imagination.
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