TAF – How can universities give students a kick to go global?

The international seminar "How Universities give students a kick to go global?" was kicked off in Demola by Jukka Siltanen and Taru Söderlund. Jukka invited the audience to ponder: "What can I learn?" and "How is it important to me personally?"

As Jukka pointed out, most importantly, TAF seminar is a day to celebrate TAMK students and their achievements! The speakers spoke of art and internationalism from different perspectives.

Andrea Zapata Girau showed a trailer of her up-coming Flamenco Movie, and Pekka Saari spoke about his film Memory of tomorrow, especially about combining the production with postproduction. Pekka Niskanen told the audience of the exhibition his students are having first at Werstas in Tampere and then in Dortmund. He also shared his experiences in the international art world. Then Robert Niva and Martti Sirkkola demonstrated their 3D animation project, in which they had learned the entire process of doing a 3D animation by doing it together, in a group, instead of relying on traditional lecture-based education. They explained the importance of using the wisdom of crowds and social media application in learning and producing art.


After the break it was time for Jukka Siltanen to take the stage again. Jukka talked about Hub Tampere and entrepreneurship. Hub Tampere is all about joint entrepreneurship and sharing both skills, ideas and resources. Hub Tampere has already had some excellent success, and Jukka sounded very optimistic about its future. The Proacademy students presented their projects: a Tampere guidebook for exchange students, a football tournament and its afterparty. Then producer Timo Vierimaa, spoke about his film, the "Steam of Life" ("Miesten vuoro") and how he succeeded in making his film truly international. According to Vierimaa, the keys to success are good presentation and communication skills along with patience.

The final speaker of the event was Juho Hartikainen from Score game development club, who explained how the Score game club came to be. Hartikainen emphasised the fact that the students who have the enthusism and drive to do new, innovative things, should be supported and encouraged. The students should feel like they are working for the school instead of just in the school. Siltanen, Vierimaa, Niva and Sirkkola as well as the highly interesting Proacademy projects, all highlighted the fact that so much of today's learning takes place outside the traditional classroom environment. This type of learning must be supported and nurtured, for it is the key to national and international success.


Andrea Zapata Girau final thesis work at TAMK

Links:
http://www.memoryoftomorrow.com
http://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/2010/04/promoting-changes-exhibition-to-inter.html
http://3danimationproject.wordpress.com
http://hubtampere.wordpress.com
http://www.proakatemia.fi
http://score.igda.fi/

Score at Nordic Game!

Nordic Game is a two-day conference event focused on the game industry on the Nordic countries. Game Development Club Score, which is operating under TAMK, got sponsored tickets to the event from Neogames, the Finnish Center of Game Business, Research & Development. This year's event followed and almost coincided with Tampere Art Factory, so Score had their hands full of work. Fortunately, we got our business cards ready and organised our traveling schedule with TAMK's travel secretary Sirkku Teikari, big thanks to her. Nordic Game has now passed, and we would like to share some of our thoughts regarding the event and the trip in general.

One group of students traveled by plane (Niko Korhonen, Janne Jaakkola, Pasi Perkiö, Teemu Haila), while others decided to save money and the environment by using a ship (Juhani Hujala, Mikko Kähäri, Tuomas Järvensivu, Juho Hartikainen, Antti Salomaa). Even though the cruise path was consecutively longer and for example we journeyed the trip from Stockholm to Malmö in a bus for over 12 hours, this didn't demoralise any of us. The trip back to Stockholm went on smoothly as we got to ride the bus from Outokumpu Pelitalo, i.e. other game development students from Finland who conveniently stayed in the same hostel as we did.

Nordic Game in itself was really worth attending to. The speakers were cutting edge, so as listeners we just had to find our ways to topics that were most relevant to our interests, for there were a number of speakers and as such most of the seminars were being held simultaneously. Another key component of the event was networking among the game developers. Though we might have not gotten invitations to Norway this time, time will tell if the socializing sparks something concrete, either for the club or its members. At the very least, the coverage won't be hurting us the least bit.

The presentation from Unity 3D showed off their middleware game development platform and convinced many of us to lob it inside the School of Art and Media. The Degree Programme in Business Information Systems at Teiskontie Campus has already ordered 20 Unity licenses, so our wishes just might not be all that utopistic. Alex Evans, the developer of LittleBigPlanet shared some precious hints on how to structure a game development pipeline, and in turn, Bionic Commando Rearmed's development studio GRIN told their experiences with working on a remake from a classic game title. Besides these keynotes, the audience got to witness a vast number of different viewpoints concerning the future of game development, as well as other topics that were very relevant to us as students.

The overall supply that the conference offered got us thinking outside the box. All in all, we are very pleased that we got the chance to be part of an event like this, with little to no cost. During the journey, we also figured that in order to help the Nordic game community we must actively focus on enhancing the Finnish national game industry. It is somewhat ironic to go all the way to Malmö just to grasp this idea, but apparently this is turning into an annual trend, if we're to examine last year's trip to Nordic Game. Hopefully we can improve the matter until the next event!

Author: Juho Hartikainen, President of Score Game Development Club

The TAMK School of Art and Media students of the Score delegation. Juho Hartikainen on left side.
Photo: Teemu Haila

Score Teams Successfull in Imagine Cup

Two teams from Game Development Club Score have advanced to the second round of Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition! Thousands of competition entries were submitted from all around the globe to the competition, but only 150 teams continued to fight for the grand prize. Teams have now two months time to finish and polish their games before the second deadline in May. We wish great success for the Score teams and hope to see them in the finals in Egypt in July!

Did you know...

Score is a game development club founded in 2007 by interactive media students at TAMK School of Art and Media. Their goal is to promote Finnish game industry and helping students who hope to build career in games but don't know how. There are currently around 65 members in the club, mostly students from Tampere region. Score has also involved in organizing workshops with subjects like work flow in teams and agile development.

Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition is an annual global event in which competitors are required to create innovative prototypes. This year's theme is to promote the eight UN Millennium Development Goals, create potential solutions that address the toughest problems facing our world today.

There are many contest categories to choose between, robotics and algorithms for example. The Score teams are battling in game development category. The grand prize is 25 000 US$ divided between the members of the team, in addition to various development kits.

The successful games:
Unity
Villa Penguila

Ruffian Games Gareth Noyse comments the games

Imagine Cup
Imagine Cup Game Development competition
Score
UN Millennium Development Goals

You can try out these + other games and meet Score members in Demola during our Tampere Art Factory festival May 15-16.
Tampere Art Factory
Demola

Picture: Screenshot from Unity

Read about other activities of the School of Art and Media to promote the Millennium Development Goals

Game Development Club Score's New Website

Score, the game development club operating under TAMK's student union and from Finlayson, has recently published their new website. The visual design has been revised and the content has been updated. The site also states that there will be more sections in the near future. The site is run with the help of WordPress, the free, open-source content management system.

Juho Hartikainen
Score President

View the site
Earlier stories about Score in the School of Art and Media Blog