Mid Term Summary - Practical Training Vol. 3

After 3 months i could make a short summary on my experiences here. Today i participated in a meeting together with all grouper growers in Israel.

during 2008 and 2009 young groupers which developed in NCM has been part of some experiments in few different conditions of water qualities around Israel by private companies and by national institutes as NCM. My experiment was to check the ability to reduce the amount of sea water intake and the ability to recirculated the water in the system and by that have control about different nutrients (mostly different Nitrate compounds) which flow back to the sea.

The other experiments held by other companies tested the ability to grow the grouper in low salinity (5ppt compared to 40 ppt of sea water) some in recirculated systems and others in flow through systems.

During May the experiment had to stop due to a terrible unknown illness which caused more than 50% mortality in 3 weeks and continued to this day. The main catalyst was a pathogene called Mycobacterium, a type of fish Tuberculosis and dangerous also to humans. The mycobacterium doesnt have any known treatment and the only way to fight it is by providing the fish the best water quality conditions.

The illness is still officialy announced unknown since it has been detected through all different groupers and other fish departments. Another reason was that the mycobaterium causing a chronic harm and it is not accute as it is weaken the fish immune system and exposing it to other pathgenes.


The grouper growth is on the starting stages of studying and during next few years a lot more will be known about the white grouper behavior, limits and social paterns which will provide the ground for an environmental type of aquaculture which is also extreme financial worth and therefore worth to be held by all companies.

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

Greetings from Menomonie, Wisconsin!

As some of the readers of TAMK International Blog may have already heard, I'm currently visiting a TAMK partner University of Wisconsin-Stout. UW-Stout is an active, working life oriented university with 8500 students situated in town of Menomonie in Wisconsin, USA.

So far, I have met a number of UW-Stout faculty members who have been very interested in doing cooperative projects or developing online courses together with TAMK staff. UW-Stout also offers good exchange opportunities for highly motivated, self-guided TAMK students with good English language communication skills. Successful exchange studies in UW-Stout may require slightly more work than studies in TAMK, especially in the form of written reports in English but for those with the right motivation, it is an excellent opportunity to gain international experience.

UW-Stout Professors Bryan Beamer and Kari Dahl will be visiting TAMK during this and the next week with a group of 19 students. I hope many of you have the opportunity to meet them.
If you come up with ideas for cooperative projects or online courses where you could cooperate with UW-Stout staff, please let me know and I will find you the relevant contacts. I will also be posting updates of the projects on this blog.

Have a great beginning of summer!

Story and photos: Timo Nevalainen

More information on studies offered in UW-Stout

Welcome to Tampere Art Factory

Tampere Art Factory opened this morning and runs until tomorrow evening. Most exhibitions, films, performances, animations, videos, music videos etc. etc. are experienced at TAMK School of Art and Media Campus at Finlayson, the heart of Tampere.
Fine Art student's graduate show Discourse Disco is in two locations nearby, the Art Centre Mältinranta and the TR1 exhibition Centre.

The Silence is Golden Workshop you find at the top floor of our school. It is run by Bauhaus University Weimar. All visitors get their personal piece of art.
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In the TAF lobby you can be a part of the Interactive VJ Workshop Nou & Herkauw, arranged by the Academy of Pop Culture, Holland (in the background). Here you can also enjoy videos, animations and music videos, and take a coffee break.

A group of international visitors at our rooftop garden. Our international week and TAF has international guests from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, UK, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Lebanon, Hungary, Iceland, Malaysia and Italy.

Demola presents games and other interactive projects made by our students.

TAF is open 10-16 today, 10-18 tomorrow. TAF Clubs both evenings at Laterna.

Tampere Art Factory
Demola

School of Art and Media International Week Started

The International Week of TAMK School of Art and Media really started yesterday, most international guests have arrived. The workshops of the week are:

• Responsive & Reactive Moving Image Workshop by Robert Brecevic, Performing Pictures of Interactive Institute (SE)
• Interactive VJ Workshop Nou & Herkauw by Adri Schokker and Frauke Lehberger, Academy of Pop Culture (NL)
• Editing Workshop by Elie Yazbeck, Institut d'études scéniques, audiovisuelles et cinématographiques (LB)
• Animation Workshop by Algimantas Taujanskas, Vilnius College of Technologies and Design
• "Silence is Golden" Photo Workshop, Alexander Lembke, Faculty of Media Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (DE)

Most workshops will present their results as a part of Tampere Art Factory programme May 15-16

On Wednesday there is additionally a series of presentations:

• Heli Tuksam, Tartu Art College will have a presentation on Tartu Art College and the student projects
• Aija Druvaskalne-Urdze, Liepaja University New Media Art Programme Presentation
• EUROPRIX Multimedia Art, Rainer Steindler, International Center for New Media
• Interactive Movies? Why and How? Chris Hales, SmartLab
• Academy of Popculture, Adri Schokker
• Bauhaus Universität Weimar, Aleksander Lembke

On Thursday there is the “Teaching and Learning with the Internet Generation – Methods and Solutions” seminar featuring:

• Aija Druvaskalne-Urdze, Liepaja University New Media Art Programme
• René Lansink, Utrecht School of the Arts (About the Crash Project )
• Alex Reuneker and Patrick Deters Haagse Hogeschool, Academie voor ICT & Media, Communication & Multimedia Design
• Albert van der Kooij, Hanzehogeschool Groningen, Academy of Popculture (About the Island Festival)
• Chris Hales, SmartLab, University of East London
• Wesa Aapro, TAMK (About Demola)
• Leena Mäkelä, Head of TAMK Film and Television Programme
• Juha Suonpää, Head of TAMK Fine Arts Programme

Photo: In the Performing Pictures workshop the students also use quite exotic tools, like the soldering iron. From left to right: Filipa Geraldes (Lissabon), Robert Brecevic (Stockholm), Stephanie Stijkel (Groningen, Holland), Tuija Lappalainen (Tampere) and Timo Bredenberg (Tampere).