Light Bulb Energy Saving Device

 This year’s Capstone demonstrations for Computer Engineering and Electronics Engineering Technology students were amazing and impressive.  There was a working remote control lawn mower, RFID decoder, and a computerized hydroponic garden to name a few.  More photos.

Jam 3 won two Canadian Digi Awards (formerly Canadian New Media Awards) this year – 2011.  The incredible fact is that one was for the Best Design Team and the second was for the Best Development Team.  Way to go!

Jam 3 was founded in 2003 by three Sheridan Interactive Multimedia graduates Adrian Belina, Pablo Vio and Mark McQuillan.  They have since grown into a most excellent interactive team which also includes a number of IMM grads.  You can see the folks at Jam 3 in their creative assessment of what their team does http://jam3.com. Here is a quote from Adrian Belina, one of the founders of Jam 3:

It a special evening when you are honoured for being tops in both Design and Development. These awards are especially nice because they’re not just about one project that a few people worked on… they speak to the hard working, passionate teams that make it all happen, all year round. Very proud of everyone at Jam3 right now.

These awards are also a great success for the IMM program as not only the partners, Mark, Pablo and myself, graduated from the IMM class but we also employ 3 developers from the program as well. A true testament to the quality of the program!

Stitch Media founded by IMM graduate, Evan Jones, also won a Digi Award for Best in Digital Advertising.   Congrats Evan!

Sheridan Interactive Multimedia is now accepting applicants for 2012.  Great jobs!  Great careers!  Advance our culture making interactive fun and useful stuff!  Designers, come on in and learn how to make your work… work!  Programmers come on in and learn how to program in an interactive environment beyond navigation. Other disciplines like Marketing, Engineering, Illustration, Animation, Computer Science, welcome!  Get with the mobile revolution!

http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca (redesign on its way).

-2011-

The Osaka University of Electro Communications students of Gaming and Media came to visit Sheridan and are pictured below hanging out with the Sheridan Interactive Multimedia Post Grad class of 2012.  We went on to show our Gesture technology – waiving our hands at the camera to control motion in the computer.  We showed how it was done and made working applications.

MORE PICTURES on http://interactivemultimedia.wordpress.com

Roubion Residence. Modeled by: Raniezack Carrera. Designed by: Progressive Architecture

Hello Everyone…

The Architectural Technology third year students, faculty, and the School of Applied Computing and Engineering Sciences are holding their annual Architectural Student Open House.  Students will have their final projects on display, along with their resumes and portfolios.

Featured work includes:  3D CAD Modelling, Rendering, Animations, Student Designed Internet Web Sites, CAD Design, Working Drawings, Models and more.

Location:  Rooms B110, B111a and B111b at the Davis Campus

Date:  Thursday, August 18, 2011

Time:  3pm – 6pm

See you there!

Tsai Residence. Modeled by: Christopher Chu. Designed by: HHF Architects

THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF ONTARIO
It was a great experience for our faculty and student to meet His Honour and hear his vision for a more interactive and social Web presence including facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels.  The students look forward to the challenge of designing for fresh ideas while reflecting our heritage.

FITC DESIGN CONFERENCE
FITC Toronto is one of the largest and longest running design events in the world: http://www.fitc.ca.  The students are creating an interactive installation at the conference combining spatial id (RFID tags or QR codes) with head/eye tracking video and Adobe Flash.

ALMOST NAKED ANIMALS
Students are making games for Web and perhaps Mobile for Almost Naked Animals the TV show that airs on YTV Kids television network .

So… certainly a variety of projects for this year’s designers and developers in the one year post grad, Sheridan Interactive Multimedia program.  If you are interested in seeing what the program entails, please visit our http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca site and check out the Course Outlines.  There are also links to apply for September.  So please pass along the news.

-2011-

The three-screen setting for the OMCA Quiz Bowl

The Sheridan Faculty of Business was responsible for hosting the 2010 Ontario Colleges Marketing Awards.  Keith Barnwell approached Animation and snagged Professor David Quesnelle but realized that he wanted interactivity with an animated co-host for the Quiz Bowl.  They were led to Sheridan Interactive Multimedia and found Professor, Dan Zen (me).  Interactive Multimedia is a one year post grad in the new Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technology.

Dan Zen thought to use his animating to sounds in Flash skills to make the idol mouth, eyebrows and arms animate to the voice of an unseen actor (David) behind the curtains.  Yes… very wizard of oz – prompting facebook status lines, “I am off to be the wizard”.

The Quiz Bowl was amazing!  14 teams of four students each in an energetic round robin trivia showdown!  The teams were made up of mixed Ontario College students in Business and Marketing.  What energy in the crowd with fans all dressed up and chanting and energized by vases of candy!  See the Flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danzen/sets/72157625547244278/.  Perhaps view as a slideshow.

Keith, David and Dan worked hard for a few months (356 emails) creating the tools and screens to operate the Quizbowl.  Dan Zen built the tools in Flash with characters from David and direction from Keith:

• Main Screen: Osci talking Idol Head and score board
• Scorekeeper Tool: remotely connected to the main screen to change the scores
• Team Screens: two team screens with bobble head Hollywood mascots and questions, answers, timer and trivia
• Team Tool: brought mascots on and off stage, operated round robin questions and timers

Keith was the Master of Ceremonies, David was the man behind the curtain with Osci, Charlene was the scorekeeper, Dan Zen operated two computers each with dual monitors to coordinate the team screens and Joanna, a volunteer from IMM, helped keep Dan  on track.

“I felt like I was a VJ mixing sounds and videos for a crowd of ravers!  We had a curtained off booth with all this equipment and the crowd was so into the game and teams!  Wow – what an experience!” recounts Dan Zen.

Osci and the Host had banter going all the time bringing up the score board and tucking it away – commenting on scores and team mascots – like Maryln Monroe made him melt…  Dan Zen would bring teams on and off and handle questions and timers as follows:

• Mascots are dimmed and bobble heads stopped as the question is read
• If a team buzzes in before the question is fully read, they get a 30 second timer
• If they get it wrong, the question is fully read and the other side gets a 15 second timer
• If they first team gets it right, they wave flags and the timer gets put away
• If the question is completely read initially then the question is shown on both screens and both teams have 15 seconds to buzz in
• There are 10 questions per game and dozens of games over 4 or 5 rounds with tie breakers and extra questions
• Teams have to go in and out on their own screens and trivia is synced across two screens

These requirements made for quite the complex tools and operations but with the right hotkeys and menus, the event went almost flawlessly.  There was a time when the question was flashed before it was read, the question was read and judges judged both teams had an opportunity to read it.  There was also a contested question reading that resulted in a rematch including extra questions.  The system handled this perfectly and it was a very proud moment to have planned so well.

Here are links to the tools with the Team Screen just set to animate randomly.  The tools need to be run together in slightly special ways to work fully.

• Main Screen: SCREEN STATES:  P – peek,  Z – nothing,  X – idol,  C – score,  V – idol & score, SPACE – toggle idol, 0-9 – volume (0 is off 9 is most sensitive),  left / right – head tilt  down – look down, up – head reset to normal,  \ – head spin.
• ScoreKeeper Tool – (sample will not actually change the score)
• Team Screen – need to run the Team Tool in another browser to operate Team Screen
• Team Tool – run with the Team Screen to control the characters and questions

All in all, it was a wonderful experience using interactive multimedia for a presentation show like this.  It was very successful.

The skills needed to make applications like this are learned in the Sheridan one-year post grad program, Interactive Multimedia.  Sheridan also has a number of excellent animation and business/marketing programs.  It should be noted that Sheridan swept the Marketing Awards held the following night.

-2010-

Please be advised that the Brown Bag session originally scheduled for this Wednesday, December 8th (tomorrow) has been postponed until January, exact date still to be determined. An announcement with a revised date and time will be distributed once a suitable date has been determined.

Thank you for supporting the Brown Bag Speakers Series in 2010, and we look forward to hosting you for more of these engaging sessions in the New Year.

The School of Applied Computing and Engineering Sciences invites you to attend the next installment of its Brown Bag Speakers Series, which will be held on Wednesday, November 10th from 11 a.m. to 12:00 noon in room H228 at the Davis Campus.

This week’s speaker is Mr. Gary Thompson.  In addition to being a part time professor at Sheridan, Gary works for Toronto Hydro, and is responsible for Generation Planning in the City of Toronto and the day to day relationship that exists between Hydro One and Toronto Hydro. Drawing on this experience, Gary will be talking about Toronto Hydro’s experience to date with the Ontario Power Authority’s FIT & microFIT Programs, challenges to integrate Distributed Generation into the Toronto Hydro Grid, and current activities related to Smart Grid by Toronto Hydro.  Gary will also provide some examples of similar projects currently being implemented around the GTA.

As always, all members of the Sheridan community are invited to attend.  To ensure that adequate refreshments are ordered for this event, please send your RSVP to Dave Clark via email at dave.clark1@sheridanc.on.ca, or by phone at 905-459-7533 x5064.

Any questions or concerns regarding this, or any other of the Brown Bag sessions can be directed to Dave Clark at 905-459-7533 ext. 5064, or by email at dave.clark1@sheridanc.on.ca.

Thank you.