Yesterday I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Australian Imagine Cup finals which were held at Microsoft’s REMIX07 conference in Melbourne at Crown Promenade.
Imagine Cup is the worlds premiere student software competition with teams and individuals from over fifty countries competing worldwide in a number of different categories. Each year the competition has a theme that is designed to give students the opportunity to make a difference in the world through focusing their passions, imagination and creativity through technology. The theme for this years 5th Imagine Cup was “imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all“, which opened up a whole range of endless possibilities. What is really great about this theme is that education surrounds students – which means they have a first hand understanding of what’s currently in use and how it can be improved upon.
The competition is broken into three category areas – Technology Solutions, Skills Challenges and Digital Arts. In total there are nine categories, with all being judged online, except for the software design competition which is judged in each country with the winners flying to Korea for the worldwide finals in August 2007.
Having the Australian finals combined with REMIX was a great initiative because it gave the presenting teams an opportunity to demonstrate their entries to the conference delegates. All three finalists had web services as a key element within their entries. This made the feedback from the REMIX attendees even more valuable because they were primarily web designers and web developers. For those of you unfamiliar with REMIX it is Microsoft’s conference for “cutting-edge web professionals designing and building next generation experiences” and was an excellent arena for the judging of the Imagine Cup.
The Teams:
THE INTELLIGENT GORILLAS
Team Members: Andrew Tan, David Lei, Chien Soon Jon
Team Mentor: Dr On Wong
University: Queensland University of Technology
Place: 3rd
Prizes: One copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Ultimate each and $500 for the team
The Intelligent Gorillas were the first to present in the finals with a formulation they called Question Answer Technology (QAT). QAT provided the ability for a PowerPoint plug-in to record audio during lectures and place it on the internet. Once on the internet users of the system could access it from either their computers or mobile devices to perform a number of functions such as hearing the recording and more importantly using the question asking functions. The idea behind their entry is that students can ask a question by recording it which will result in the question appearing on their site mapped to the slide that the question was asked about. When the lecturer answers the question it appears as a reply to the initial question allowing all the students using the system to view it, which they had not previously been able to do.
Their demonstration was very impressive with the use of a mobile device to record a question by one of the team members acting as a student on the system. The question was received by another team member acting as a lecturer, who quickly listened to the question we had just heard recorded and responded with an answer that was also recorded. The student who asked the question was able to view the answer as part of the conversation on that slide and then listen to it on his mobile device.
The collaborative learning functions of the QAT system were impressive and fitted in with the theme very well through the shared learning they created. QAT had a special generated image that put slides in different sections based on if they had questions or answers linked to them. This layout initiative made it very easy to access the information. One of the drawbacks with their solution that they plan to resolve in their next revision is the inclusion of the function to access other information that is not a part of PowerPoint in between audio recordings. For example in a programming lecture there is no current way to jump from a slide to some code in another application without losing the recording function. Another future opportunity is the use of video recording and streaming instead of just audio.
Overall I was impressed with the efforts of The Intelligent Gorillas because they identified a key issue and solved it with a practical solution. They identified that students are unable to attend lectures at times and need a facility to be able to emulate the content that was in those lectures. Furthermore they recognised that often students will have similar problems that they would need to obtain help with from their lecturer. By providing the questions and answers online the same information asked by one student can be relayed to and shared by all the others. This not only saves time for student and lecturer alike but proivides an easy means of obtaining answers to common questions. With a copy of the lecture being placed online students who missed the lecture or would like to listen to it again are able to do so.
TEAM APA
Team Members: Phillip Haines, Ngoc Thuy Duong Khuu, Van Tieu Vinh and Ping Lin
Team Mentor: Dr Dat Tran
University: University of Canberra
Place: 1st
Prizes: Flights to Korea to compete and represent Australia in the world Imagine Cup finals and $2000 for the team
Team APA (Audio Programming Assistant) presented a tool they had developed for helping blind people develop in C#.NET that they called Audio Studio .NET and a custom web browser to aid blind users in browsing the internet. They also prepared a website with various help solutions for blind programmers including help forums and programming lessons. Their entry opened up many doors to blind people that not only allowed them to better educated themselves but in many aspects allowed them to have the same equality and access that we take for granted.
During their presentation they performed a live demonstration where one of the team members acted as a blind user and was unable to see the screen. Through the use of their customized visual studio the blind user was able to have options read out and effectively write, compile and run an application made on the spot. They performed a number of other demonstrations such as editing an existing program and viewing web pages with their customized browser.
The issue APA addressed and the solution they created to solve it was remarkable with the thought of blind people programming being previously impossible in my mind until witnessing their presentation. The only criticism I would make of team APA was their ability to answer questions about their entry and that their presentation skills were not as strong as the other two teams. I suggest that they work on improving this if they want to win the world final in Korea. Although they targeted a very special audience with their entry in the end helping blind users access the web and be able to program will result in a greater benefit to everyone.
SMART EDUCATION TEAM
Team Members: Shafquat Zaman Khan, Jagdish Mehra, Muhammad Meherban Arif
Team Mentor: Dr Dat Tran
University: University of Canberra
Place: 2nd
Prizes: An Xbox360 each and $1000 for the team
The Smart Education team entry was a website that they had created which offered students a number of functions to aid them in their educational activities.
One of the primary functions of their site was the ability to share notes with peers from a number of materials such as lecture, book, whiteboard or handwritten. What makes this service really useful was that they offered the ability to transform the notes by changing them into various formats that made them more accessible to other people and easier to create. One of the outstanding benefits of their site was the ability to translate handwriting into text and then translate that same text into spoken audio or into a different language. They offered many other services such as a scheduling tool that allowed students to plan their schedule so they could manage time better.
What I found really appealing about their web service was the text translation tool which allowed for students to be able to take photos of their textbooks or lecture notes on the spot with their mobile phones or mobile devices. This is so useful because often students spend so long writing down notes as fast as they can in lectures to make sure they get everything down that they do not understand or pick up on what is being explained. By obtaining the text quickly, they can also listen and concentrate on understanding what the lecturer is saying aswell. This still is also useful when library texts are not available for loan, to photograph the pages required which allows their consideration and noting to be done later, which makes better use of time spent in librarys.
The major criticism I have was the large focus oon the note taking ability during lectures using a mobile phone, which is not really feasible. The problem that arises is lecture theatres are quite large and often students can be great distances from where the slides are being projected. Moreover at this point of time mobile phone cameras are lacking strong enough lense distance required to take a legible photo that could be used for the translation. During the presentation the team said they had tested out this aspect and found that distances under five metres were appropriate which currently would rule out almost all students in a lecture theatre.
On a better note it was great that one of the judges identified a great potential that Smart Educations entry had for adaption “for use for almost anything” far beyond the theme of education. All in all I was very satisfied with their efforts by tackling a number of problems that were making their learning experience harder than it should be and were trying to find a way to improve educational methods.
THE JUDGES
For the judging of the competition a high profile group of very experianced personnel from a variety relevant backgrounds were essembled. I add my thanks to them in being kind enough to give up their time to perform their tasks, which they did admirably.The judges consisted of:
Tony Sarno, editor of APC magazine
Tony Lupton, Parliamentary Secretary for Industry and Innovation and member for Prahran
Andrew Coates, Microsoft Developer Evangelist
Andrew Sterling, Microsoft Developer Evangelist
Shahed Khan, pro developer and Microsoft MVP (most valued professional)
Their time and constructive comment was much appreciated by the teams who were very lucky to have such an expert group examine their work. The strong interest and attention to detail that the judges showed towards the competitors helped make the experience far more rewarding for the three teams and the audience.
After the teams had spent some time demonstrating their presentations at the Imagine Cup booths a presentation was made by Nic Ellery during a scheduled afternoon tea break where the guest judges were introduced and given momentos as a thank you for their valuable help. Tony Sarno (editor of APC magazine) also gave some brief info on Imagine Cup in APC and asked for bloggers to get involved and email him their blog url’s.
Finally the winning team was announced at the start of the final session of REMIX “Designers are from Venus, Developers are from Mars” where a panel of guest speakers gathered for discussion of the session topic. Nic Ellery (Microsoft’s Academic Marketing Manager) announced Team APA as the winning Australian team for 2007. Team APA were invited on stage to receive a giant novelty boarding pass to Korea which was handed to them by Tony Lupton (Parliamentary Secretary for Industry and Innovation and local member for Prahran). The REMIX crowd showed great appreciation and support for the much deserving winning team.
For Smart Education and the Intelligent Gorillas the ride has come to end but to come as far as they have is a great achievement and was by no means an easy task. After talking to each of the teams it was clear that they had spent many long hours for months preparing their entries for the finals day. Team APA quoted “Each member of the team put in ten hours of coding a week and attended a weekly meeting over the thirteen weeks of development”.
I compliment both teams not only for their effort but their enterprising ideas and ability to transform them into models which could long term make big contributions to not only facilitating education but improving the needs of their community in their use of the computer industry aswell.
The work contributed by the mentors Dr Dat Tran, Dr On Wong and Dr Dharmendra Sharma was also a very demanding task that deserves much appreciation. Without the help and support of these gentlemen through guiding teams and pushing the program on campus the competition would have been in no way as sucessful. Hopefully in future years in the Imagine Cup compeition other institutions across Australia can get invovled as much as University of Canberra and Queensland University of Technology have by making students aware and fully supporting them.
The achievements of the three teams were nothing but amazing with them all demonstrating creativity, goodwill and passion backed up by outstanding technical skills. Their ability to use Microsoft technology to solve a problem really pushed the limits of what was expected and what could be done. All three teams should be very proud of themselves for making it to the finals and doing such a great job!
For Team APA a window of opportunity has been opened. They must have a good chance to win the world Imagine Cup final when they venture to Korea in August. They fought hard and will continue to do so when they duke it out against the worlds best and I am confident they will do Australia proud. I would like to wish Team APA the best of luck for the journey ahead and look forward to hearing a full report on their return. Smash it guys!
Finally for those of you who missed out or would like to get involved in the next Imagine Cup don’t hold back because Imagine Cup 2008 is just around the corner with the announcement of the next theme and location. The theme for the 6th Imagine Cup is “imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment” and the world finals are located in Paris, France. So start thinking how you can make something great that fits into this theme and go for it. Also remember that the competition is open to all students not just those who study information technology so get others with different knowledge and abilities onboard.
