Saturday, February 13, 2010

Yay!

Last semester BOBI had a big assignment in one of his computer programming classes. The assignment was to create something that would encourage people to walk. I suggested a sort of social network/meetup type site where people could recommend places to walk, best routes, places with good views or lots of hills, etc. I only say this because in case someone does end up creating this, I want to be able to say I thought of it first.

In any case, they did not use my idea but decided instead to do a demo* for an application for the New (at the time) Droid phone. I'm not 100% sure what the application is suppossed to do, but I think it's like a game in which Zombies are chasing you all over the campus and there are "safe points" that you have to walk to.

(*Please note that I am approximating the technical terms. Brian could tell it better but he's asleep after staying up all night playing Dante's Inferno.)

While they were working on this, Brian practically lived on campus. I would MAYBE see him for a few minutes in the morning, and he would be gone until sometimes 2:00 in the morning. The week before the project was due, he literally spent three days at school, sleeping on the couch in the ACM room. On day 3 he was too tired to even drive himself home. Finally, the project was finished. It seems that the Professor so admired their work, he told them to submit it to the CHI (Computer Human Interaction) Conference. This is a huge conference sponsored by Google, Microsoft and the National Science Foundation and being picked to show is kind of a huge deal.

AND THEY GOT PICKED!!!

So in April Brian and his other 2 team members will be heading down to Atlanta to show their project. Let's all give Brian and his hard work a round of Applause!

I will probably fly down to ATL (paying for myself of course)to see Brian's presentation and spend some time with my family while I'm there. I am so proud of him and so glad to know that all those long days & nights have finally paid off! Great work Baby!