WARNING: This Blog entry is rather long!

The Imagine Cup UK 2006 finals were held down in Reading on Friday 10th of March. In attendance teams Key Pair, ALPS, Helix, Lost Boys, Healf Conscious, Salveo, CheeseEaters, Medaware, Ariel and Three Pair. As I’ve mentioned previously Rob, Andy and I had spent a fair amount of time trying to get some really enthusiastic and dedicated students together from Hull. We felt more than a little delighted when we found out that of the ten finalists; four teams where from, or involved, students of Hull University.

On Thursday 9th March, at 11.30am, teams CheeseEaters, Medaware, Ariel and Three Pair, accompanied by mentors Rob Miles, David Grey and Ian Kelwick piled onto a coach and set off on the five hour journey down to Reading. Plenty of fun was had along the way and a great deal of Nintendo DS action took place.

 We eventually arrived at the Hilton hotel in Reading where we quickly settled in and got ready for the evening event that had been organised for the finalists. As the night went on we were served some rather tasty curries, especially the Salmon, followed by some delicious desserts. After dinner we all had a few more drinks and took part in an ‘Australian’ quiz, it was great fun. At around 10.30pm, myself, and fellow team mates, Andy Sterland and James Lissiak, decided to call it a night and returned to Andy’s room to go over our presentations again. Firstly we needed to iron out a few issues with the two minute version; this was a major priority, if we couldn’t articulate the problem we wouldn’t be getting very far. By 11.30pm we were confident that the material we had was good enough to successfully deliver our point. We then did some more work on the ten minute version, just in case we got any further. By 1am we were happy and ready for bed, we definitely needed some rest before the big day.

Friday 10th, 6.30am, I was the first of Team Three Pair to awake. A shave and a shower later and I was ready to get practicing the presentation again. Eventually all three members of the team were up and sat having breakfast, it was really daunting when the other teams came down wearing shirts and ties, they certainly looked very professional.

So after much fun the day before; it was now down to the real business, to compete and hopefully win the UK final. We all piled onto another coach and set off for Microsoft, Reading. Plenty of things took place during the day, I won’t go over it all; this entry is already pretty long as it is. Basically the events of importance were; the two minute poster presentations, the ten minute group presentation and the results of the competition.

The first stage of the competition was a presentation, to the judges, of our poster and our idea. The carefully prepared version we already had was scrapped roughly fifteen minutes before our session. I had been asked to go upstairs and do a video interview to express my feelings about the support we get at Hull, which never actually happened as the crew had to dash off to cover something else. When I eventually met back up with Andy and James they’d decided it was best to do the presentation in a more relaxed way. We were just going to deliver a more casual and to the point show, it was really important that we got across the impact that our application could have on people who really need it. We stood in front of our poster, the judges approached and we began.

Andy delivered a very passionate message, I love the way he throws himself into it, he deserves a great deal of respect, we all believe in our application very strongly but Andy really lets it show. I then started to go over my area of the project but had a sudden mental block at the very last second, James picked up on this and flawlessly covered as he went onto his own material, I really should get him a drink to say thanks for that. The judges had several questions, all very interesting; they certainly gave us something to think about. When it was over we were all really proud of ourselves and started wandering around again anxiously waiting for the announcement of the three teams that would be going on to do a ten minute presentation.

After a short presentation on something that, to my shame, I didn’t really pay much attention too because of nerves, the top three teams were announced.

Team Medaware of the University of Hull.

Team Ariel of the universities of Durham, Hull and Manchester.

Team Three Pair (That’s us!!!) of the University of Hull

It was amazing, whatever happened it would be a team from Hull going on to the World Final in India. Truly breath-taking stuff if you ask me.

So we were quickly whisked out of the room and taken off to our own areas where we had one hour and thirty minutes to prepare our ten minute presentation. We had a grand total of four ‘run through’ attempts. One was on our own and three were with Rob watching. During one of the attempts a film crew came in and filmed us laughing and making mistakes, they even asked us a few quick questions, it was getting serious now and my mind was turning to jelly. A few bangs of my head on a table later and I was back in action. Mark Johnston came and watched us go through it offering some really valuable encouragement, thanks go out to him; he really was great.

As we went on Rob had a few modifications he thought might help us out, we axed a hugely technical two minute section; it was boring. Unfortunately for James it was his section. So with only half an hour to go James had to learn some entirely new material, poor guy. Kudos to Rob though it certainly made the presentation more concise and less boring.

BANG!!!!

Time was up…. Unfortunately for us Andy had randomly chosen a card with the number one written on it…. This meant that we were up first, gulp!

We moved to the front of the presentation room, no spectators were in there yet, thank god! We were given a great last minute tip by Kevin McDaniel; if you go wrong, they don’t know you’ve done it unless you let them know. Genius!!! It is absolutely one of the most important things I have ever been told about presenting…. And before you think it; No imagining the crowd naked doesn’t help… especially at a programming related competition!
We started setting up and then I realized that I’m not very good at projecting my voice, what if people couldn’t hear me? I turned around to find a man stood there with three sound-packs Hurray!!! Perfect timing, one less thing to worry about!
All set, we waited as people filed back into the room, there was more than I remembered from before but rather oddly enough I wasn’t feeling too nervous now. Everyone seated; Mark introduced us and Andy kicked off the presentation, man he’s good at this stuff, it was at this point that panic hit me, what if I went wrong? What if I couldn’t speak?

BANG!!!

It was my turn to present, inside I was terrified but apparently on the outside I looked calm and collected, how odd….  I started talking, wham, I forgot to mention WinFX and XAML, oh well it was too late now; they were probably only buzz words anyway. A minute or two later I was done and handing over to James. With my fingers crossed I watched him as he started his new stuff; was he going to forget it all? Like hell he was! He played it cool and calm and did the team proud. Andy rounded the show off and we faced a few questions from the judges. That done we were asked to leave the room as the next team went in to do their thing.

The second we stepped out of the room we had a photographer taking our pictures, he was a nice guy and he stopped to tell us that he thought our application was a great idea; he knew what we were trying to do and had personal family experience of the problems we were addressing. This was really quite moving; to think that he really identified with us felt great. After a few pictures with our poster it was back to the film crew and more questions.
Finally we were let free to wait for the other two teams, I felt so relieved it was over; we sat down and relaxed until everyone had finished and the audience had left the room. During the thirty minute wait for the judges we got some feedback from mentors, audience members and friends, apparently they were impressed. Slowly people started heading back into the room and we were instructed to sit on the front row. The judges were ready to deliver their verdict, had we done enough? Who knows? It was anyone’s game, the other two teams had some really good ideas, was ours good enough?
Eventually after what felt like an eternity Matthew Bishop came to the stage, made a short speech and started announcing the third place team, it was Team Medaware, these guys are a great team of first year students who really did a top class job; they got a rather nice MP3 player and earned the University £750 for academic use.

This of course meant that it was all down to Team Ariel and us. Matthew held out for a while but finally announced the second place team, Team Ariel. They were a great bunch with a great idea and won a cool digital camera and some money for the Universities they each represented.

So we had won, my mouth had fallen open and I had spent a few seconds catching flies before I realised what had just happened, I was stunned and really didn’t have a clue what to say. We were called up to the stage, there was some vigorous hand shaking and we were presented with a framed certificate, an X-Box 360 Premium pack with Amped3, Project Gotham 3, Kameo, an extra wireless controller and finally a giant plane ticket. Wow, I can honestly say I have never felt so stunned or amazed in my entire life. From then on it was a whirlwind of activity, photos, more film crew questions, a champagne celebration with a big chocolate cake that we didn’t actually get to eat because we had interviews with the press. It was great!!!
As the event wound down and celebrations came to a close we said goodbye to the Microsoft staff and climbed aboard the coach again. We were all taken to TGI Fridays as a treat for doing so well, it was good to finally have a sit down and rest for a while. Of course what would we have done without the giant balloon hats we were made to wear and the song the entire place sang for us… Some days just get crazier and crazier! After a great laugh we all piled back onto the bus for the final time and headed off on the rather long journey home.

So, now that we’re back in Hull, what’s next? Firstly we need to thank Dr Paul Dark for the unbelievable support he has, and still is, giving us, we owe him more than a few drinks me thinks. This project would never have got this far without him.

For us though I believe the best way to describe our schedules for the foreseeable future is that they consist of meetings, meetings and one hell of a lot of hard work. But hey what does hard work matter? It’ll all be fun in the end, especially India!!!