New photos

The UAB student newspaper recently published a few more photos taken by their photographer the day of our September event. The team of the Oompaloompas was captured in the act! Click on the photos below to see them in more detail.

Article: Urban games come to Magic City

Friday, October 7, 2005 / Daniel Walters, Contributing Writer
The official student newspaper of University of Alabama at Brimingham

London, San Francisco and New York are just a few of the cities that have hosted large-scale urban games that mix technology and fun on a city block scale.

Now, it’s Birmingham’s turn.

At the seventh annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, UAB’s Game Development Club, dubbed by members as UAB GameDev, teamed up with TechBirmingham to develop and produce Birmingham’s first large-scale urban game, Urban Othello.

“We had a great time. Twenty-seven people participated in four teams in what one might call an ‘urban recess game’ of Urban Othello” said Curtis Palmer of TechBirmingham.

Othello is a strategic board game which involves play by two parties on an eight-by-eight square grid with pieces that have two distinct sides. Pieces typically appear coin-like, with a light and a dark face.

The dark team must place a piece with the dark side up on the board, in such a position that at least one straight (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) line exists between the new piece and another dark piece, with one or more contiguous light pieces between them.

The game was played on Birmingham streets on a game board spanning approximately 36 square blocks. At each intersection, teams found three words they must demonstrate in a picture using anything or anyone at that corner.

“So if the three words are blue, man, and run, the team might find a man in a blue shirt and ask him to run, and take a quick picture,” said Mr. Palmer.

Teams were each given a T-Mobile Sidekick II to take and submit pictures. This allowed teams to roam the game board freely and not have to return to the Harbert Center after each picture.

“I think this is cool because it is taking video gaming to a new level — you can be outside and play and get exercise,” said Mark Dillavou, a computer programmer for UAB’s mechanical engineering department and adviser for UAB GameDev.

UAB’s Game Developer’s Club worked with TechBirmingham to develop the software for the game. UAB students worked out the technical details and made Palmer’s game a reality in less than a month.

“Having it in Birmingham really puts Birmingham on the map as far as technology,” said Amy Dillavou, a UAB computer science major.

Photo Album of our first TechWalk event is now available

We had a great time on Saturday… 27 people participated in four teams (see posting below) in what one might call an “urban recess game” of Urban Othello. In addition to the sample photos shown below you might want to view our online TechWalk slideshow or look at individual photographs in the TechWalk 2005 photoset on FLICKR. Be sure to add your comments on the photos you like and give feedback to the participants who had so much fun playing the game!

CTS scores an intersection with a photo of “Yellow, deny, frail”	The Auburn Architecture students win the “MOST OUTRAGIOUS” award for this challenge photo: sanctuary, forgive, horrible
A successful challenge photo taken with the T-Mobile Sidekick: Parisian, dislike, many — UAB GameDev gives their fearless leader the finger	A picture of this scene being staged by the Oompaloompas appeared in the Birmingham News on the Sunday after the event
Each instersection on the game grid had a unique code to prove that the team was at a particular location	3 Teams got together afterwards and staged “Crazy, Pyramid, Flee” at the request of a media photographer from UAB

Game Over…

Playing today were:

• CTS “Geek Week Warriors” – event champions (pictured at right)
• Auburn University Architecture students
• UAB GameDev
• UAB Engineering School “Oompaloompas”

In the first round, Auburn beat UAB GameDev. CTS tied with the Oompaloompas, but the tie was broken by a vote of their best stunts by the other 2 teams. In the second round, CTS beat Auburn and UAB GameDev beat the Oompaloompas.

Check out how the games went at UrbanOthello.com. Click on each of the matches in the left column to see the photos and Othello plays.

Game Day Details

TOMORROW (Saturday) is the day!

• Start Location — Harbert Center on 4th Avenue North
• Registration — Opens at 9:30am. We’d prefer that you pre-register (see details in the next posting below) but you can register on site.
• Game Play — 10:00am until early afternoon. Each round is expected to last about an hour.
• What to wear — Comfortable clothing for outdoors plus running/walking shoes. Capes and costumes are strongly encouraged. The team with the most original uniforms/outfits will receive a bonus prize at the discretion of the judges.
• Questions — email curtis@techbirmingham.com anytime before or leading up to the game!

Interested in fielding a team?

The event is FREE to play! Please send an email to info @ techbirmingham.com indicating that you are interested in fielding a team. Be sure to provide the following information:

Team Leader’s name/email/cell phone		Team Name
How is your team associated together?		Number of players

PRIZES currently include 4 passes for all-movies access + awards ceremony on Sunday night, 4 Sidewalk t-shirts, a collectible Vulcan tree ornament, and loads of great T-Mobile goodies. Also, 4 passes to an exclusive, invitation-only Sidewalk bash on Saturday night will be awarded to the team with the most outrageous photo as judged by the organizers.

Article: Urban gaming takes to city streets

Teams use camera phones to compete in board-game style challenges downtown

Friday, September 23, 2005 / KELLI HEWETT TAYLOR, News staff writer

It’s been a hit in London, New York and San Francisco. Now cell phone-based, outdoor “urban gaming” comes to Birmingham Saturday during the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival. “Having it in Birmingham really puts Birmingham on the map as far as technology,” said Amy Dillavou, 21, a UAB computer science major who played her first test game this week. She plans to compete Saturday. Built on a four-year history of large-scale urban games in other cities, it uses strategies from the board game Othello.

It pits two teams against each other on a real-life game board, or grid. It is set along 36 downtown blocks, or intersections. Each team of four to six players uses a camera phone with Internet capability to download “challenges” at specific sites. On the city sidewalks, the teams act out their given scenes, based on three words. A team member snaps a photo with the phone and e-mails it to downtown judges for verification. Teams can track their competition on the picture phone. The team that “wins” the most intersections by acting out the scenes wins the game. T-Mobile has donated Sidekick II personal communications devices for the event.

“It resonates with the 18-30-year-old males and females,” said Curtis Palmer, 41, of TechBirmingham, who brainstormed the local game. “When I describe it to people in their 50s, they look at me with blank stares.” TechBirmingham is a not-for-profit organization that boosts technology-based business in Birmingham. Palmer based his idea on two other urban games, Gridlockd and Fiasco, both based in New York. Organizers are still looking for teams, who will compete in one-hour sessions from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Games start at the Harbert Center at 2019 Fourth Ave. N. Pictures from Tuesday’s test game and free registration forms are available at http://www.techwalk.org .

Mark Dillavou, Amy’s husband, and several UAB students worked out the technical details and made Palmer’s game a reality in less than a month. “I think this is cool because it is taking video gaming to a new level – you can be outside and play and get exercise,” said Dillavou, 22, a computer programmer for UAB’s mechanical engineering department and adviser for UAB’s Game Developer’s Club.

Palmer is also planning more games. “I really hope as we start to do these more often that we will gain recognition for Birmingham among the other major cities doing this,” Palmer said.

Our Test Event

To test the software, students from Auburn and UAB converged for a test event yesterday. The photos below show them playing the games and staging the “challenge” photos. The test event game allowed each team to make seven moves. The graphic to the left shows the final placement of pieces after each team had 5 turns. See the full set of photos from the event on FLICKR.

Determining where to play on the grid	A successful challenge photo: 318, flee, crazy
Setting up the challenge photo for Walkway, Creep, and Friendly	Successful challenge photo taken with the Sidekick camera phone

TechWalk = T-Mobile Sidekicks on the Sidewalk

When members of Birmingham’s creative workforce take over their downtown city sidewalks for TechWalk this coming Saturday (September 24, 2005), they’ll be using one of the coolest personal communications devices on the market for a game that blends technology with street theater. Just in time for Birmingham’s first large-scale urban game event, T-Mobile has become the official technology provider to TechWalk. Each team will play the game of “Urban Othello” with the T-Mobile Sidekick® II device, provided free of charge by T-Mobile for use in the game.

Urban Othello is run like Othello, a strategy game played on an 8×8 board, using discs that are black on one side and white on the other. Since Urban Othello is played outdoors on the city sidewalks, the board size has been reduced to a 6×6 grid. In the board game, each move is made by placing a disc on the board and flipping other discs to the team’s color. For Urban Othello, the discs are played virtually through a website and viewed by the players via the Sidekick’s web browser.

Since the TechWalk event is staged in concert with the 7th Annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, placing the team’s disc will involve improvisational performances. Teams must first physically get themselves to the intersection of downtown Birmingham represented on the 6×6 game grid. Once there, they will be presented with a game challenge comprised of three words or phrases. A random set of props, actions, and wild cards will be displayed on the Sidekick screen. The team will be given a limited time to improvise a scene representing all the provided challenges and capture that scene with the Sidekick’s built-in camera phone. Once a TechWalk judge accepts the digital image as satisfying the challenge, the game piece will be awarded and the opposing team will be given up to four minutes to play their turn. The game will continue until one team dominates the board or until the time limit is exceeded.

Urban Othello is modeled after past large-scale urban games conducted in other such great cities as London, New York, and San Francisco. The game played in Birmingham borrows heavily on components of two New York-based games, Fiasco and Gridlockd!, as projects of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Fiasco, otherwise known as Digital Street Game, is a game designed by Michele Chang of Intel Corporation’s People & Practices Research Group and improved by Elizabeth Goodman of Confectious Design. The challenges of Fiasco inspired the performance aspect of Urban Othello. Gridlockd! is a game recently designed by Mohit SantRam. The idea of playing a game of Othello on the city-based game board was inspired by SantRam’s Gridlockd!.

TechWalk is organized by TechBirmingham, a not-for-profit entity focused on growing Birmingham, Alabama’s technology economy.

UAB Students Designing Urban Othello Game for TechWalk at Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Five students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Game Development Club are developing a large-scale Othello game for an urban gaming event at Birmingham’s Seventh Annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival.

The Sidewalk Motion Picture Festival has partnered with TechBirmingham to transform 25 city blocks into an interactive game board on which up to 16 teams will become walking game pieces in a wireless version of the classic strategic game Othello. TechBirmingham asked the UAB club to design the game.

The goal of the game is to grid off downtown Birmingham as a virtual Othello game board. Players, four to six per team, will use a T-Mobile Sidekick® II PDA throughout downtown Birmingham trying to complete challenges and place their game pieces on a virtual grid to win the game.

There is still space available for teams and there is no cost to enter the game. For more information or to enter, go to http://www.techwalk.org/.

Media Contact:
Jennifer Lollar
(205) 934-3888
E-mail: lollar@uab.edu