Staying indoors

We’re staying inside for the winter and will try to emerge once the spring thaw kicks in.  Keep checking back for updates or, better yet, add us to your newsreader!

Planning for NYC

We’ve identified the team members heading north to NYC mid-September for the Conflux 2006 event. Now we’re investigating costs so that we can pursue a sponsor to back our trip. If you have ideas of an organization that can underwrite our visit, please contact us directly.

Renaming the game

We’ve determined that if we’re going to take this game to the next level, we need to avoid a copyright infringement dispute, so are changing the name of the game from Urban Othello to Urban Reversi. It’s still the *game* of Othello, just not branded as such.
We still own the urbanothello.com domain, but it will point to the newly bought URL before we start playing the game again in September.

Green Light!

We just got the following email last night… now the fun begins!

Thanks for answering the questions we had for you. If there’s still anything we need to discuss, the curators will be in touch. This email is to let you know that you are now officially confirmed to participate in Conflux. Welcome!

Will We or Won’t We?

On May 15th, we got a very exciting email…

We are happy to inform you that the Conflux 2006 curatorial team would like to include your proposed project in Conflux 2006. Before we can give you the final ok, we may have some logistical questions for your individual project. […] Please reply to the questions by May 20th and we will follow up within a few days. We will be in touch again soon with more detailed information regarding the schedule, travel and planning for your project. Thanks again for your proposal. We look forward to working with you at Conflux 2006!

Best regards, Conflux 2006 Curatorial Team
http://conflux2006.glowlab.com

After answering their questions, we’ve got our fingers crossed that we’ll get the go-ahead soon and get our travel plans in order.

Coming back for more!

Good news! We’ve decided to stage our 2nd TechWalk event this summer during the 8th Annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival on Saturday September 23rd. Keep checking back here for more details.

If you can help in the staging/planning of this event, please join us at our monthly TechFriday breakfast meetings every 3rd Friday beginning in June leading up to the event in September. See the TechBirmingham Events Calendar for dates and location.

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.