Imagine Cup
My final post on Imagine Cup 2004 and our trip to Brazil. It was amazing... that's all I've been able to say when people ask me about my trip without launching into a 2 hour discussion of everything we did and saw. The last couple days in Sao Paulo were great, we demoed our app at PDC for an afternoon, and I was able to take in a session (one of 2 that were in English). Thank you to all those (Morris, Mario, Shreyas, Amy) who planned this event, it was great! After Imagine Cup my team was lucky enough...
So it took a while to find a connection after leaving Foz do Iguacu, but here we are... our second presentation to the judges went fairly well... then we had to wait a few hours before the announcement of the 12 finalist teams (So we went shopping). Dinner was great, but unfortunately we did not make it to the top 12. From here on... the rest of the trip we're gonna just relax and have fun... Yesturday before leaving the Foz, we went on the Macuco safari boat tour... Amazing! that's all I can say...
Ok so, yesturday was the lightening round... We had two 10 min presentations to the judges that centered on the what our idea was and how we accomplished it. It seemed to go pretty well... minus the judge in the first presentation who was asleep before we even started talking (How rude). It was a late night, after getting a chance to see all of the entries for both the rendering and short film competitions (These guys are amazing! Talk about talent both as an artist and computer scientist... Some...
We are representing Canada well... Last night was the Opening dinner and party, we all wore our Team Canada shirts and it seems that everyone loves us :) We partied it up (lots of drinking and some dancing... some very brazilian entertainment as well) and we are having an amazing time! The Massage was definately to die for... This morning we visited the Water Falls and took lots of pictures, including some of this strange racoonish animal with a long snout (i'll post the name as soon as I find out...
After a very long trip, a couple lay-overs, and a right plane engine that wouldn't start... We made it to brazil! We spent yesturday in Sao Paulo at the Ceasar, near the airport. The hotel was amazing! (a compound none the less - it even had a mote around it) We spent the day playing basketball, swimming, and eating. The service here is extraordinary! Today we checked out of our first hotel and flew to Foz do Iguacu. (We got a whole meal on a 1.5 hr flight) I thought the hotel yesturday was crazy...
Ok... so it's almost here! I'm having such a hard time concentrating on anything else, I'm so excited! Well, I'm mostly packed and I think we have most of our stuff together... a few more things to set up, and one more full run-through test. Check back soon to see how things are going
The count down continues... Things are starting to fall into place... I finally found a banner printer that didn't want to charge us our life savings. Any ideas for promotional items for our booth? So far we are doing a Game.Set.Match. Mouse Pad, and if I can find a decent table cloth, one of those too... Oh and our custom wallpaper is posted in our picture gallery. For those that may be interested, today we were featured in the Prince George Citizen although it's not on their website... (Wasn't...
Less than 2 weeks to go until Imagine Cup begins. With everything kicked into high gear, we are working endlessly to have our product somewhat ready by the end of this weekend (ok we'll still be adding stuff on plane, but we need a stable back up). Now is also the time to begin planning our presentation, we still have to put together posters and slide decks (and find a banner printer), to make sure the judges understand what an amazing product this really is and how much it will change the face amateur...
Isn't it great when you find out that you have a design spec due in 8 days that you didn't know about? Well that's kinda what happened to us last night. We just found out that we need to have our Imagine Cup design specifications document done for the 15th... that doesn't leave much time... apparently I have alot of writing to do, but at least I finished the improvements to our Cell App yesturday. Onwards and Upwards
Ok now I don't want to be one to complain and before I start, I have to say that since we won Imagine Cup Canada I have had many great chances to meet wonderful people and make contacts that I hope will be very helpful looking for work in the future, as well I'm sure it helped in finding my current coop position... But this struck me as kinda interesting. I was just reading a blog by Chris Stewart, who was part of a team that placed 9th in the US national Imagine Cup competition. {Congratulations...