Video after the break!

Functinal Programming and Haskell from Edmund Tse on Vimeo.

What do you do on an IT camp? Why should I go?

Many groups on campus run camps and though they have various purposes they are all a lot of fun. They mean getting together with not just 3 or 4 friends, but 30 or 40 friends and hanging out for not just a few hours, but a few days.

Like most camps ours has two dimensions, one that is SUITS specific, (project development), and another that isn’t, (socialising!). You can read all the details below, but the short version is that in the evenings we have a range of fun activities planned, which will be followed by various card games and other fun stuff late into the night. During the day we will all be working on our own ideas, trying to build something from nothing in just four days. The something could be just about anything – a short film, a new web-app, a VR hardware system, or who knows what (hopefully you’ve got a few ideas up your sleeve).

If you don’t have an idea of your own have a chat to your friends and check out the project ideas page. As people register we will be setting up a system for you to see the projects that currently need team members so you can find something that suits your interest.

Registration

Registration has closed for this event
And pay at a suits event (or if you see the president around the labs, he should be able to collect money at any time).

On Camp Activities

The main purpose of camp will be to work on a project of your choosing. Everyone coming on camp will need to form teams of 2/3 and prepare a 1 page description of the team project before camp begins. We already have a bunch of ideas for projects, though we expect you’ll have plenty of your own (see the project page for some ideas).

As well as the main project we will run a series of seminars during camp on interesting and challenging topics. These will mainly be taught by older SUITS members with particular knowledge of the area they speak about.

In the evenings we will engage in a variety of fun activities. The current plan includes LAN gaming, a programming competition and a movie night. These will be followed by cards and other games late into the night.

One morning on camp we will travel into the city and visit a series of companies – just brief 30 min to 1.5 hr visits, so just enough time to see what the work environment looks like and hear a bit from the company.

On the last day we will have a presentation when every group has to stand up and say what they’ve produced, and hopefully give a demonstration.

Timing

July 8th – 11th Starting at 10am on Tuesday July 8th Finishing at 5pm on Friday July 11th

Location

During the day we will be at the School of Information Technologies, and at night we will be at one of the Sydney University colleges.

Cost

The only costs will be food and accommodation. If you are not staying on camp in the evening you obviously do not have to pay for the accommodation, so we have two pricing schemes:

• Food only – $50 (4 lunches and 3 dinners, at various locations)
• Food and Accommodation – $100 (heavily subsidised, thanks to our major sponsor, Optiver)

Food details

We are still finalising the exact details of the meals, but some of the places we currently intend to visit include:

• Istanbul on King (burgers, kebabs, etc)
• Asakusa (Japanese)
• Thai
• Pizza and Pide
• Gourmet BBQ Dinner at SIT (think a SUITS BBQ, but with twice the budget)

If you have dietary needs, please don’t forget to include them when you register. We will contact you to discuss the details of where we will be eating to make sure there is always something for you :-)

FAQ

• Who chooses my project? – You do! It can be just about anything you want. If you are stuck for ideas check out our list of projects
• Can I come on the site visits but not the rest of camp? – Yes, please send us an e-mail and we will give you the details of the plan, so you know where to meet us
• Why is your FAQ so short? – We haven’t received many questions yet

The ideas have been semi-arbitrarily broken into groups, and each idea has the initials of the person who added it at the end.

Inspiration from elsewhere

This list contains links to cool projects that have been done elsewhere, which may lead you to a cool idea of your own.

• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/

Software

• A program that can spider our wiki and produce a nice graph of the connections (JKK)
• A program to generate music on the fly in response to stimulus (JKK)
• A system that lets you choose recipes and then produces a list of what you need to buy (could also know what you have already and leave that stuff out) (Dr. SKK)
• An IM/VoIP/Teleconference thing that tries to capture the experience of a bunch of people round a table at Wentworth, but with the people sitting at home (JKK)
• A program that can analyse the SIT backups over the last few years and determine stats about how we use our file space. All of the information available could be used, but by the end the information must be amalgamated so that individuals remain anonymous (could also lead on to a research project) (Ass. Prof. JK)

Web

• A web page that describes the history of IT, including interviews with famous contributors to the field when they drop by Sydney University (Ass. Prof. SC)
• An overlay for google maps that recreates a game similar to Realpolitik / Diplomacy (JKK)
• A new style/appearance for the SUITS wiki

Systems

• A display system for the web idea about IT history (Ass. Prof. SC)
• A handheld device for IM that forms a meshnetwork and uses the university wireless system (JKK)
• Use the Nintendo Wii to track infra-red sources on sunglasses to track a person’s head, use a projector to place an image over the entire wall in front of them, and use another controller, or more light sources to form a lightsaber in the users hand, then add a game (JKK)
• Use the tech in the previous idea to have walls that display information suitable to the current viewer (multiple cameras, people with glasses, tracking harder but doable) (JKK)
• Something using sunspots (CL)
• A webcam looking up city rd (and maybe also get one installed in a thai place on king st) with some software processing the images, trying to figure out which buses are where (ie how much they are running late, and an early warning system so you can leave IT just in time to get a bus to the city) (JKK)

Design

• Cool artwork to cover the bare concrete walls in the IT building (JKK)

Other

• A system that constructs a map of wireless quality on campus. Parts of the project would include walking around to collect data, a tool for people to run on laptops so we can gather more data and also a site+server to hold and display data (Ass. Prof. RJK / JKK)