GPS Tag wins Microsoft Devsta Challenge

Turbulence, a game of tag using GPS-enabled mobile phones, has taken out Microsoft's Devsta Challenge 2008.

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Michael Minutillo, one of the authors of the winning entry, described Turbulence in his blog as a game meant to be played in real life, which makes use of a WCF-based game server, Virtual Earth and ASP.NET.

Minutillo said that the game took nine days to complete.

Turbulence took out the overall prize as well as the secondary prize for best mobile application.

(Credit: Devsta Challenge 2008)

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Going to Vegas :D Mike Minutillo -- 23/10/08

Thanks for the write-up. You forgot to mention my collaborator Jarred [http://jsarge.wordpress.com].

Congrats to the other winners too. I can't wait to play Missile Command and Desktop Racer :)

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DevSta 2008 Anonymous -- 26/10/08

I thought the work was meant to be your own. How does that fit with combined efforts from multiple developers? Shame on you Mike (and Jarred)... Submit individual entries next time.

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Devsta Jarred Sargent -- 26/10/08 (in reply to #320114925)

Hi Anonymous,

There is nothing in the rules that prevents two or more people collaborating and just to be sure it was all above board we actually checked with Catherine Grima at Microsoft (the organiser of the competition) and she confirmed that competing as a team was within the scope of the rules.

I'm sorry that you feel cheated and I wish you the best of luck in Devsta 2009.

Kind Regards,
Jarred :)

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Devsta Grant -- 26/10/08 (in reply to #320114927)

I didn't enter, and don't feel cheated, but one of my colleagues did. In the spirit of the brief, he submitted his 'own' work. He also intepreted the brief of 'old school' in a way that few of the other entries did. In what way did your 'combined' entry interpret the brief?

If my entire team at work had entered a joint sumission, and we'd won, would we all get the prize, and go to the US?

Come on. What a lame arse competion. Lets hear from Microsoft on the interpretation of the brief and submission of joint entries...

In my opinion that your entry (and many others) did not address the brief of 'old school' in any way, and your submission of a joint entry makes a mockery of the requirement that the submission be your 'own' work. Do you (and Microsoft) interpret 'own' to mean one individual, or two, or a whole team?

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Re: Devsta Jarred Sargent -- 27/10/08 (in reply to #320114929)

Thanks for replying Grant.

The game Tag (aka "You're it" or "Chasey") has been around for generations so that's what covers off "old school". Obviously Windows Mobile with maps and GPS is the "new cool".

If your entire team at work entered (as one entry) and won, you would've received the same prize we did and then figure out a way to divide it up (Just like Michael and I are doing). We wanted to include a few other people but we decided not too as then it would get difficult to split the prize (only two tickets to Vegas).

I understand what you're saying about "own work" however we wrote the code therefore it is our own work. I would guess that clause exists to stop people from copying open source projects or hiring someone to write it for you.

I'm sorry you don't feel our entry was worthy and that you feel the competition was "lame" however Michael and I are proud of our work and stand by our entry.

I can't speak on behalf of Michael but I found the competition very challenging and interesting. This type of application is not something I normally get to do and was a great learning experience.

Kind Regards,
Jarred

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Desktop Racer Anonymous -- 16/12/08

Just publicly hosted my 2nd place entry - Desktop Racer.

http://blog.sharpthinking.com.au/post/2008/12/16/Desktop-Racer.aspx

Cheers

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