This article is from page 32 of the 2008-03-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 32 JPG
A GORT whizz kid will next month take on some of Ireland most talent- ed young minds in a competition to design a new version of Space Invad- ae
Finn Krewer, a Leaving Cert stu- dent from Gort Community School, has qualified for a major program- ming competition which takes place at the Tipperary Institute on March iF
Finn will be one of just two sec- ond level students taking part in the competition, with the vast majority of entries coming from third level students and above. The competition is being organised to mark the 30th
anniversary of the creation Space Invades, which went on to revolu- tionise technology and help bring the computer to the masses.
“We all got a starter pack and a very basic version and we all had to design three levels of space invad- ers,’ he said.
“We were asked to keep the game play fairly similar to the original but the functions, graphics, sound and memory are all your own. It’s for the X-Box 360 so you have more abilities in the design than you would iLeyweee NOAA
“It’s difficult enough, you do need some good coding experience. It’s all hard code, there is a nice developing environment but you still need to be
able to write thousands of lines of code.”
The event is also being used to launch Tipperary Institute’s new De- gree in Computing and Game Design and Development. ‘Talent scouts from major computer game companies SEGA, BlackRock Studios (Disney Interactive Studios), Square ENIX and Blitz Games will be in Thurles for the event.
“I started programming pretty young and then last year I represent- ed Ireland in the Imaging Cup which is sponsored by Microsoft. Myself and a friend programmed artificial intelligence strategies for computer- ised robots to move around in and work,” continued Finn.
“IT was also in the young scientist last year where we developed an electromagnetic glove. It was a crazy idea of a friend of mine and I ended up making all the electronics for that. This year we tried to make a virtual chemistry lab. It was very simple but it was really the idea of it that we were trying to get across.
‘Tam also helping a group of second years in the school with their coding. They are taking part in a competition called Schoolbots, which is small lit- tle tanks moving around and trying to blow each other up.”