Sheridan Alumni – David Neumann (2004), Paul McMonagle (2010) and Yohei Yamaguchi (2012) worked on the TVO Ping Pong App available in the iTunes app store at https://t.co/JfyZtoua.  The app was featured on iTunes Canada and has received over 10,000 downloads.  Congratulations!

Neumann is Manager – TVO IdeaShaker Innovation Lab and also teaches Web Design and Development in the IMM program.  He reports that the alumni created the idea for the app, the game play, interactivity and prototyped a proof of concept.  They also created HTML5 banner ads and other campaign assets.  The team including other IMM grads have made apps for TVO (http://ww3.tvo.org/apps) but in this case, due to campaign timing, the final development was outsourced.  What an exciting concept to play ping pong between two players with devices as paddles.

More news can be found here: http://torontoist.com/2013/01/polkaroo-provokes-public-to-play-ping-pong/20130123-carly-polkaroo/ and here: http://docstudio.tvo.org/special/ping-pong

-2013-

Check out the pictures on our Facebook Photo Album.

Jam 3 (http://jam3.com) was founded by three Sheridan Interactive Multimedia grads – Adrian Belina, Mark McQuillan and Pablo Vio.  The Sheridan Interactive Multimedia program is a one-year post grad taught in Oakville, Canada, just outside of Toronto. http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca

-12-

Pixeller -try it out!

Kit Man (IMM 2002) has been creating excellent work for years at http://www.kitdastudio.com and has just launched a mobile pixel editor called PIXELLER.  The app has just won an FWA – so major congrats on a great app!

Here is the story from Kit – enjoy!

Why make it?

Coz there’s no such a serious-enough pixel art editor in the market, so i decided to make one – for myself and for people like us [:)] which allows us to create pixel art anytime anywhere when we have 5 or 10 minutes free

Why pixel art?

It is a style that never grow old; and it always remind me the golden age of gaming – which means the age where multimedia craftsmen need to push their skills, imagination and playability design to the very-edge under the limited resources. I still think the games of the 80s from Nintendo are the best game to spend time with.

What was a challenge?

I am new to the imaging part of objective-C. So I don’t really know where to start; after I’ve done sketches of Pixeller on scrap papers. The solution is step-by-step and bit-by-bit. I’ve broken things down into very small single tasks – and solve it one-by-one. Like playing puzzle. And through which I become more confident in programming [:)]

It looks complicated!

It has been a dilemma to me, to make it quickly OR to make it like drag-and-drop pixel art editor. Finally i decided to support more features to make it a serious-enough pixel art editor – reason : tools are here to support creativity and it can’t be too limited.  In the end, it took from design to product – 2 months time

What’s next for Pixeller?

I’ve done 80% of what I’ve sketched on the design notes. The next step would be ANIMATION ! With the introduction of a timeline – and pixel artists can make an animated GIF out of it ! the video and features info will be here – http://www.kitdastudio.com/?p=513 and screencaps can be grabbed from here – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixeller/id511355490?mt=8 If you have more questions I would love to answer them [:)] Pixeller v1.1 http://www.kitdastudio.com

Jam 3 Crew!

Secret Location Crew!

Wow!  What a night at the FITC Awards, firstly, I was getting there early, walked around the corner and bumped into Vincent Morriset coming the other way – the doors were not open yet.  So we went for a drink at the Office Pub (current home of FITO) and had a great talk about interactive storytelling, etc.  Highlight of the conference for me and it was a great conference!

FITC Awards - Future, Innovation, Technology and Creativity

I arrived at the awards just as the first award was being awarded – and it went to Jam 3, founded by three IMM alumni (Pablo, Mark and Adrian) as did the next award.  That was followed by Secret Location winning (Ryan Andal is there) and then Jam 3 again – after that, I lost track .  Joanna Ong, graduate from last year was a Developer’s Site finalist as well!  Congrats to you all and all the other winners!

More pictures of the conference are here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150856572211369.473397.515286368

Dan -12-

Sheridan Interactive Multimedia invites you to their Open House 2012

// Tuesday May 1, 2012
// 4PM – 7PM
// Studio Huddle
// 97 Niagara Street, Toronto

Come see the latest in Mobile, HTML5, Flash AIR, Augmented Reality, 3D and more!

Our Post-grad Graduates would like you to meet them and view their portfolios.
Partake in refreshments and mingle with the Interactive Industry.
Please bring colleagues and you are encouraged to pass along the invite.

http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca/openhouse/2012/

http://facebook.com/events/289635944448455/

See you there!

Dan Zen & IMM Crew.

Professor & Coordinator
Sheridan Interactive Multimedia
Canadian New Media Educator of the Year 2008
http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca/

PS – portfolios currently online are still being completed.

Secret Location, the Toronto Interactive Agency has just won a Digital Emmy for their work on Endgame Interactive – http://www.showcase.ca/endgame/#interactive.  Ryan Andal graduate from the 2005 Sheridan Interactive Multimedia program is the Technical Director and VP of the four year old company.

Endgame Interactive is an online episode that integrates fans’ Facebook friends into a “choose your own adventure” mystery. Users interact with the original drama series’ star brilliant chess master Arkady Balagan. In the show, Balagan becomes a prisoner in his luxury hotel, terrified to step outside when traumatized by the murder of his fiancée.To pay his hotel bill, Balagan starts solving mysteries using an unlikely band of hotel employees and chess fanatics to do his legwork. On the site, users join Arkady’s investigators and participate in putting the pieces together to crack the online mystery.

Congrats on the award!  Pictured below is the team winning a Gemini for Storming Juno – what a cool opening navigation that had!  Ryan is the one on the left in the picture below.

Sheridan Interactive Multimedia has a multimedia pioneering course that we have been running for almost 10 years.  It certainly has been exciting keeping up with the near future for so many years.  Some highlights for guest speakers have been: Bill Buxton, David Rokeby, Steve Mann, Vincent Jon Vincent, and dozens more.

We make sure the students build prototypes in technologies like multiuser, gesture tech, mediated reality (augmented and diminished).  We have prototyped tilt and multitouch for years – now these have moved into regular curriculum.

For the last few years we have also run club projects where groups run a club for various technologies.  For instance, last year we had Holograms, Reality Gaming, Ardino, Shape Recognition and Voice Recognition clubs.  The year before that was Wands, Second Life, Augmented Reality, iPhone, and 3D Vision.

This year the clubs were as follows with links to Blogs the students made for each topic:

• Mobile Remote Control (click for more)

• Brain Control (click for more)

• Virtual Reality (click for more)

• Mobile Accessories (click for more)

• Artificial Intelligence (click for more)

Above, Professor Dan Zen tries out a Brain Controlled Game

IMM Students control a paper shredder from their mobile device

Jam 3 won two Canadian Digi Awards (formerly Canadian New Media Awards) this year – 2011.  The incredible fact is that one was for the Best Design Team and the second was for the Best Development Team.  Way to go!

Jam 3 was founded in 2003 by three Sheridan Interactive Multimedia graduates Adrian Belina, Pablo Vio and Mark McQuillan.  They have since grown into a most excellent interactive team which also includes a number of IMM grads.  You can see the folks at Jam 3 in their creative assessment of what their team does http://jam3.com.  Here is a quote from Adrian Belina, one of the founders:

It a special evening when you are honoured for being tops in both Design and Development. These awards are especially nice because they’re not just about one project that a few people worked on… they speak to the hard working, passionate teams that make it all happen, all year round. Very proud of everyone at Jam3 right now.

These awards are also a great success for the IMM program as not only the partners, Mark, Pablo and myself, graduated from the IMM class but we also employ 3 developers from the program as well. A true testament to the quality of the program!

Stitch Media founded by IMM graduate, Evan Jones, also won a Digi Award for Best in Digital Advertising for the site Drunk and on Drugs.  Congrats Evan!

Sheridan Interactive Multimedia is now accepting applicants for 2012.  Great jobs!  Great careers!  Advance our culture making interactive fun and useful stuff!  Designers, come on in and learn how to make your work… work!  Programmers come on in and learn how to program in an interactive environment beyond navigation. Other disciplines like Marketing, Engineering, Illustration, Animation, Computer Science, welcome!  Get with the mobile revolution!

http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca (redesign on its way).

-2011-