As part of a nationwide week of events marking Science Week 2009 from 8th – 15th November, Tipperary Institute will host a number of workshops on the ‘Science behind computer games’ throughout the week.

Science Week, which is an innovative annual event aims to make science more interesting and accessible to both children and adults. It highlights science, technology and engineering as being hugely relevant to us all in our everyday lives; it develops cutting edge innovations, leads to interesting and exciting career options and develops creativity in our children.
Co-ordinated at national level by ‘Discover Science and Engineering’, the theme of this year’s festival is ‘Science – inspiring creativity and inspiration’, which links to the European Year of Creativity and Innovation.

“Tipperary Institute’s workshops will encourage students to participate in the process of designing and building a computer game” said Philip Bourke, Programme Coordinator: BSc. (Honours) in Computing (Games Design & Development).  Students will be exposed to the science behind computer games development and the technology used in developing game art, audio and programming.

Mr. Bourke went on to say “as technology users become more sophisticated and the systems they interact with become more complex, computer interaction needs to evolve and become a far richer and immersive experience”. Computer games lead the way in consumer interaction with technology. This requires skilled designers and developers who create sophisticated, but natural, elegant applications. Mr. Bourke also commented that “computer games development is an area that pushes the boundaries of computing power and user experience”.

 

Over 250 students will take part in Tipperary Institute’s workshops throughout Science Week, where they will be inspired to become the next great computer game designers!