"Swimming With Sharks," as inspired by Calvin & Hobbes

Not satisfied with the white-on-white medium, we armed ourselves with some spray bottles filled with red and blue food coloring. Since the snow wasn’t quite packing properly, the boys also brought out another spray bottle filled with water. This proved very useful in crafting our shark fins.

This wasn’t the first doomed snowman of the year. A couple weeks ago, my kids crafted an homage to Calvin all on their own.

A snowman being swallowed by the earth

I looked at the review copy I received with an eye to finding something new that might interest my kids.

Inside of "I Swear To Good You Are God At This"

I found a few possibilities. The entry on the Ambrose Collective, a group that specializes in mentoring students who want a career in the applied arts made me wish I lived in Michigan and could send my teenagers to one of their workshops.

I also liked the Do Good site, which showcases an iPhone app that urges people to do an act of kindness each day. My younger son was quite taken with the idea of suggesting his own “Do Good” idea.

And while it’s not an interactive site, I found Mysterious Letters fascinating. It’s a site whose creators are dedicated to writing to everyone in the world, one town at a time.

They first did it with Irish village of Cushendall and the next batch of hand-written letters went out in November 2009 to Polish Hill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m hoping the idea might inspire my kids to put pen to paper, though likely they won’t write to a whole town. But a letter to their grandmother would be nice.

While I enjoyed paging through the book, I had to wonder why it would be necessary to put together a print project to publicize websites. My instinct is that this might not be as effective as a pure electronic creation. I asked Kevin Brown, the head of Holiday Matinee why he went with a physical book.

He said:

Going with a physical release was the intention from the start. While it’s true I’m obsessed with new media, there’s no denying I’m still very much attached to analog, physical products. From vinyl records, design/art/photography books to pop culture magazines-even with the rise of new technology, there’s something truly about holding, smelling and being able to run your fingers through something tangible. It’s a certain warmth that I like to think brings the content to life, especially the web-based features. Plus, I like the notion of flipping new media with something more traditional.

I can only hope that others are as keen on physical objects. I have a Sony eReader and I love its convenience. But, like Brown, I agree there’s nothing like a tangible object.

You can use Valentine's Day chocolate and your microwave to perform sophisticated physics calculations! All images: Kathy Ceceri

If you’re a long-time reader, you may remember the great leftover Easter Peeps microwave experiment. Well, today we’re going to be nuking leftover Valentine’s Day chocolate to demonstrate one of the constants of physics, the speed of light. Chocolate makes a very appropriate medium, because the heating property of microwaves was first discovered by a scientist whose candy bar melted in his pocket when he got too close to a microwave device being tested for use in radar.

WARNING: This experiment may take several tries to get right. We are not responsible for any weight gained. To avoid familial strife, be sure to only do this experiment with your own chocolates or with candy which you have been authorized to access. You can probably find some leftover boxes on sale this week.

The demonstration works because microwave ovens produce standing waves — waves that move “up” and “down” in place, instead of rolling forward like waves in the ocean. Microwave radiation falls into the radio section of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most ovens produce waves with a frequency of 2,450 megahertz (millions of cycles per second). The oven is designed to be just the right size to cause the microwaves to reflect off the walls so that the peaks and valleys line up perfectly, creating “hot spots” (actually, lines of heat).

What you do with the candy is to find the hot spots and measure the distance between them. From that information, you can determine the wavelength. And when you multiply the wavelength by the frequency, you get the speed! Here’s what you do:

1. Make sure the candy is in a microwave-proof box. Better yet, take the chocolate out and put in a microwave safe dish.
2. Remove the turntable in your oven. (You want the candy to stay still while you heat it.) Put an upside-down plate over the turning-thingy, and place your dish of candy on top.
3. Heat on high about 20 seconds.
4. Take the chocolate out and look for hot spots. Depending on the candy you use, you may have to feel the candy to see where it has softened. With the cherry cordials we used, we saw several shiny spots and one place where the chocolate shell melted through, releasing the sweet syrup inside.
5. Measure the distance between two adjacent spots. This should be the distance between the peak and the valley (crest and trough) of the wave. Since the wavelength is the distance between two crests, multiply by 2. Finally, multiply that result by the frequency expressed in hertz or 2,450,000,000 (2.45 X 10⁹ for my son who is just learning scientific notation).

In our trial, we measured a distance of roughly 6 centimeters. 6 x 2 x 2,450,000,000 = 29,400,000,000 centimeters per second, or 294,000,000 meters per second. This is awfully close to 299,792,458 meters per second, which is the speed of light. Not bad for some leftover chocolate and a kitchen appliance!

I discovered this experiment at Null Hypothesis, although it can be found all over the Internet, including many versions with fancy charts and animations. By the way, melted chocolate bars are perfect as ice cream topping. Just saying.

Kathy Ceceri also blogs at Home Physics.

Twin Cities Maker is going to have a Mini Maker Faire at the Hack Factory on February 13th, 2010! Come one, come all! We’re planning to have the fun start at 2 PM with local makers exhibiting and playing in the newly acquired space. We will also have an Art Show and Party later that night for people to come and experience the space and have some refreshments.

The lineup of makers includes a demonstration by Bill Gurstelle, the music of Tim Kaiser, air cannons, replica movie props, an arduino demonstration, a display by the local Tripoli rocketry club, art cars, a life-sized Operation Game as well as flamethrowers and pulse jets by local engineering firm CazTek.

Interested in attending? The Hack Factory’s address is 3119 E 26th St Minneapolis, MN 55406.

Hubert de Lartigue's Millennium Falcon Origami

Hubert de Lartigue takes Parisian subway tickets and turns them into Star Wars ships–the Millennium Falcon, X-wing fighters, TIE fighters, and imperial shuttles have all come under the loving touch of his x-acto knife.  At de Lartigue’s website, you can find tutorials for the X-wing and the Millennium Falcon. (The latter a mere 9 pages long!)

While the Paris locale adds a touch of class to de Lartigue’s creations, there are many, many cool Star Wars origami projects out there:

• A dorm room dogfight, with models hanging from the ceiling
• Flickr user morpheology has folded dollar bills into a whole series of Star Wars models (check out the bantha, AT-AT, and Slave I), plus a set of craft from various scifi movies.
• The master of the “folded dollar bills” genre, though, is Won Park.  No doubt.
• Chris Alexander offers an array of Star Wars origami designs
• GeekDad’s own Tom Angleberger has a new book, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, which does in fact feature a paper model of the Jedi master.  View Tom’s Flickr feed; his instructions for how to make your own Yoda; or this handy video at StarWars.com of Tom folding one.

Got a favorite sci-fi origami image?  Link to it in comments.

Image by Flickr user rocket ship; used under Creative Commons Attribution license.

Today, February 8th, marks the centennial of Boy Scouts in America. Over the past century, more than 110 million boys, young men, moms and dads have been members of the BSA. However, with such a momentous celebration at-hand, the Boy Scouts, in many ways, are a struggling organization. At a time when shows like “Man Vs Wild” and “Survivorman” are experiencing immense popularity and global awareness of the environment is at a high, wouldn’t it make sense that an organization like the Boy Scouts would see a surge in enrollment? After all, the scouting program specializes in promoting survival skills and enjoyment of the outdoors as its biggest recruiting tools for boys and young men.

But in the past decade, enrollment numbers have seen continuous annual plunges. Not as many boys are interested in the program and fewer parents are making the choice to enroll their sons in Scouting. The published enrollment numbers that the BSA share show that membership has dropped year after year, a tough pill to swallow for any organization, and the BSA has been accused on several occasions that their rolls have been inflated to enhance appearances. Even if you ignore those rumors and accept the BSA’s numbers, with just 2.8 million members, Scouting is half of what it was in 1972 when enrollment peaked. That means that Boy Scout membership in the US is down by 11% in the past decade and Cub Scouts have seen their membership drop by 23% during the same time.

While some of this can be attributed to more choices for kids – from soccer to chess club to year-round basketball clinics – and busier schedules for both children and their parents, those are still tremendous declines. Plus, the Scouting program has been dogged by allegations of discrimination – mainly in cases brought by gays and atheists. It’s been a tough road lately, with some questioning why Scouting hasn’t changed more to adjust to a new social climate. But is the drop in Scouting membership due to the materiality of its programs or to other factors? It’s impossible to say, but, perhaps, there is a larger question at hand: As Scouting celebrates its 100th anniversary this month, are the Boy Scouts of America still relevant?

THE CASE IN FAVOR OF SCOUTING

The benefit of any program can be measured by those who rise to its top. And, for Scouting, the top is the rank of Eagle Scout – an accomplishment that caps years of work, progressive leadership responsibilities, civic awareness, community volunteerism, dozens of merit badges based on learning specialized skills and (in most cases) countless nights spent camping in forests and wilderness. It is a long road and a difficult one, but – if a boy sticks with it and accomplishes his goal – the reward is great. He has been tested and challenged over and over in a way that not only gives him a greater understanding of his place in his community, but a better understanding of who he is and what he is capable of achieving. Over the history of the Boy Scouts of America, just under two million boys have become Eagle Scouts, a rank that is awarded for life. The list of Eagle Scouts is impressive; it includes a president (and several presidential candidates), representatives and senators, astronauts, many very successful businessmen, a couple of filmmakers, and some guy that does a lot of dirty jobs.

Image by Flickr user creative location; used under Creative Commons Attribution license.

But what about the millions of other boys in both the Cub Scout and Boy Scout programs who never make Eagle Scout? Do they get anything out of the program? The argument can be made that – as long as you are involved, you get something out of it. The skills taught in weekly meetings or earned on campouts stay with boys forever. From Lifesaving to Citizenship, Scouts gain a deeper understanding of skills that will affect them for the rest of their lives. And in the case of some skills, like First Aid and Emergency Preparedness, Scouting is a unique opportunity to gain know-how that boys might not get anywhere else. In fact, from youthful Cub Scouts to seasoned Boy Scouts, boys are consistently showcased in newspapers and the TV news for saving the lives of family, friends or strangers, simply because they knew how to “be prepared” in a life-threatening emergency.

Scouting places a very high value on community involvement and scouts take that commitment very seriously, volunteering for a wide range of projects – improving public land and property, serving food banks, and assisting the elderly, impoverished and the unfortunate, among others. Scouting For Food, a project that collects food for local food banks, contributes not only food, but nearly a hundred million service hours across the United States every year. The Order of the Arrow, the Boy Scouts honor camping society, has hosted an event called “Five Sites, Five Weeks, Five Thousand Arrowmen” where a thousand Order of the Arrow scouts descend upon one of five national parks to improve, clean and work on conservation and fire-prevention projects. All told, volunteer Scouting hours probably total more than any other group in the United States – more than 2 million hours a year by a conservative estimate.

Boy Scouts – and to a lesser extent, Cub Scouts – spend countless nights exploring and camping in the nation’s forests and parks. Environmental responsibility plays a large role in the program’s curriculum and campsite locations are left in the same situation as they found them, under “Leave No Trace” camping rules, if not improved upon by the group. Camping, especially for urban youth, is a rarity, if not unheard of. Scouting provides a conduit for getting boys – urban or otherwise – out away from couches, Xboxes, cable tv and computer monitors into the outdoors. With all the technology surrounding today’s youth, it’s not difficult to imagine a childhood where the outdoors plays a substantially reduced role. Yet, Scouting is the antithesis of a sedentary life, introducing day-long hikes, cooking over an open fire, and survival skills. The argument can be made that these skills aren’t necessarily important on a daily basis, but because they are immensely valuable in a crisis or dangerous situations – and because they really aren’t taught anywhere else – the fact that Scouting still teaches them makes the program more relevant than ever.

Scouting emphasizes a strong bond between boys and their families. In many cases, this is exemplified by the relationship between boys and their fathers, who are most often volunteers for the program. This traditional arrangement provides an ideal opportunity for boys to step away from their daily routine and not only learn core Scouting skills like orienteering, cooking or first aid, but also skills outside the Scouting curriculum, like negotiating the pitfalls of adolescence and growing to become men. Yes, these are things that boys can learn elsewhere, but Scouting provides a conduit – whether a weekend-long campout, a two-week backpacking trek or just a weekly meeting – where interaction with teenagers and their fathers is mandatory — an occurrence that’s sometimes difficult for many families at home.

Then, there are Scouting’s values, those twelve points that both brand and identify a Boy Scout as, that squeaky-clean, do-gooder kid: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. For the most part, these are ideals that most of us want to see in our family, friends and neighbors. Scouting has consistently forwarded these values over their 100 year history. Peter Applebome, an editor of The New York Times, once wrote that, as an adult volunteer involved with his son’s scouting, he observed that “Scouting’s core values … are wonderful building blocks for a movement and a life. Scouting’s genuinely egalitarian goals and instincts are more important now than they’ve ever been. It’s one of the only things that kids do that’s genuinely cooperative, not competitive.”

Frank Zappa’s famous warning is wise, but don’t let it scare you off from eating the good, white stuff.

Snow ice cream is  a great recipe for kids: cheap ingredients, no cooking, big payoff at the end, long-lasting memories. (I remember having some circa 1975.)

You can look around on the Web for a recipe if you want, but don’t bother following it too closely. Every bowl full of snow is going to be different. You’re going to need to keep adding sugar and milk and drops of vanilla until you’ve got a lovely, slightly soupy mixture that tastes good. Then freeze it a while, scoop it out, add toppings and dig in.

Straight snow ice cream is sort of like ice milk. (Do they even make ice milk anymore?) You’re almost certainly going to want some toppings.

Snow ice cream floats are wonderful –sort of like a Sonic Flurry.

If you’re looking for an immediate icy treat, plain old snow with chocolate syrup is good, too.

Wired: Almost free. Easy to make.

Tired: Only available in winter.

DONATE TO HAITI RELIEF THROUGH THE GEEKDAD GIVING PAGE!

We all know what has happened, and how desperate the need for medical resources is right now in Haiti. There are plenty of good avenues for charitable donations out there, and by no means to we mean to replace any of them, but all of us at GeekDad want to do our part as well. To that end, we have set up a donation page at First Giving in support of the medical relief organization MerlinUSA.

Merlin specializes in health, saving lives in times of crisis and helping to rebuild shattered health services. Merlin works within existing health systems to realize everyone’s right to accessible, appropriate, affordable health care. We are committed to helping build lasting health services which are used and championed by everyone. We are specialists in rapid medical response and rebuilding health systems, effectively taking countries from emergency to recovery. We are undaunted by the challenges of providing health care to vulnerable people living in the most difficult, forgotten and remote corners of the world.

We are determined to make health a global priority; giving people caught up in conflict, disaster and health system collapse the chance to lead healthy lives. We care or people at risk, for the lives of the people we work to save, and for the safety of our staff. We are accountable to our patients, partners, supporters and donors. And we keep our promise: to stay on, beyond the crisis, for as long as we are needed.

They were on the ground in Haiti in hours to help:

Merlin’s eight strong Emergency Response Team left on the first available flight to Haiti. Their initial task is to assess the most urgent needs, which are likely to be water, sanitation, shelter, disease prevention and restoration of basic health services. Our team is likely to concentrate immediately on distributing essential shelter kits, as well as medical equipment such as hygiene kits and blankets, supporting local health staff and mobilizing communities to ensure disease outbreaks are prevented. We are mobilizing all necessary resources now.

Now is your chance to donate to the relief effort (or donate again). Through our First Giving page, we hope to raise $15,000 in support of the relief efforts on the ground in Haiti. And as an incentive (not that we need any more than the desire to help people in a time of great need), for every $15 you donate, you’ll earn one change to win a geeky giveaway item. We’re still compiling the prizes, but to start we have a batch of seriously cool stuff from John Kovalic, and some rather significant gift cards from our good friends at ThinkGeek. This means we just need a thousand GeekDad readers to donate $15 each (but you’re welcome to donate more if you can).

UPDATE: The amazing John Kovalic has pledged that for every donation of $100 or more, he will send the donor an autographed and specially-doodled copy of the first Dork Tower compendium. How cool is that?!?!

DONATE TO HAITI RELIEF THROUGH THE GEEKDAD GIVING PAGE!

Image: Nomad Press

Our world is full of many different types of ecosystems. We tend to be very familiar with the ones in which we live, and with the ones where we spend a great deal of time. But we’re often unfamiliar with many of the others. Since the world’s deserts are only a small part of what covers our globe, there are plenty of people who haven’t had first hand experience with them. I have, having lived for five years in the Sonoran desert of Arizona as a child, and also during frequent visits back there. I also currently live in an almost-desert, a high plateau that is just a couple of inches of rain over the amount that defines a desert. During certain times of the year, we go months at a time without rain. I’ve seen my share of dust devils, tumbleweeds, washes, cacti and desert creatures. Javelinas are regular visitors to our house. So I was a good choice to review Discover the Desert, written by our very own Kathy Ceceri. Kathy sent me a copy to review, knowing that I could read her book from a place of personal experience.

Discover the Desert: The Driest Place on Earth has a very colorful cover that really pulls you in. As you open the book, though, it’s almost as if you’ve entered the desert itself. The pages are monochrome in various shades of slightly reddish brown. That really gives an immersive experience, since most deserts aren’t quite as colorful as the well-watered areas of the globe. Deserts do have plenty of green and other colors, however. Experience Tucson in the spring and you’ll see what I mean. The colors just don’t tend to be as vibrant as in wet areas.

This book is part science, part history, part culture and part art, all combined into one really fun read. It is part of the Discover Your World series by Nomad Press that also includes Discover the Amazon, Discover the Oceans, Discover National Monuments: National Parks and Discover the Seven Wonders of the World. Also for this series, Kathy has written The Silk Road: Discover the World’s Most Famous Trade Route, which has a particularly gorgeous cover. It will be out sometime in the future.

Discover the Desert talks about many types of deserts all over the world. Not all deserts are hot, but they are all dry. And even the hot ones can get mighty cold when the sun goes down, since there is little moisture in the air and ground to hold onto the heat. The book describes what a desert is, how they are categorized, which plants and animals live in them, how deserts form, different desert rock formations and dune patterns and a little bit about the culture of people who live in the desert. Also covered is the importance of water, desert survival skills, how plants and animals adapt to different desert conditions and how people have adapted their ways to best live in those deserts. One of the most interesting and helpful chapters is Chapter 4: Water, the Most Important Resource. Learn what role water has in the desert and how much you’ll need to have to survive.

Throughout the book, there are many sidebars and boxes with more information on the chapter’s topic. “Words to Know” boxes are mini-glossaries defining the bolded words on that page. “Fascinating Fact” blurbs are scattered throughout, to give more information on related topics. While more than half of the text in the book gives you the chapters’ main information, these extra boxes of text and plenty of sidebars tackle interesting sub-topics.

There are twenty projects along the way to keep you involved with the desert, teaching about survival, art and science. In particular, learning how to capture moisture from plants or how to figure out which direction is north might come in handy at some point.

The book has a main glossary in the back followed by a resource section and then a detailed index. The web links listed in the resources are also on the book’s website, along with a sample activity.

Discover the Desert is a really good book, with lots of useful and interesting information. There is so much to learn about different kinds of deserts. This book would be useful to anyone who wants to learn more about deserts, but would be particularly helpful to families who like to do projects together. Learning something new with your child is incredibly rewarding.You’ll learn more about deserts than you probably think. There is so much to see and look at in the book, including the gorgeous, playful and detailed illustrations and desert cultural symbols, so take your time and soak it all in.

Discover the Desert costs $16.95, but, as usual, it is cheaper at Amazon. The age range for the book is 9-12. Kathy Ceceri also has another book coming out later this year called World Myths and Legends: 25 Projects You Can Build Yourself. You can find out about many of her endeavors at Crafts for Learning. Kathy also will be doing “Discover the Desert” author visits to libraries where kids can try some of the survival activities.

Wired: The book gives a great overview of deserts of the world, with plenty of specifics and important safety tips. You will come away with a much greater knowledge of what the world’s deserts are like, culturally, meteorologically and biologically. People tend to learn by doing, and the included activities and projects will be very memorable.

Tired: None that I can think of.

Note: It does actually rain in most kinds of deserts. Often the whole year’s moisture is gotten during just a few rain storms, so sometimes the storms can be violent or give heavy rain. So here’s a tip that wasn’t in the book, but is very important to know. If you end up in a flash flood, don’t try to outrun the water. Climb to higher ground. Also, don’t try to drive through seemingly shallow water running across the road. It may carry your car (and you) away.

SurfaceScapes is a proof-of-concept designed and engineered by nine students at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University. The software attempts to support normal role play by automating the calculations and animating the battles in a geographic space. Keeping with the D&D culture, the Dungeon Master pulls the strings on encounters with monsters and treasures from behind a protected screen … in this case, a networked laptop.

The project began as a student pitch to the CMU faculty last year, buoyed by a later meeting with Microsoft representatives at a conference. Since the release of the first video, feedback from geeks around the world has been positive. Individual D&D traditions range, making it difficult to please both those who want to feel the dice and those happy to let Surface help them out. The sometimes contradictory suggestions for new features have stimulated the design process.

Team members share their own varied perspective on the game, from a naive understanding to those who campaigned regularly for a couple decades. By lowering the barriers to play, more levels of participation can be supported. You don’t need to know the rules of D&D to use SurfaceScapes. Casual gamers can jump into battles as easily as the more dedicated adventurers. The magic moment for everyone, though, came during the first 20-minute game session.

“It was like, ‘Wow, we made this,’” teammate Michael Cole recalls.

Relax. Nothing ever happens at first level.

For GeekDads, playing a module or two on SurfaceScapes is half the fun. The other half would be using the technology as gateway drug to get the next generation of geeks to play, too.

Kids have not been heavy users of the prototype, but the few who have interacted with SurfaceScapes quickly adapted to the interface. They may have benefited from the streamlining of the calculation that can bog down the narrative, particularly for those not familiar with the game. Kids also respond well to the tactile interactions.

This is to be expected given the origins of Surface as an educational platform for children. The platform has four key capabilities that make it ideal for kids:

1. The size of the table (30 inches) invites many users to manipulate data simultaneously.
2. The massive multi-touch interactions handle many more geometries than other touch-screen devices.
3. Physical objects can become associated with on-screen data.
4. It encourages direct interaction, where people can grab at what they see without using an intermediary device, like a mouse or keyboard.

In short, Surface lets kids play together and grab lots of stuff.

Microsoft User Experience Director August de los Reyes recalls a conference where the 4-year-old child of a speaker was playing with the Water screen saver. It seemed so real, the kid paused to see if his hand was wet.

“Lots of adults are kids, too,” Reyes reminds us. “It never fails when people come in contact with Surface, they turn into 12-year-olds.”

In gaming theory, life’s a die, and then you bitch

Eric Havir, manager of digital communication for Surface, argues the buzz around the CMU project is more than the novelty of the technology. “SurfaceScapes is innovative in a number of ways. They found what’s appropriate for the use, and use the right tool for the right job.”

D&D is a group activity where people share focus on a common narrative and playing space, qualities that fit nicely with what Surface has to offer. When running campaigns, the DM has a cardboard shield to hide his master maps and character sheets. The design team addressed this by avoiding Surface and giving the DM a separate laptop. Even the object recognition capabilities fit the D&D culture, where players cherish their miniatures as extensions of their character personas.

“In retail or hospitals,” says Havir, “people are more likely to walk off with things.”

Future enhancements may include channels for private communication between the DM and individual players, possibly through iPhones. Part of the focus for this semester is to develop a level builder, to allow DMs to get beyond the original story set in a forest and a cave. “We don’t want to take away from the power of the Dungeon Master to create,” says former CMU team member Michael Lewis.

A fight to the death with a vampire has a few inherent problems

Before you rush out to update your holiday wish list, realize that several obstacles stand between you and your gadget-driven RPG experience.

For starters, Surface is not a mobile unit. You can’t pack it up with your miniatures and head out the door to meet your friends. Every physical move requires a couple people, some peripheral equipment, and recalibration when the table reaches its new destination. “It’s a lot of work to move,” admits programmer Michael Cole.

It is also a significant investment to acquire the device that can run SurfaceScapes. Most of Surface’s early adopters are retailers, hotels, and research institutions, such as CMU. A single unit runs upwards of $15,000, making it a bit more unobtainable than an iPhone or even the rumored Apple Tablet. This isn’t pizza money (unless you are buying 2,000 pies).

Finally, while there has been some interest by companies to turn it into a commercial product, SurfaceScapes remains an academic enterprise. Most of the team members are in their second year with plans to graduate, leaving the future of the project uncertain. The long-term value for the design students is the experience working with a new kind of interaction.

Perhaps the best way you can reap the benefits of the team’s hard work is to head to Pittsburgh and volunteer for a user test. So far, the game has been evaluated only by fellow students, friends, and a few guests visiting ETC. The SurfaceScapes team will also be at PAX East in Boston on March 26-28.

Many thanks to Richard Chen for arranging interviews with representatives from both Microsoft and CMU, and to August de los Reyes, Eric Havir, Dyala Kattan-Wright, Michael Cole, Bulut Karakaya, and Michael Lewis for taking time to talk with me about the project and the technology. Also, thanks to druidic.net for the great D&D quotes in the titles.