Three teams from TCNJ competed at the event, which hosted ten teams including professional, student, and amateur entrants competing for the same awards. The three teams, TCNJ Red, TCNJ Blue, and TCNJ Yellow, were comprised of twenty-four members including four TCNJ alumni and eighteen current TCNJ students.

The Philly Game Jam began at noon on Oct. 23 amidst the GameX Industry Summit in Phoenixville, just an hour away from the college. Ten teams were each challenged with designing and developing an original computer game in only forty-eight hours. Prizes were awarded for "Most Innovative Game" and "Best Adherence to Contest Theme," the latter of which was awarded to TCNJ Yellow's game.

The game, simply titled "Yellow," was developed by Mike Testen (TCNJ '09), Jeff Rupert (TCNJ '09), Samantha McLaughlin (TCNJ '09), Akash Barot (UPenn '09), Steve Testen (Drexel '10), and Brian Bagdzinski (TCNJ '10). All development, including design, programming, art, and sound, was done on-site at the competition during the two-day time period.

The inspiration for the trip came in the summer when several students who shared a class in the Spring 2009 semester heard about the contest and started e-mailing one another. By contacting classmates, friends, and various members of the campus community with an interest in game development, the group planned the trip completely independently and continued to gain members. The twenty-four students who attended the Game Jam represent a wide variety of majors, and include freshmen all the way through recent alumni.

The 2009 Philly Game Jam was just one part of the GameX Industry Summit, which was organized by International Game Developers Association chapters located in New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Boston, and supported by NBC Local Media in Philadelphia. The summit brought professionals from the industry at both ends of the East Coast to Philadelphia for two days of lectures, round-tables, and keynotes. Attendees also had the chance to play the games developed during the Game Jam, and TCNJ's students had the opportunity to develop connections with local potential employers and increase the college's profile in the game development community.

Competitive applicants interested in this amazing opportunity should begin completing application materials immediately. A completed application will consist of profile information, academic background (including transcripts), a resume, an essay for undergraduates, a proposal for graduates, letters of recommendations, and any test scores, such as GRE's, when appropriate.

• Windows 7 Professional
• Windows Software Development Kit for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
• Expression Studio 3
• Streets & Trips 2009
• Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R2 Academic Edition

Do you sometimes wonder what our students do during the summer break? Some head to the shore, and some take vacations. However, a number of CS majors will be heading out to National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research programs, internships, or other research projects to continue their exploration of computer science. Listed below are the names and destinations of a number of our students. If you are currently a CS student and are participating in an REU, research program, internship or other interesting summer experience, do email us and let us all know!

Participating in a Summer Research Program

Ewing, NJ - Junior computer science students Autumn Breese and Ruth Dannenfelser, both from The College of New Jersey, have been selected from a national pool of undergraduate research students representing all academic disciplines, to travel to Washington, DC and present their current research efforts. The students have been participating in the Coalition to Diversify Computing’s Collaborative Research Experiences for Undergraduates (CREU) program, which supports student research at their home institutions.

Under the supervision of their advisor, Dr. Peter DePasquale, the students have created a unique educational tool, the Comment Mentor (or COMTOR) that provides analysis and feedback on Java source code commenting. COMTOR was conceived in mid-2005 as an educational tool to assist both seasoned developers and new programmers learn better source code-level documentation strategies. Current conventions for documenting at the source level are not well codified. Because of this lack of standards, it is hard to empirically measure the "quality" of a comment, and therefore difficult to objectively measure comment quality over time or in relation to the developing code base. COMTOR attempts to address these difficulties by providing a tool that automates the grading process. Not only does it assist the grader, it can assist the student or developer before code is submitted to their instructor by making sure comments are at some threshold level of quality.

Sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), the event will help members of Congress understand the importance of undergraduate research by talking directly with the students whom these programs impact. Representatives from several federal-level funding agencies and foundations are being invited to attend the poster session. Additionally, Breese and Dannenfelser will be meeting with Congressional Representatives and Senators to talk about their undergraduate research.

The Posters on the Hill event will take place on May 4th and 5th, and will include a keynote address to all student researchers, and include a tour of the Library of Congress and the National Archives. Poster presentations will take place on Tuesday, May 5th in the Rayburn House Office Building. Information on the Posters on the Hill event can be found at http://www.cur.org/postersession.html)

The company in question is looking for someone with HTML experience and can do web design and coding. Looking to do a rework of their main page, the candidate will need to translate designs into a working page. For more information about the position, please contact:

Jack Tatar
GEM Research Solutions
34 Shara Lane
Pennington, NY 08534

609.818.0899
609.504.2341 (cell)

www.GEMResearchSolutions.com

The Charles H. Goldberg Prize is awarded annually by the Computer Science Department to a student (or students) who has demonstrated academic excellence in Computer Science and who will be continuing into graduate study in Computer Science.

Eligible students are graduating Computer Science majors who have applied for admission for graduate study in Computer Science. The number of awards and the award amount are at the discretion of the Computer Science Department. The award check will be conveyed to the awardee(s) upon matriculation in a graduate program in Computer Science within one year of the announcement of the award.

Do you have your summer plans yet? No? Well, for those of you interested in exploring computing research a bit more, the National Science Foundation funds a number of Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) at institutions throughout the country (and few international locations as well!). This opportunity will provide travel funds, 8 weeks of room and board, plus a stipend while you work on mentored research with other undergrads under the supervision of faculty at the host institution. Interested in AI? Pen-based computing? Networks? Virtual Reality? How about spending the summer at Virginia Tech, Washington State, Rhode Island, or Miami?

Under the mentorship of Dr. Andrea Salgian of the Department of Computer Science, TCNJ team 1, consisting of students, Steve Lombardi, Jake Voytko, and Rob Wilson, made this outstanding achievement. Autumn Breese, Bryce Liskovec, and Andrew Timmes made up TCNJ team 2, and also performed well by completing 6 out of 9 problems correctly. In a field of 51 competing teams, both TCNJ teams achieved excellent standing within the top 15:

1. Cornell 1
2. Princeton 1
3. Princeton 2
4. TCNJ 1
5. NYU 1
6. Columbia 2
7. Columbia 1
8. Cooper 1
9. Stony Brook 2
10. Stony Brook 1
11. Cornell 2
12. Rutgers 2
13. Princeton 3
14. Rutgers 1
15. TCNJ 2
16. Cornell 3

The three co-Principal Investigators of the grant are Ursula Wolz, associate professor of computer science, Kim Pearson, associate professor of English, and Monisha Pulimood, assistant professor of computer science. Mary Switzer, gender equity specialist at TCNJ, will be program manager.

With evidence mounting that the duties of 21st century journalists and computing professionals will begin to overlap, this project will not only educate students of these responsibilities, but attract them into the computing pipeline and give them the opportunity to explore possible career choices otherwise unknown to them.

In this project, a cohort of rising 8th graders from Fisher Middle School in Ewing will participate in a weeklong summer Interactive Journalism Institute at TCNJ in 2008 and 2009. During the institute, teachers from Fisher will partner with TCNJ undergraduates as mentors. They will receive training prior to the Fisher students. TCNJ students with backgrounds in computer science, journalism and media will help design the program and supporting technology through a summer research opportunity. These students will lead TCNJ volunteers to support the Fisher teachers extend the project as an afterschool program during the following school year.

The summer Institute curriculum will impart basic computer science, reporting and writing skills. This session will focus particularly on database design and access. It will exploit the potential of a new programming language Scratch that supports young people as they create their own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art on the Web (http://scratch.mit.edu). The 8th grade students will learn and practice basic reporting and programming skills, and produce a small prototype news publication.

Summer learning will be reinforced and cultivated during the school year through workshops and enrichment activities, mentored by their own teachers with volunteer students from TCNJ?s civic engagement program. The Fisher Middle School students will continue to produce the news publication as well as receive visits from professionals working in the field.

The contest draws students from colleges and universities throughout the Greater New York Metropolitan Area, including areas of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Its exact time and location are yet to be determined, but it will probably be held on a Sunday at the end of October or beginning of November. Winners selected from regional contests on six continents will advance to the ACM Programming Contest World Finals to compete for bragging rights and scholarships.