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Students Gear Up for Second Annual Game Jam
September, 21, 2016
Competition to Take Place at LSU Sept. 23-Sept.25
The game is on at LSU. The Women in Computer Science club (WICS) will hold its second
annual Game Jam Friday, Sept. 23 through Sunday, Sept. 25. Tutorials are available
for participants starting at 3 p.m. on Friday. The opening ceremony will begin at
5 p.m.
Game Jam is a weekend long competition where participating teams create a video game.
Participants must base the game around the event theme, which WICS will announce during
the opening ceremony. Mentors and sponsors are present throughout the 48-hour competition
to offer teams advice. Game Jam also includes a career fair where participants can
network, and it provides free food and promotional items. This year, the majority
of the Game Jam’s 100 participants hail from colleges and high schools across south
Louisiana with computer skills ranging from novice to experienced.
“I’m excited about the increase in female involvement from the industry this year,”
said WICS president and computer science senior Sam Shrestha about this year’s competition.
WICS saw an increase in female involvement for both participants and judges. Women
represented two of the six judges for the panel last year. This year, the judges are
exclusively female. The panel even includes former WICS president, creator of Game
Jam and current EA Games employee Alexandra Willis. Furthermore, Game Jam’s keynote
speaker is Tech Advocate Group Founder Natalie Noel.
Last year, Game Jam hosted approximately 70 participants and over 30 volunteers. Teams
created games based on the theme “Wake Up.” Though participants must adhere to a single
overarching theme, teams may interpret the theme any way they wish. Games ranged from
waking a girl before a monster scared her to waking a student for finals. WICS kept
participants fueled with Chick-Fil-A, pizza and other snacks. All participating teams
successfully created games, some of which are still available for download at wicsgamejam.com/#recap.
With more participants and new sponsors, teams can expect stiff gaming competition.
A panel of judges will evaluate the games against various criteria. This includes
best overall game, best art, and best use of the theme. Winners may receive EA games,
Amazon gift cards or other prizes from sponsors. Members of the team that win best
overall game will have the opportunity to send their resumes to sponsors, which include
EA games, Intel and CenturyLink among others.
“I am happy to see the growth and increase in awareness of Game Jam,” said WICS Faculty
Adviser Alena McDuff.
Shrestha hopes that participants take the opportunity to network with one another
throughout the competition. She wants teams to learn to work with different people
toward a common goal. Most of all, she wants Game Jam participants to have fun with
the event.
While competition registration has closed, WICS is still looking for volunteers to
help throughout the weekend, particularly in the mornings. For more information or
to register as a volunteer, visit www.wicsgamejam.com. Participants can follow along
with the competition by following @wicslsu on Twitter and Women in Computer Science
on Facebook. The official event hashtag is #WICSGameJam.
“Game Jam is important because it gets the message out to our community about women
in computer science,” Shrestha said. She believes the competition encourages people
to pursue a computer science degree and shows that the major can be fun.
Seven LSU computer science majors founded Women in Computer Science at LSU in the
spring of 2015. The purpose of the club is to provide a community to help develop
and advance women in computer science at LSU. The club provides tutoring sessions,
workshops and other social events. For more information about WICS, email wicslsu@gmail.com.
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For more information, contact Caroline Byrne at cbyrne4@lsu.edu or at 225-578-4630.