Events & News
Students Create Award-winning Computer Game
April 24, 2008
Five computer science students won the first place prize of $1000 per team member for their creation of a computer game called SkipTracer. Members of the team are Barbara Anderson, Tasneem Kaochar, Kendra Walworth, Marlene Cota and Genevieve Max.
Hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the annual competition challenged teams comprised of college women to develop a computer game that would spark the interest of young girls. The top three winning teams were selected by a panel of high school-aged girls who actually had a chance to play all of the games. “The games were judged solely on how much fun they are to play,” said team member Tasneem Kaochar, who started the team.
Each member of the second and third place winning teams will receive $500. Ohio took second place; a third-place tie went to Hobart and William Smith, and Cornell; and Michigan received honorable mention. As the first-place winner, UA Computer Science will also receive $1000 to fund strategies to attract more women to computer science.
The competition is funded by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Games 4 Girls is a program under ChicTech, a diversity initiative that encourages girls in Illinois high schools to pursue careers in computer science.
Read what the team says about the competition:
"It was great to collaborate on a project devoted toward encouraging more women to become involved in science and technology. We got a late start on the
project, and I was impressed by how the team worked during the stressful days
just before the submission deadline. Having imagination and a sense of humor
proved to be great assets." - Barbara
"This was an amazing, unforgettable experience for all of us! It was an
opportunity for each of us to get to know other female CS students in the
department. We had so much fun creating SkipTracer and each one of us brought
in our individual talent to add to the success of our final game." - Tasneem
"Our work together on this project produced a better result than any one of us
could have imagined alone. Each member of the team contributed something
special and you can really see their unique personalities come through in every
part of the game. We are so very proud of our final product because it is a
wonderful collaboration that allowed us all to shine!" - Kendra
"Getting the chance to work on this project was very exciting. It was great to
be able to use our CS knowledge to interest other girls in technology. We all
brought different ideas together to create this game, allowing our final
product to represent everything we think a game should be." - Genevieve
"Working on SkipTracer was pretty sweet. I'm really glad we decided to form a
group and compete. It's pretty amazing how ideas become something tangible. Had we not won the prize (which was incredibly cool), I think the overall experience itself was worth the work we put into it. Hopefully our accomplishment will encourage other women to participate, and we can keep the UA momentum going! Stay tuned for SkipTracer 2!" - Marlene
View the game, a video presentation explaining the game rules and the rationale for its creation.