Alex Kirtley-Close

A problem that has been identified with a large population of the disabled and elderly is with the use of mobility scooters. Even though mobility scooters reduce the amount of physical strain compared to a wheelchair, they still require some manual physical control.

Our initial thesis is that during an extended journey on a mobility scooter the user may experience physical strain; however it is also believed that external factors such as the weather, environment and obstacles prove a… Show more

A problem that has been identified with a large population of the disabled and elderly is with the use of mobility scooters. Even though mobility scooters reduce the amount of physical strain compared to a wheelchair, they still require some manual physical control.

Our initial thesis is that during an extended journey on a mobility scooter the user may experience physical strain; however it is also believed that external factors such as the weather, environment and obstacles prove a challenge for the user to negotiate with in order to reach their destination. Not only this but also due to their disability, age or illness they may come to a point during their journey where they are not able to continue.

With this in mind, the project's objective was to create a system that can autonomously navigate a route from the current position of the scooter to a destination (given by the user) safely. This is only utilized when the user chooses through the use of an easy to use user interface. The scooter makes use of two Hokuyu URG-04LX-UG01 laser range finders, a GPS and compass device and a DIY rotatory encoder. With this equipment, it can successfully navigate safely around obstacles such as curbs, walls, people and cars whilst moving towards the destination.
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Our main event this year is the Game Jam, a 24 hour games programming contest between NTU and a number of other universities. 100 people, in teams of 3-5 members, will be invited to take part. It is our hope that this event will bring about a sense of friendly competition between universities, and create opportunities for further corroborative and competitive events in the future.

The event will be 24 hours long, starting Saturday 17th November 12pm and finishing on Sunday 18th November… Show more

Our main event this year is the Game Jam, a 24 hour games programming contest between NTU and a number of other universities. 100 people, in teams of 3-5 members, will be invited to take part. It is our hope that this event will bring about a sense of friendly competition between universities, and create opportunities for further corroborative and competitive events in the future.

The event will be 24 hours long, starting Saturday 17th November 12pm and finishing on Sunday 18th November 12pm. Currently supported by Nottingham Trent University, Pocketeers, Microsoft, Marmalade, Game City, Pololu, Rebellion, 2000AD, Desura, Indie Royale and Dynamite Jack.

We started organizing the event in early June, during this time we starting formulating the general plan on how we would like the event to look like in the end product. Since then we have been perfecting this vision, looking for sponsors, securing a venue and a multitude of other tasks. Show less

The NerfCore is an in house games engine that is designed to replace, optimise and enhance many areas of XNA. XNA is basic games development framework produced by Microsoft for use on PC, Xbox360 and Windows phone 7. Through our use of the XNA platform we discovered many flaws in it's design and have gone about the productions of our own engine to resolve this. We have provided a vast number of systems to both accelerate prototyping, but also to reduce the footprint of the underlying engine. We… Show more

The NerfCore is an in house games engine that is designed to replace, optimise and enhance many areas of XNA. XNA is basic games development framework produced by Microsoft for use on PC, Xbox360 and Windows phone 7. Through our use of the XNA platform we discovered many flaws in it's design and have gone about the productions of our own engine to resolve this. We have provided a vast number of systems to both accelerate prototyping, but also to reduce the footprint of the underlying engine. We have built a object and state model that allows for rapid update processing in parallel, taking advantage of the additional cores on a number of machines. With the quality of indie games increasing every year its important to have a framework that can allow your game to be noticed, and with inbuilt lighting, GPU particle, physics, networking and IPC system's, the NerfCore will give you this edge. Show less

The isometric tile engine was created to act as a generic map editor. This could then create maps directly for other games I plan on creating. The idea behind it is to allow anyone to create a isometric map with an array of tiles and then save the map and load it into their game. I built this project with a modular approach in mind. This means if you consider a game as a module, this map engine would also be a module. As long as you utilise the map class then this map editor will fit perfectly… Show more

The isometric tile engine was created to act as a generic map editor. This could then create maps directly for other games I plan on creating. The idea behind it is to allow anyone to create a isometric map with an array of tiles and then save the map and load it into their game. I built this project with a modular approach in mind. This means if you consider a game as a module, this map engine would also be a module. As long as you utilise the map class then this map editor will fit perfectly into the project. Show less

A small space 2D space shooter that is much like the very popular game Asteroids. Created in Gwin which is the in-house graphics library of Nottingham Trent University this project shows off basic simulated gravity as well as a particle system! Written in C++ this project was my first major project and was submitted for my System’s Development and Implementation coursework. I rebuilt this project from the ground up a number of times, this is as I was building it as I learnt thing both at… Show more

A small space 2D space shooter that is much like the very popular game Asteroids. Created in Gwin which is the in-house graphics library of Nottingham Trent University this project shows off basic simulated gravity as well as a particle system! Written in C++ this project was my first major project and was submitted for my System’s Development and Implementation coursework. I rebuilt this project from the ground up a number of times, this is as I was building it as I learnt thing both at university and in my spare time. This project was awarded with 85% which is a first. Show less