By posting to Canadian Developer Connection, I can combine the great content we have been posting here with content from other members of our Canada technical evangelist team, so you will have more helpful tips, tricks, and news in one place!

If you are a student, do check out Canadian Student Facebook page (fb.com/MicrosoftStudent), so you can be first to know about any big announcements, contests, discounts or promotions for students in Canada!

Thank you for all your comments, shares, likes and tweets! See you at Canadian Developer Connection!

Sincerely,

Susan aka @HockeyGeekGirl

It’s June, and that means we are currently accepting applications for the Microsoft Student Partner position in Canada.  If interested please apply ASAP we would like to identify all our candidates by the end of the month. We will consider other candidates throughout the year. But this is our target period for identifying new MSPs.

What is a Microsoft Student Partner?

• As a technical evangelist I try to help developers make educated decisions. As I look into 2014/2015, I want to be sure that developers understand what Visual Studio can do, how the cloud on Azure can help your software projects, and why you might choose to develop for Windows Phone or Windows 8. If a developer is interested in one of these topics, I want to make sure they know how to get started with the technology.
• Canada is really big so I need help. Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs) are basically campus evangelists, who help me educate developers at their school.

What does an MSP Do?

• Let other students on their campus know about Microsoft programs such as DreamSpark and Imagine Cup.
• Ideally host one event per term. the event might be a lunch and learn, a 2-3 hour workshop, or an all day workshop or hackathon.

Who makes a great MSP?

• A self starter
• Someone comfortable organizing and promoting events.
• Someone with a passion for Microsoft technology.
• Someone comfortable doing a presentation in front of others.
• The ideal candidate has experience with Visual Studio, or Azure, or building mobile apps. At a minimum you must have a desire to learn about one of these technologies.

What do I get out of being an MSP?

• You get an MSDN subscription, which includes monthly Azure credits
• Opportunities to connect/network with other MSPs and people at Microsoft
• A chance to be seen as the campus expert on Microsoft programs and technology
• A chance to better connect your school to Microsoft

How do I apply?

Email mspcanada@Microsoft.com tell us your

• name
• school
• program
• graduating year
• a paragraph explaining why you want to be a Microsoft Student Partner and why you think you would be a good candidate.

We look forward to hearing from you!

“You’re not declaring it as a global variable, which is why you can’t access it from your main class.” I said to a pretty girl. She switched to another tab on her IDE and started typing up some short methods. “Ah I see, so if I make a public method to return foo, I can use it in my main constructor?” “That’s right.” We spent about another half-hour going through her code before I had to leave for class. “Say, are you free tonight? You know… to help me with some code?” I thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, sure.”

“No one I knew, certainly not myself, believed that I’d actually end up winning.”

No one I knew, certainly not myself, believed that I’d actually end up winning. I’m quite honestly surprised that I was able to complete the project at all. Despite the positive outcome, the brunt of the Imagine Cup’s magic had its effects on me during the course of the competition. Not only did it give me a huge boost in terms of technical skills and employability, but it even convinced me to change my field of study.

I’m currently studying Health Science at Marianopolis College & Elly is studying Social Science with a Law concentration, also at Marianopolis. That’s a picture of my mentor Elly and I (along with our mascot, Soju the cat).

The project I submitted was titled Mass Assaying Relaying Inquiring Survey Apparatus, or MARISA. It’s essentially a framework that permits various sensors (such as cameras, microphones, Kinects, etc.) to collect data from a disaster zone (i.e. tsunami or earthquake) and relay it to the cloud, where algorithms comb through the data and delegate optimized tasks to rescue authorities. It’s an ambitious project no doubt, but right now it’s still just a Kinect doing cool tricks with some algorithms.

I entered the World Citizenship category. While the project had some crossover with the Innovation category, after scrutinizing the judging criteria, I ultimately felt that it would have more success under World Citizenship. For those of you not familiar with the Imagine Cup, World Citizenship is one of the three major categories. The goal is to make the world a better place by tackling a social or environmental issue of your choosing; mine being casualties from natural disasters.

“ I wanted to create a futuristic system that scans you to save you.”

The idea for the project really came out of the blue. I was taking a walk at night when I suddenly starting thinking about the scouters from Dragon Ball Z. Basically, they’re nifty eyewear type devices that permit you to sense details about people around you. Incidentally, a few months back I had attended a Windows Phone Design workshop and one piece of advice I was given was that good UI/UX designers often base their concepts off of Hollywood movies such as Iron Man. I steeped these ideas together and ended up deciding that I wanted to create a futuristic system that scans you to save you.

The whole journey started 2 years ago, when I first entered CEGEP (for any non Quebeckers/Habs fans, CEGEP is Quebec’s equivalent to the last year of High School + first year of university in other parts of Canada). I wanted to compete in something, anything, but there was nothing that was really clicking for me. I tried Model UN conferences and rowing regattas, but they were too rigid in terms of structure and formalities. Browsing through online for competitions, I finally stumbled on one that in between offering large sums of cash, travel opportunities and being available in Quebec (many competitions don’t permit us to participate due to stringent local laws. From what I’ve been told, Microsoft takes extra steps to provide this opportunity in Quebec), allowed me to be ultra-creative and flexible in how I chose to compete (e.g. time and skill commitments).

“Initially I couldn’t even figure out how to add the Kinect and OpenCV .dlls”

Seeing as no one at my school had heard of the Imagine Cup, I set out to get the administration’s support in setting up a few teams and a club to orchestrate our endeavours. An alumnus and Microsoft Student Partner at Waterloo who was still subscribed to our school’s computer science club’s mailing list, heard about us and referred me to the MSP program. I applied and was accepted, which was pretty awesome. Several months passed by and some individuals had made cool projects. By the end of the year though, many Imagine Cup competitors at my school and I were feeling discouraged. How could we possibly compete? All the entries that we read about sounded truly phenomenal. I probably couldn’t code myself out of a paper bag either. The deadline flew by and many of us hadn’t so much as an idea of what we wanted to do.

Being an MSP started changing things however. Considering that the position requires teaching people how to make apps, I inadvertently ended up internalizing a few more C# snippets than I had anticipated. Within a couple of weeks, I was as fluent in C# as I was in French. I released a few relatively simple apps in order to learn, but I entered them all for Developer Movement and within weeks, there was a brand new Nokia Lumia 820 waiting on my doorstep.

Mood("W00t"); it said under the cover.

Next year I vowed to submit something to the Imagine Cup regardless of my skill level, or whether or not I got to find a good teammate. I still wasn’t much of a coder, but I was going to learn on my way. Initially I couldn’t even figure out how add the Kinect and OpenCV .dlls to my project and compile it under x64, but I kept at it, asking questions online when I couldn’t figure something (MSDN being quite useful and to an extent, StackOverflow) and inching forward one semicolon at a time.

“My victory had reinvigorated many students and programming suddenly became trendy. People I had never talked to started coming to me asking how they could learn to code, students in commerce or arts and even teachers! “

When I won, everyone was both surprised and ecstatic. After last year, no one really expected anyone to have made headway in any Imagine Cup projects. My victory had reinvigorated many students and programming suddenly became trendy. People I had never talked to started coming to me asking how they could learn to code, students in commerce or arts and even teachers! It seems like this was a secret desire that many had but could not manifest.

The biggest complaint seemed to be that no one understood how any of the code they were learning translated into real programs. The lucky few who were privy to a programming course only knew how to make console apps in Java (and couldn’t export them from the IDE either). Using my brilliant MSP skills, I showed to how to make a simple Windows Phone app. There was still a challenge left for the Imagine Cup, the Windows Phone challenge, so I organized a hackathon where 30+ students got together for 24 hours to make and submit apps. Needless to say, everyone had an amazing experience.

All in all, the Imagine Cup has given me the confidence I needed to go out and write my own programs from scratch. I never had a formal computer science education, but I’m coding everyday now and churning out more lines and less compilation errors than my counterparts studying software engineering in university. I was also planning on going into medicine, but I’ve now decided to study computer science with a bio minor instead.

I’ve also become a lot more employable and local companies have been seeking my services. Recently, an eyewear shop in Belgium contracted me to develop a solution that would allow clients to use a Kinect for Windows device to try on different glasses virtually. Of course they had many others to choose from, but they favored me when I told them I was an Imagine Cup winner for Canada!

What’s next for me? I’m still working on MARISA. I’m going to bring it to life one day, even if I don’t end up going to the world finals. I started leveraging the skills I accrued developing MARISA to work on autonomous drone avionics. The club I founded at my school to compete in the Imagine Cup has long expanded its horizons and has now taught nearly a hundred students how to code. Finally, I’m starting to think of cool ideas for next year’s Imagine Cup!

My suggestions and advice for anyone interested in competing next year:

1. Compete in the Imagine Cup. Compete in the Imagine Cup. Compete in the Imagine Cup, I can’t say this enough. If you go through and actually submit a project (or maybe more than one), you’ll come out with so much just for trying. You’ll have a project for your portfolio, which most young programmers DON’T have. You’ll learn how to collaboratively design software with TFS or Git(hub), which a surprising number of students lack as a skill. You’ll learn how to beget a creation completely by yourself, without instructions from a professor. Imagine yourself in the shoes of a recruiter or a company. Who would you rather pick? A student with the aforementioned experience or one of the many others who are sitting and twiddling their thumbs?
Furthermore, you underestimate your chances of winning. By signing up, you’re already ahead of countless individuals who are still thinking about it. By writing your first line of code, you’re already ahead of the countless individuals who have only signed up. By completing your first prototype, you’re already amongst the top competitors in your country. If you’re Canadian, there’s no doubt you’ve heard this Gretzky quote already, but it couldn’t be truer for a competition such as the Imagine Cup: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

2. Get teammates. Perhaps you’re thinking about doing the project alone, either because you envision winning a bigger share of the prize (granted you make it that far) and/or because you want to do everything your way. Chances are, that unless you have rock solid determination and a very diverse skillset, you won’t make it to the top. Much of the project will involve things that are not necessarily code and there is probably at least one thing you won’t excel at. Trying to complete different parts of the project alone will bring your progress down to a crawl. Maybe you have a friend you’d like to work with, but she or he doesn’t know how to code. That’s great, teach them how. Anyway, it’s a lot more fun. (Note: there are some people that may indeed excel on their own, if that’s the case with you, then it may in fact be more suitable for you to work alone. If the issue is that you can’t find anyone to work with, try searching online. The rules actually permit you to work with people outside of your school and even your country!)

3. Don’t be deterred by the competition put up by your fellow Imagine Cup contestants. Some competitors are doing research for their PhD thesis. Others are in med school. Certain individuals will have been coding since they were 12 or 13 and have a decade of experience. A few teams have even founded their own start-ups. Yet many of the Imagine Cup finalists and winners are high school students (I’d technically be included in this category). Every participant is unique and has their own set of skills in which they are proficient at, which they can leverage to create the ultimate project. Age and experience is no substitute for initiative and motivation, just as genes are no substitute for hard work and determination. To quote Gretzky again: “When I was 5 and playing against 11-year-olds, who were bigger, stronger, faster, I just had to figure out a way to play with them.” Out of all the guidance I can offer, this has absolutely got to be the most important. (I’d really like to see more pre-university/early university students next year.)

4. Don’t heed the naysayers. If it doesn’t exist, be the first.

5. Compete in the Challenges, in addition to the actually competition. This year, there was the Pitch Video, Blueprint & UI/UX design Challenges. When I was completing my proposal and video presentation for the final submission, I was able to recycle a lot of the stuff I wrote for the Blueprint Challenge (which I received an Honorable Mention for, but didn’t win). This was no coincidence. The Blueprint Challenge is more or less the precursor to the project proposal and the Pitch Video Challenge is the same for the video presentation. The initial blueprint I made guided my design for the entirety of the contest and I still refer to it when I discuss my project with interested parties. And who knows, you might just win a nice chunk of pocket change in the process.

6. Get support. You’d be surprised by how much your professors, parents and peers know. Even if their expertise isn’t computer science or software engineering, they may have the chops in maths, sciences, business or arts to address certain aspects of your project. You can also bounce ideas off them and get insights on your project that you wouldn’t had you not vocalized. Although the technical component is obviously stressed, the Imagine Cup is actually a holistic competition. At least 50% of the judging criteria is based is on things that are not necessarily related to code, e.g. artistic design, impact, business and marketing strategy, user experience and the innovativeness of your concept. My own mentor didn’t know how to code (and she’s actually younger than me), but she was a great help with other things such as logistics and showing me how to sell myself and the project.

7. Follow the criteria and guidelines for your category to the pixel. You can make the best ukulele simulator (Kinect instruments anyone?) but if it doesn’t specifically address any of the points stipulated in the regulations, you’ll lose out to a lesser project (tsk... banjo simulator). This reflects the real world, where you’ll have to sell your ideas and projects to co-founders, parents, investors, consumers, etc. I was fortunate to come across this advice before submitting my entry and no doubt, it contributed to its success.

8. Finally, don’t expect to win. Don’t get disappointed if you don’t win. But do your project to win. Put your all into it. Simply put, the person or people who are going to get the prize are those who want to win the most. Even if you’re not looking to win, do your project to win so that you achieve the best result.

All the best and hope to see you compete next year!

What is your project/idea?

Funiverse aims to make learning more fun for children. With the increasing amounts of technology in our lives, children often find that traditional classroom education can be dry. Indeed this has been realized by education officials around the world and there is serious efforts to integrate technology in education but this is still in its infancy. Realizing the need, we are contributing Funiverse as a 3D game which makes use of awesome technology both within the game and outside the game to make learning more fun. The game follows the players as they explore galaxies in a funny-looking space ship, where each planet holds different lessons on various subjects like math or science.

Another way that Funiverse makes learning more fun is that it is designed to be used with the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift®, and with a Kinect®. Overall, the players have fun while they absorb their learning material in an immersive way.

Meet the team

From left to right:

Omar Zaarour will complete his masters in computer science at the University of Calgary in August 2014. His first degree was in Computer Engineering and was completed at NNU-Palestine and BU-Turkey.

Alper Aksac will complete his PhD in computer science at the University of Calgary in August 2017. His first degree and master were in computer engineering and were completed at TOBB University in 2011 and 2013

Gabriela Jurca will complete her computer science at the University of Calgary after-degree in December 2014. Her first degree was in Biochemistry, which was also completed at the University of Calgary in 2012.

Omar Addam will complete his masters in computer science at the University of Calgary in August 2014. His first degree was in Computer science which was completed at Global University in 2012.

Why did you enter Imagine Cup?

Gabriela - I heard about the Imagine Cup in some of my classes prior to participating, but it had not occurred to me to participate until our mentor Prof. Reda Alhajj recommended that I be on this team. It sounded like an exciting idea to me, and I had always wanted to learn to make a game, so of course I had to do it.

The Omars - After the great success our SANO team had last year, we decided to give it another try this year. Thanks to the support of our professor Reda Alhajj who made it possible for us.

Alper - After the recommendation of our professor Reda Alhajj, I found this competition as an amazing opportunity to learn new concepts.

What category did you enter in the Imagine Cup?

We entered the Games Category of the Imagine Cup. It is the most challenging category as fun is the main key for success.

Did you think you would get this far when you entered?

Our team is unique in the sense that it combines expertise from various backgrounds integrated with the rich experience of the two Omars and our mentor Prof. Alhajj who participated in last year’s competition. This helped us build high self-confidence and move forward smoothly to achieve the target. Indeed, we were excited and happy that Funiverse was selected as the winning game, yet we were confident that our project had a large potential to succeed. We believe that virtual reality has a strong potential in both the educational system and the gaming industry. We wish that we could have had a game like Funiverse when we were kids in school as well, so that we could had seen more facets of the learning material and experience it in an exciting way.

What do you think you did really well with your project?

Funiverse stands out as an educational game because it makes learning more fun by fully immersing the players into their gaming environment through the Oculus Rift® and Kinect®. Oculus Rift® provides the 3D visuals around the player, while the Kinect® allows the players to navigate their game using gestures similar to those used in real life, such as walking or turning. Funiverse shows how technology can be used to teach people about worlds that are not easily reached.

However, Funiverse is also accessible to people who do not have an Oculus Rift® or Kinect®, since there is also a Web version of the game available. We wanted to keep the game accessible to our user, even if the player does not have the technology that we designed our game around.

If you were starting over again from scratch what would you do differently?

If we could start the project all over again, it would be helpful to get a lot more feedback from teachers at the very beginning of the project. We sought feedback from teachers after we had already done some development, so that we could have something to get feedback on. However, performing some more investigative research early on would have made it easier to develop the content of the game accordingly.

What’s next for you after Imagine Cup?

Our plan for Funiverse was to design it in a way that could make it easy for teachers to teach their students the learning material. In the future, we would like to implement a way for the teachers to modify the content of Funiverse according to their own curriculum.

Another plan that we have for Funiverse is to make it even more immersive by using technology such as the Virtuix Omni® or Wii Board®, which make it easier for the player to move around while the Kinect detects his or her motion®.

What’s next for…

• Gabriela: Plans to pursue a Masters in computer science starting in January 2015.
• Omar Addam: Plans to pursue a PhD in computer science starting in December 2014.
• Omar Zaarour: Plans to finish his master and gain some experience in the industry.
• Alper: Plans to finish his PhD and gain some experience in the industry.

What advice would you share with a student who is thinking of entering Imagine Cup?

One advice for a future competitor is to get a great team together with a great mentor, where ideas are easily shared and expanded. The greater the pool of ideas that you have, the more likely you are to choose really great ideas. Working in a team also keeps the spirit of the project alive when challenges are encountered, whether the challenge is technical or a case of the writer’s block.

Another piece of advice is to keep a working schedule for your project from the beginning. Making small deadlines for yourself or the team will ensure that progress will be achieved on your project.

Software developer Kowsheek Mahmood helps you understand how to use Visual Studio for node.js development. Take it away Kowsheek!

The official description of NTVS is:

“NTVS is a free, open source plugin that turns Visual Studio into a Node.js IDE. NTVS supports Editing, Intellisense, Profiling, npm, TypeScript, Debugging locally and remotely (Windows/MacOS/Linux), as well Azure Web Sites and Cloud Service.” - https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/

What that means is it's possible to use one of the best (if not the best) IDEs, with all its awesome cutting-edge features and extensions, to build Node.js applications.

The Tools

First, we're going to need Visual Studio 2013. Since NTVS beta 1.0 Visual Studio 13 Express Web is supported and can be downloaded for free. If you are a student, you can download a free copy of Visual Studio Professional 2013 from Microsoft DreamSpark.

Next, we're going to need the node.js tools themselves. Download the tools from its site on CodePlex. The installation process is simple enough, and detailed installation instructions are available in the NVTS Wiki.

New Project

Having installed the tools, we can start by creating a new project.

When creating a new project, there are several templates available. You can choose create a project with existing Node.js code. There are Express application templates available as well. And I'll be using an Express application template that's Windows Azure ready (streamlining the deployment).

When I hit OK, I'll am asked to download packages that are defined in this template. We'll be seeing what these packages are shortly.

While the project is being created, packages from the npm registry are downloaded and some sample code is generated.

At this point solution is ready with Express, Jade & Stylus, bringing us to a very familiar Node.js set up. And if I run it, we'll see yet another familiar screen but now, powered through Visual Studio, its visual debugging tools and much more.

npm

With NTVS, npm is fully integrated into Visual Studio. Right click on the npm node on the Solution Explorer and select Manage npm Packages to bring up the package manager UI.

Building

Just to play around with it, let's rename the user.js file to coffee.js. We'll also create an array of drinks and their ratings and rework the list method to return that array.

var coffees = [{ name: "Latte", rating: 1 }, { name: "Mocha", rating: 5 }, { name: "Mochachino", rating: 2 }];

exports.list = function(req, res) {
res.send(coffees);
};

Let's fix this by first changing the module name and file name on line 8 of app.js.

var coffee = require('./routes/coffee');

And changing the call to users on line 33.

app.get('/coffees', coffee.list);

Running the application and navigating to /coffees this time will show us what we expect, a list of drinks and their respective ratings.

Debugging

Regardless of the browser you are testing your application in, you can visually debug your application in Visual Studio. It's as simple as navigating to the line you want to break at and setting a breakpoint. When your application hits this point the debugger will kick in.

How awesome is that?

Publish to Windows Azure

Now that I have somewhat of an application done, let's publish it. Choose Publish from the Build menu.

Choosing Windows Azure Web Sites will guide you through a log in (or sign up) process for your Windows Azure account. Next, you can either choose to deploy to an existing site or create a new one.

At this point, it's possible to configure several things such as availability and database for the application. And once I hit Create, a site will be provisioned for me under expressoapp.azurewebsites.net.

This is a Node.js application, built in Visual Studio, deployed to the clouds of Windows Azure in a matter of few clicks.

Closing Points

1. Since the first build of NTVS there have been many improvements made, there are performance enhancements on the way for the current version as well. More details are available on the release notes.
2. In the latest beta release, it is also possible to remotely debug Windows Azure Web Sites. Try it out!
3. There are already many resources available to help you get started with NTVS. Check out this post by Scott Hanselman and videos on the NTVS Videos channel.

With NTVS the entire development lifecycle of any Node.js application can now leverage one of the best developer experiences available today in Visual Studio. Happy building!

Kowsheek is a software developer focused on application design and architecture specializing in cross-platform and open-source technologies.

Find out more about his work & blog at http://kowsheek.com/. This post is also available on Kowsheek's Blog.

What category did you enter in the Imagine Cup?

We entered the 2014 Canada Microsoft Imagine Cup Innovation Competition, a contest for the best new innovative software. Actually, this category is a good opportunity for those who have new ideas for implementing software innovations.

What is your project/idea?

Our software claVision is a completely new way to perform automatic piano music transcription by visually analyzing the piano keyboard, without having any audio of the played music. This idea was inspired by the famous composer, Beethoven. By the last decade of his life, he was almost totally deaf, forcing him to rely on the visual relationship between his fingers and piano keys. claVision simulates what a deaf musician like Beethoven does. It can be used on any kind of musical keyboard. It can also be used as an educational aid for students learning to play a piano. You can see a short video demonstrating their software here.

Who is on your team?

Team claVision includes two members: Mohammad Akbari and Hossein Naseri, along with mentor Dr. Howard Cheng, from the University of Lethbridge. Mohammad is a Masters student in Computer Science. He is working as the team manager, image and video processing expert, software developer and music expert (pianist) of the team. Hossein is currently a Masters of Science student in Physics. In the team claVision, he is working as an expert in mathematics and audio processing. Dr. Howard Cheng is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science in University of Lethbridge.

Why did you enter Imagine Cup?

Last October, the geekStarter program from Alberta Innovates Technology Future hosted an information session talking about the Microsoft Imagine Cup, which made us interested in this competition. So, after the suggestion of our team’s mentor Dr. Howard Cheng, we found this competition as an amazing opportunity to present our innovative software claVision.

Did you think you would get this far when you entered?

We knew our software was a new technology for solving an old problem. However, because it was our first competition of this kind and we were not aware of the other competitors and their projects, we did not expect to be selected as the winner of the 2014 Canada Microsoft Imagine Cup Innovation Competition. So, when we heard this fantastic news, we got totally surprised.

What do you think you did really well with your project?

There are some significant points making our software stand out. Unlike other similar products that perform automatic music transcription by “listening” to the music, in claVision, the audio of the played music is ignored. As a result, many of the drawbacks of existing transcription techniques from audio are no longer present. Both live (real-time) and recorded video processing can be handled by our software accurately. claVision has a number of other useful applications such as automatic improvised music transcription, piano education especially for hearing-impaired people. Moreover, after analyzing the demand for automatic music transcription, we have designed a business plan to get claVision to the market.

If you were starting over again from scratch what would you do differently?

Thanks to this competition, we are more experienced than before. We think if we had this experience at first, we would have thought about the business aspect more instead of just the technical side.

What’s next for you after Imagine Cup?

After this competition, we are planning to get claVision to the market. So, we want to consult with technology transfer experts on steps to commercialize our software product. Additionally, we have some other interesting ideas that we are interested in presenting them to this Microsoft Imagine Cup next year.

What advice would you share with a student who is thinking of entering Imagine Cup?

Microsoft Imagine Cup as a global student technology competition is the best opportunity that every student may have in their lives to present new ideas to the world. If you are looking for a great opportunity helping you achieve your success, do not miss it!

What’s next?

Team claVision now advances to the world semi-finals. During this stage they will be judged against the other Canadian category winners (Innovation, Games, and World Citizenship) and against other entries in the Innovation category from around the world. Ten innovation teams from around the world will be selected to attend the World Imagine Cup finals this July in Seattle. In June, we find out which of the top three Canadian teams will be selected to represent Canada at the world finals. Good luck team claVision!

What category did you enter in the Imagine Cup?

I entered the Imagine Cup under the Apps for Office category to create an application that is used by the Microsoft Office Suites (ie. Word, Excel, OneNote).

What is your project/idea?

The idea is to have an application available to Word/OneNote where you are able to create musical ideas. We want you to be able to notate music straight onto Word which is already a powerful piece of software. There are a lot of complicated music notation software out there that take a lot of resources. Our project, "Muusika", is an attempt to create a way to simplify jotting down quick music ideas without having to spend a lot of time figuring things out.

Who is on your team?

Kenny Hong - 2nd year General Science student at the University of Manitoba

Eric Fehr - 2nd year Computer Science student at the University of Manitoba

Why did you enter the Imagine Cup?

There wasn't a particular reason why I entered. My professor had talked about it a bit during one of his lectures, and I thought it would be a fun idea to enter, so I worked on a proposal and submitted it.

Did you think you would get this far when you entered?

I actually did not think I would make it through round one. It was quite the shock... I immediately tried to look for teammates so that the idea could actually come alive.

What do you think you did really well with your project?

I believe that the idea/concept was properly submitted. There are not a lot applications for office that involve working with music and I just wanted to be a part of creating an application that lets users jot down a quick musical idea.

If you were starting over again from scratch what would you do differently?

I would have assembled a team immediately and started working on the project earlier. That would have made this a bit easier, especially for an app like this.

What’s next for you after Imagine Cup?

I am fairly new to the world of Computer Science, and I now believe that this is a career I would like to pursue. After the Imagine Cup, I would love to continue the project, and perfect it so anyone can use it. I believe I can improve on it as I learn more about the world of programming. For now, after the competition, I will be helping some fellow students bring Tedx to the University of Manitoba!

What advice would you share with a student who is thinking of entering Imagine Cup?

Do it. It is a great opportunity and it can be quite a challenge too ( if you like challenges), but like I said above, get a good head start on it, it will make your life less stressful (exams pile up! ).

What happens next?

Kenny & Eric are now working to bring Muusika to life. May 26th they will submit their completed app to the judges who will select two of the five final entries to attend the Imagine Cup World Finals in Seattle, Washington in July. Those two teams will compete for first place and $5000.  Join us in wishing them good luck in the next round, we hope to see them bearing the Canadian flag to the Imagine Cup world finals in Seattle this July!

Here is their winning proposal

Concept

Music is becoming a critical part in the lives of many people and learning the basics of music can be a pain without the right tools. A simple music notation software can be very expensive and complicated to use but writing by hand can result in wasting a lot of paper. This project, Muusika, is an app aimed towards providing users a simple way to jot and take down musical ideas without having to waste any paper. Muusika can also provide the younger and/or beginner music students a way to learn the basic and fundamentals of the staves, notation, theory, and composition. It also works the other way around, where music teachers are able to use this tool to teach students the fundamentals of music.

There are currently templates on Microsoft Word for empty staves but it can be more effective by adding a feature where users are able to input notes onto the staves without having to look it up on the ASCII tables constantly. Users can also benefit from the organizational aspect of Microsoft OneNote by having notebooks where they are able to quickly jot down a melody so they don’t forget. Muusika will take advantage of any power features Word and OneNote may have, including the Pens and Pencil tools.

This was created on OneNote using the line tool and the pen and pencil tool. The lines where complicated to straighten and kept on sticking together. Using a Wacom Bamboo tablet I was able to draw out the notes, Muusika will enable the use of an easier way input notes in Word and OneNote.

Office Support

Muusika will support the following applications:

Word – For ease of use and professional looking arrangements and compositions without having to break the bank for a complicated professional music notation software.

OneNote – If you have an idea, if you like to keep musical journals, if you like to work on a song where mistakes should be make, OneNote will provide the resources needed to organize the songs your composing, lyrics you are creating, music you are arranging, etc…

Planned Content & Technologies

To ensure the simplicity of the Muusika, it must have enough functions to be usable in the world of music but limited enough not to overwhelm and confuse the users. Muusika will give users the choice of drawing the notes using a tablet/drawing table or a simple point and click input system involving a toolbar and mouse. The toolbar should have the basics needed for music, all the clefs, notes lengths, rests, and ties with a customizable option to add concepts like crescendos, and volume control for the more advanced musicians.

Muusika may also include a MIDI feature where it will playback the notes inputted via the notes tool.

User Experience Story

Let’s say one user is an aspiring teenage musician writing songs, the OneNote version of the application will enable the user to jot down the ideas for both lyrics and melodies. They can organize their ideas by each notebook being a genre, each section being a song, and each page being an idea/version of that song. That is only one way to organize your music.

Another way to use the application would be on Word. A music teacher can easily teach a student the basics and fundamentals of music by either drawing on the given staves or inputting the notes with the tools given and if the MIDI playback is available, they will also be able to play back what was inputted. This lets students copy what was inputted and practice what they have learned.

Many of us work in Visual Studio every day, but have never taken the time to learn Blend. Adding Blend to your toolset will make you a more productive developer. so check out the MVA Blend Jump Start!

I have worked with Visual Studio for longer than I care to admit (do you remember when you could view the clipboard ring in a window?). I have worked in Blend a little bit here and there, but never had a chance to sit down and really figure out how it can help me with my coding. Mickey MacDonald tried it last year and in one day not only started learning Blend but built an entire game using just Blend! (read Mickey’s story)

So as you look at the long list of technologies you want to learn, if you are doing anything with XAML, I highly recommend bumping Blend to the top of your list. There is a really good Jump Start for Designing your XAML UI with Blend on Microsoft Virtual Academy presented by Jerry Nixon a Technical Evangelist and Unni Ravindranathan a Program Manager from Microsoft.

The jumpstart covers

• XAML development in Visual Studio 2013 (there are some nice new features in 2013!)
• XAML Design and Styling in Blend
• How to build Windows Store Apps with Blend
• a little Developer Candy :)
• Some great suggested resources and next steps.

Don’t forget If you are a student you get Blend when you download Visual Studio 2013 from DreamSpark!

If you are in Canada, don’t forget that watching videos on Microsoft Virtual Academy could earn you rewards through Developer Movement!

Put aside some time, and learn how to make the most out of a tool you already have in your toolbox!

If you haven’t used Windows Phone App Studio before, you should check out the other resources on our  Windows Phone App Studio Resources page which include a post which explains how to build an app using Windows Phone App Studio. Don’t forget if you are in Canada your apps could earn you rewards!

This post will explain how to

• Preview the Windows 8 app
• Change the Windows 8 Splash Screen
• Update the information for publishing the application
• Associate your app with the Windows Store
• Generate the app files for testing and publishing
• Test your app and capture screenshots for publishing

Preview the Windows 8 app

When you have finished building your app. You can preview the appearance of your app as a Windows 8 app, select Windows Preview to change from the Windows Phone preview to the Windows 8 application preview.

A pop up windows will appear giving you a preview of your application as a Windows 8 app.

Changing the Windows 8 Splash screen

Once you are happy with the basic appearance of your app (changed the background color, content, etc, as explained in the previous posts of this series, you need to specify a Windows 8 splash screen background.

Select Tiles | Splash & Lock. Then you can choose between two splash screen designs.

• Solid color background with the icon you selected for your tiles.
• A photograph as a background.
• 

For a solid color background, simply select the desired background color from the color drop down box.

If you wish to use a photograph as a background, Select Edit and then choose an image to use as a background. The image you use as a splash screen for a Windows 8 app should be 620x300 pixels.

Tip: If the image you want to use isn’t 620x300 pixels, you can resize it using a tool such as MSPaint. You may need to turn off the “Maintain aspect ratio” checkbox if your original image isn’t the same proportions as 620x300 pixels. This may cause the image to be skewed when you resize it, so you may have to play around a bit to find a suitable image that looks good in those proportions.

Updating the information for publishing the application

Now you are ready to specify the information that will affect how the app appears in the Windows store.

Select the Publish Info Tab

Enter the app name

Enter the app name you wish to use when you publish your app to the store. Do give this some thought, the app name is the first indication to a user of what your app can do. There is a nice MSDN article called “What to name your app” with some tips on selecting a good name.

Enter the app description

When a user brings up details of your app in the store, they will see the app description. This is your chance to convince a user that yes your app is the right app to download! The description should make it clear who should use this app and what the app can do. There is an MSDN article with tips on writing a good description “Your apps description”

Select your language

Specify the language of your application. Although it is possible to create multilingual applications for both Windows Phone and Windows 8. The Windows Phone App Studio does not currently give you the ability to create multilingual applications, so you should specify the primary language of the application. If you want to make the app multilingual, you will need to export the source code into Visual Studio and add the necessary language support. For more information see localizing your apps why and how

Specify whether you wish to include an About page for your application

An about page allows the user to see basic information about your app

Specify whether you wish to include advertisements in your application

Advertising is one of the ways you can make money from your application. The more time advertisements spend displayed to users, the more money you earn. However, adding advertisements to your app isn’t quite as simple as flipping the toggle switch to enable ad clients. There are additional steps you must complete to include advertising. The Windows Phone App Studio ‘how to’ describes the additional steps. If this is your first application, I would suggest you get your app working and published, and then you come back and add the advertising later.

Windows Store Association

The Windows Store requires you to reserve your App Name before you submit to the store. Once you have reserved the name the store will assign your application a Package Identity. You need to know this information and your name and ID as the publisher before Windows Phone App Studio can generate a package you can publish for your Windows 8 app.

Once Windows Phone App Studio has that information, it can update a file in the package called the application manifest. That’s why you have the “Associate the App with the Store” in the Publish Info tab within App Studio.

So how exactly do we do all that?

Reserve your app name in the Windows Store

First you will need a Windows Dev Center account. If you are a student, you can get one for free through DreamSpark. If not, you’ll have to pay a registration fee of $20. We won’t look at the exact steps in this tutorial, but you can create an account here. It’s a single store account for Windows Phone and Windows Store

Once you’ve registered and logged in to your account, go to the Dev Center home page. Select Dashboard | Submit an app.

Select App Name

Specify the app name you have selected and select Reserve Name.

If someone else is already using your app name you will have to pick another name. If you have selected a valid app name then you get a message informing you that you can Save to reserve the selected app name.

The app name you just reserved will be your App Display name! Make a note of it.

Get the information from the store needed to associate your Windows Phone App Studio app with this reserved app name.

Find out your app identity.

While still in the Windows Store, go to Dashboard, and select Edit for your application

Now select Services from the menu and in the text select Live services site.

Under Application Identity, make a note of the Identity Name it will be something like 1234user.YourAppName. This is your App Identity.

Now go back to the dashboard and select Profile to get your publisher information

In your profile take a note of your publisher id and your publisher name

Associate your Windows Phone Studio app with the Windows Store

Now you have all the information you need to associate your app with the store. Return to Windows Phone App Studio, go to the Publish Info tab and select Associate app with the store.

When you select Associate App with the store, a popup window is displayed. Use the information you just collected from the Windows Store to populate the fields.

• App Identity: This was the App identity you got from the Store Dashboard, when you selected the app you reserved, then selected Edit | Select Services, and selected the “Live Services site”.
• App Display Name: This is the name you defined when you reserve the App name in the store
• Publisher ID: This is the id you got from your Account profile. It should have the following format “CN=AAAAA-1111-2222-BBBBBBBBB”
• Publisher Name: This is the name you got from your Account profile.

Add your privacy policy

Whenever a Windows Store app collects personal information, you must declare a privacy policy. Apps that connect to the internet retrieve the IP address of the person using the app. This information is considered personal, so therefore any Windows Store application that connects to the internet must have a privacy policy. The privacy policy tells the user how the information collected is used by the application.

Here is a link to a post entitled “Windows 8 Certification tips: The privacy statement” . This post tells you more about the privacy statement and how to set up the privacy statement for your application.

Once you have set up a web page (you can set up a free website for your privacy policy using Azure Web Sites). Include the URL for your privacy policy on the Publish Info page in Windows Phone App Studio

Generating the App Publishing Files

First, open up the app you want to publish in the Windows Phone App Studio browser. It doesn’t matter what page you’re on. Select the Finish button.

This will take you to a page where you can GENERATE your app packages. You’ll notice that there is a section labelled “Previous versions” – currently this is probably blank, because this is the first version you have created.

Select Generate.

A pop up will appear that gives you the choice of generating the code for a Windows Phone app or a package that contains code for a Windows Phone and Windows 8 application.

Once you’ve generated your app, you will see a version listed in the “Previous versions” section. Now, in the main body of the page, you will see three major options:

· Download package – choose this option if you want to download your app to your own phone only. This is useful if you want to use your app yourself without publishing to the store, or if you want to see how it works on your phone before publishing it.

· Download publish package – choose this option to go straight to publishing without changing your code or taking screenshots. If you do not have Visual Studio, this is the option you should take.

· Download source code – choose this option if you want to edit your code or take screenshots using an emulator.

Test your app and capture screenshots for publishing

Now we are going to install the app on our pc, so we can test it and capture screenshots. You will need a screenshot to publish your app to the store.

Install the certificate

First we need to install a certificate so that our PC or laptop will trust the app we are about to install. Expand Pre-requisites and choose Install Windows 8.1 Certificate. Save the downloaded file to somewhere you can find it afterwards. I created a subfolder called AppStudio.

Navigate to the folder and you will find a file called Add-RootCertificate.zip. Select that file and either right click and choose Extract All, or select the file and choose Extract All from the menu to extract the contents of the zip file.

Now right click the file Add-RootCertificate.ps1 and select Run as PowerShell script

You will probably get a prompt warning you that this is a script file that could harm your computer. You must allow the program to run to continue and install the certificate.

When the program runs you will see a window appear asking you to make sure you are logged in as the administrator on your machine. It will prompt you to hit Enter. When you hit Enter, you will receive one or two more warnings, after you select the option to run the script the certificate will be installed.

NOTE: The reason you are getting so many warnings is because PowerShell is a tool system administators often use to change settings on your computer. It’s very useful, but because it can change computer settings, that means if a hacker managed to trick you into running a malicious powerscript file on your computer it could get your computer pretty messed up. As is always the case! Only download and run files from sources you trust!

Install the application

Now we have our certificate installed, we can install our application

Under installable packages select the Windows 8.1 installable package

Navigate to the folder and you will find a file called StoreApp.zip. Select that file and either right click and choose Extract All, or select the file and choose Extract All from the menu to extract the contents of the zip file. Just like you did with the certificate zip file.

Now go into the extracted contents and find the file called App-AddDevPackage.ps1 . This is another PowerShell script, but this one will install your application. Right click on the file and choose Run with PowerShell just like you did with the script that installed your certificate. A window will open as the app runs and after it runs a message will display saying your app has been installed successfully

NOTE: This app is a Windows 8.1 app so you must be running Windows 8.1 to install and run your application.

Run the application and capture screenshots

Now you can run your application. The easiest way to launch your application is to press the Windows Key button on your keyboard and then type the name of your application.

Then select your application from the search results and you can see your app up and running!

When you publish your app you will want a screenshot, you can use the keyboard combination of <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<PrtSc> to get a screenshot to your clipboard. Then open Paint, and choose Paste and now you have your screenshot in Paint where you can save it to use when you publish your application. You many want to create several screenshots showing off different aspects of your application. Here is a screenshot of my application in Windows 8.1

I now have a working application for Windows 8.1 and screenshots so I have everything I need to publish my app to the store! Now it’s your turn!

So who won this year’s 2014 Canadian Imagine cup? Some amazing students with some amazing ideas!

Congratulations to all the teams who participated in this year’s Imagine Cup Canada. Thanks to our great sponsors at intel, the members of each winning team will receive one of the latest 2-in-1 touch enabled PCs.

Games Category

Today, great games come from anywhere and people play them everywhere. On their phones, on their computers, on their tablets, in their browser, with their friends, with anyone, with everyone. Powerful game engines and libraries are available for free so students can get started right away. There’s really never been a better time to make the next great game.

Congratulations to Team World Painters from the University of Calgary! Their project Funiverse is an amazing educational game that leverages Occulus Rift technology to immerse the player in a virtual reality. The members of Team World Painters are: Alper Aksac, Gabriela Jurca, Omar Addam, Omar Zaarour and their mentor Dr Reda Alhajj. You can see a video showing their project here.

World Citizenship Category

Since Imagine Cup started in 2003, students all over the world have teamed up to make the world a better place. By creating impressive new technology projects in fields such as health, education, and the environment these students have shown the world new ways to think and to change. The World Citizenship category challenges students to find a problem in the world, in your own life or community, that affects many people, and then work to solve it.

Congratulations to Team Marianopolis Brainstorm from Marianopolis college! Their project Mass Assaying Relaying Inquiring Survey Apparatus (MARISA) uses Kinect technology to help triage and evaluate disaster sites. The members of team Marianopolis Brainstorm are Mansib Rahman and mentor Elly Su. You can see a video showcasing their project here.

Innovation Category

Incredible, world-changing software innovations often come from students. Social networks, music services, digital photography apps, gadgets and robotics – the list goes on. In the innovation category we are looking for the next big thing!

Congratulations to team claVision from University of Lethbridge! Their project claVision finds a new way to solve an old problem. They have developed software to do visual automatic transcription of piano music. The members of team claVision are Mohammad Akbari, Hossein Naseri and mentor Howard Cheng. You can see a short demonstration of their software here.

What happens next?

Each of these teams is now preparing for the World Semifinals. During this round, one of these three amazing teams will be selected to represent Canada at the Imagine Cup 2014 Worldwide Finals this July in Seattle, Washington. At the worldwide finals they will compete for the coveted Imagine Cup trophy, up to $50,000 USD in prizes and a chance to meet Bill Gates!

Other notable accomplishments by Canada in Imagine Cup

I also wanted to highlight a couple of other great performances on the world stage by Canadians in the 2014 Imagine Cup!

Pitch Video Challenge – Honourable Mention

In September we asked students to dream up their next great Imagine Cup project and pitch it to us in a short video. We received submissions from around the world!

Congratulations to team SocialDocTeam from Canada who earned an honourable mention for the pitch for their project Documentaries for Change in the Pitch Video challenge for World Citizenship.

Project Blueprint Challenge – Honourable Mention

Hundreds of teams of students from dozens of countries around the world competed in this contest. Each team took a long, hard look at their Imagine Cup project and produced a document that really spelled out what they were making: their concept, target audience, early feedback they've received, competitors, user personas, top user stories, business model, and core technologies.

Congratulations to team Marianopolis Brainstorm who earned an honourable mention in the Project Blueprint challenge for Innovation.