This is just a quick post but it only scratches the surface of my interest in this subject. In a nutshell, I was never very good at maths at school. I liked what it did, just couldn’t really get my head around some of the deeper concepts. I got a C at O-level and then dropped out of A-Level maths in the first 2 weeks.

Then I became a proper multimedia developer back in 1994, making games, websites and the like. Maths was my friend but I did it in a very organic way. I worked out how to write my own physics engine for a pinball game by drawing lots of angles in countless sketch pads… and chatting through the problems with my friend Jop. I got there in the end. Have a go at the game here. Most ‘hardcore’ developers wouldn’t even attempt it. I’m still not sure if that makes me smart or stupid. It did make me proud though. I showed the ‘clever types’ what someone who barely passed their maths exam could do.

My mission is to inspire kids to see the beauty, the fun and more importantly, the simplicity of maths. Nobody took the time when I was at school. We all have an inspirational teacher from our past that got us to invest that little bit extra by injecting their own passion into their lessons. If they don’t exist, I’ll have to do it for them!

Earlier in the year I started a series of simple modules to show how cool maths can be by showing how games use snippets of maths. And something games developers do very well is cheat with maths. Sure there are complicated equations for gravity, but Mario doesn’t use any of them. He just uses simple addition to do all that jumping around. It’s surprisingly easy when you know how… and shows how, with a bit of confidence, you can bend the rules a bit and ‘do maths’ in a very creative way. It’s problem solving at it’s best and when you use something like Flash, you SEE the results.

I’ll post more when I actually get my arse into gear and present to a local school (I have one lined up). My recent job change has deflected my focus of late. But now I’m back on my mission.

In the meantime, just noticed Quest to Learn, a fantastic initiative in New York. An entire school based around gaming. There’s a great article about them here to give you a quick overview.

Watch this space…

The new iTunes 8 has been out for a few weeks and I finally got around to installing it. Interface is interesting. I think it’s better… maybe. I’ve yet to try the Genius ‘similar songs’ picker thing as it come with a pretty scary privacy warning. Here’s a taste…

The information sent to Apple includes details about the media in your iTunes library such as track names, play counts, and ratings. This information will be stored with an anonymous Genius ID and not linked to your iTunes Account. When using the iTunes Store or Genius sidebar, Apple will also use your purchase history to give you better recommendations.

Hmmm, not sure just yet.

However, I had a wow-moment when I saw the new Visualizer (the old one is still there if you like it btw). If you don’t know what it is, it’s a real-time ‘screensaver’ that reacts to your music. It’s under the iTunes ‘view’ menu or Apple-M on a mac fires it into life. The new version is simply awesome. It’s the ultimate proof that in the right hands, maths can be excruciatingly beautiful. If you have it running, press ‘M’ to go tough all of the various styles. My kids spent about an hour staring at it, that’s longer than they spent the entire weekend watching TV!

Incidentally, I’ve been playing with the Apple developers kit and the ‘Quartz’ compiler is amazing. Quartz is the environment used to create visual effects such as screensavers, iTunes visualizers, graphic filters and so on. Literally drag and drop coding and the results make the eyebrows of even the most hardened anti-Mac fan boy rise a few feet above their egg-shaped foreheads. Will post something soon.

STOP PRESS

Complete coincidence but the day after writing this post, I attended a presentation by the the creator of the new iTunes visualiser, Robert Hodgin at Flash On the Beach in Brighton. One of the brightest people you are ever going to meet. I dare you to watch his render of Magnetosphere and disagree. All built in Processing… if I had a cloning machine, my clever alter-ego would be learning Processing as we speak. Simply mind-blowing in the right hands!