Jitendra Sachdev is an old friend from Bangalore. I was a Director in one of his companies. Although I have been speaking to him, on and off, on the phone, and visited him on our infrequent visits to India, I had not met him for the last 13 years.
He decided to make a visit to Finland. He is here for a week. He is staying at the beautiful Beach Cottage camp, but unfortunately, due to very heavy booking I could not get him one of the self-contained cottages. We meet daily and I have been able to show him around. I drop him back around sunset, which these days is around 11 pm. He has been able to get a few colourful sunset shots at that time.
Last week was the Great School Children's Exhibition in Oulu where over 40,000 children from all over Finland have been entertained to the best that Oulu could offer them. In our Oulu Sports Dome there were several booths with all sorts of handicrafts and ultra-modern technological events for the children to take part in.
Son-in-law, Tony, had a set up where his team has designed an interactive game where each participant is given his own avatar and they play an interactive game centered around the Oulu Castle. 30 children, each with their own computer station equipped with sound are able to interact and play this game which including the introduction time, takes about 2 hours. They see on the computer screen exactly what their avatar would see.
Grandson Samuel was anxious to take Grandpa around the exhibition. He had a pass, which he was very proud about, but we had to get the assistance from Tony to get in to see the insides of what was happening in the Sports Dome. Samuel had great pleasure in taking Jittu and me around the exhibition to show us what all the children were up to. It was extremely interesting see children using not just computers but using all forms of traditional equipment, as leather stitching machines, etc.
This is a picture of Samu and Jittu relaxing at the exhibition. The poster in the background is about "Ludocraft" which is the Game Design Center in Oulu University under Tony in the Information Processing Department of Oulu University.
LudoCraft in Brief
LudoCraft studies games and applies the theoretical knowledge into game design. The approach combines theoretical, technical and artistic expertise in serving both the academic and the practitioner communities. The mission of LudoCraft is to distribute the knowledge of analytical gamers and game designers for the benefit of wider audience.
Ludo - Theories of game and play
Craft - Art of game design and development
LudoCraft = The Art of Designing and Creating Games and Play
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