Ultimate Coder Challenge: Going Perceptual

About the Challenge

The Ultimate Challenge. Seven developers competed for seven weeks to create apps that utilized the latest Ultrabook convertible hardware along with the Intel Perceptual Computing SDK and camera to build the Ultimate app prototype.

And the Ultimate Coder is: Sixense Studios!

	We have a winner! After seven weeks, a challenger has been chosen as the Ultimate Coder: Sixense Studios! Read More ›

	This Is It! Developers have wrapped up seven weeks of coding the "Ultimate" in perceptual computing apps. Read More ›

	Judges are testing apps! Judges have tested the apps, and have given their first thoughts. Read More ›

Latest from the Challengers

	Sixense Studios The Sixense team have polished up Puppet In Motion for this final week, adding hand calibration, new story scenes, and art. They also outline their goals for the future of this fun app. Read more>		Lee Lee has managed to squeeze in a few last minute additions to his teleconferencing app, which he’s made available for download – along with the full source code. Read more>

	Code-Monkeys The team talk about their code simplification process, which actually made the game better. Head tracking, calibration, and actual user game play experience wrap up this week’s post. Read more>		Simian Squared Rob from Simian Squared gives us a walk-through of how they dealt with the “sculpty stuff”, integrating perceptual computing elements into a very tactile process. Read more>

	Quel Solaar Eskil writes a thoughtful post on building good apps vs. building a system that produces good apps. He outlines his development strategy that incorporates many Perceptual Computing elements. Read more>		Infrared5/Brass Monkey Fire-breathing and other cool optimizations in this week’s iteration of Kiwi Catapult Revenge. We also get an update on what the team intends for future versions, and a playable demo. Read more>

	Peter: Peter writes up an intuitive discussion on the present and future of Perceptual Computing, wrapping up the competition with the current status of Huda, his image editor app. Read more>

Latest from the Judges

Steve
Steve writes up a thoughtful post after testing all Challengers’ apps. He makes a good case for a common gesture set for perceptual computing, and brings up power consumption and user interface as factors that will impact future development. He’s keeping his cards very close as far as an Ultimate winner in this competition. Read more>

Chris
Chris echoes Judge Steve when he talks about the need for a common gesture/input scheme needed to make PerC apps really usable. He’s written up detailed thoughts about each of the apps in this competition, but no clear winner stands out as yet. Read more>

Nicole
Nicole has had a chance to test all submitted apps from our Challengers and she’s got a lot to say about each one. Which one will she pick as the winner? No way to tell, but it’s clear she got a lot of testing time in this past week. Read more>

Sascha
Sascha's thoughts are coming soon!

	Week Six Recap This is it! Challengers are starting to wrap up for next week's grand finale. Read More ›

	Developers Are Nearing The Finish Line Developers are putting the final touches on their apps. Read More ›

	Judges Have Reviewed This Week's Work Judges have written up their thoughts for Week 6. Read More ›

Latest from the Challengers

	Sixense Studios Sixense had an inspiring week at GDC, and were able to demo their recording feature for attendees. Puppet and set interaction along with graphics were what Sixense worked on this week, along with core features. Read more>		Lee Lee had a good week at GDC, testing his teleconferencing app on both attendees and fellow Ultimate Coders. VOIP, network data syncing, and voice recognition in a very crowded room were what Lee worked on, along with some gesture ambiguity and connection speeds. Read more>

	Code-Monkeys A very tongue-in-cheek update this week from the Code-Monkeys, who show us how we can control StarGate Gunship with glossal tracking. Gene Simmons would be proud. Read more>		Simian Squared Simian Squared's update is coming soon!

	Quel Solaar Eskil gives us a step-by-step walkthrough of how his head tracking works, along with a description of the algorithm and the process he used to come up with it. Read more>		Infrared5/Brass Monkey The team loved catching up with their fellow Ultimate Coders at GDC this past week, and were able to give and get some valuable feedback on what everyone is working on. A new environment was added as well as support for playing Kiwi Catapult Revenge….with your feet! Read more>

	Peter: Peter’s got the UI for Huda pretty much set this week, and he’s added voice recognition back into his image editor app. He also gives us a master list of which gestures are supported (and what they do!), with a video demo. Read more>

Latest from the Judges

	Steve Steve and fellow UltrabookNews.com reporter Ben Lang both give their thoughts on the progress of the Challengers this week, straight from a week at GDC where they got to see demos of many of the coders’ projects. Read more>		Chris Chris expresses some personal concerns about his new gesture camera needing to sleep in the garage. He encourages each Challenger as they’re nearing completion of their projects to keep going, and states that judging won’t be easy. Read more>

	Nicole Nicole is in full-on judge role this week as she points out both the good and the still-needs-work aspects of each Challenger’s project. Read more>		Sascha Sascha gives props to Code-Monkeys and Brass Monkey/Infrared5 for their April Fools’ jokes this week. He enjoyed playing with everyone’s projects at GDC, but still can’t pick a definite favorite. Read more>

	A Look Back At Week 5 - Now to GDC! Challengers are at the polish, polish, and more polish stage now. Read More ›

	Coders Are Making Amazing Progress Check out what our challengers have been up to this week. Read More ›

	Judges Have Weighed In Judges have reviewed Week 5's work and have written up their thoughts. Read More ›

Latest from the Challengers

	Sixense Studios The Sixense team show us their progress on camera transitions, puppet control, networking, and art. We also get a look at the story scenes through the perspective of the Big Bad Wolf. Read more>		Lee Lee’s topped his personal record this week for the longest coding streak ever, and he’s a got a lot to show for it: voice control and a new background. From here on out it’s all about polish. Read more>

	Code-Monkeys We hear this week about how Code-Monkeys have been tackling this challenge as a team, including tweaking the GUI to work well with the PerC camera and developing gesture commands. Read more>		Simian Squared Simian Squared write up their thoughts on the future of Perceptual Computing. We also get a first look at the pottery app – tentatively titled “Pot” – in action. Read more>

	Quel Solaar Eskil gives us a demo of his interface. He also writes a detailed review of the PerC camera and head tracking in the SDK. Read more>		Infrared5/Brass Monkey The team had some “big wins” this week with face tracking, and they post some great success with tracking the 3D position of a face. They also give us a great new demo. Read more>

	Peter: Peter adds a more natural feeling interface to Huda this week, along with finishing off the photo management. He also drops the carousel and notes that Huda “feels like an Ultrabook app”. Read more>

Latest from the Judges

	Steve Steve’s recurring theme for this week: challengers, get ready for GDC! He encourages Sixense to keep going on gameplay, tells Peter to get gesture support ready for next week, asks Lee to make note of his testing thoughts, agrees with Simian Squared on perceptual computing, likes Infrared5’s playable demo, and likes Eskil’s “good, detailed feedback”. Read more>		Chris Chris notes that AC/DC usage from Brass Monkey has upped their points for the week. He likes that Lee and Sixense have brought their apps to the “polish stage”, notes that Code-Monkeys are rethinking their UI, tells Peter he’s on the right track, and looks forward to more demos from Eskil and Simian Squared. Read more>

	Nicole Nicole has some smart advice this week for our coders: she is pleased with Lee’s progress but is bemused by the medieval castle, loves Brass Monkey’s rear view mirror demo, is excited by Sixense’s Three Little Pigs demo, answers Peter’s file structure query in depth, and responds to Quel Solaar’s critique of the PerC camera. Read more>		Sascha Sascha gives encouraging words to each coder as they head to GDC next week. He suggests more scenes for Sixense, agrees with Lee’s UI conception, looks forward to Brass Monkey’s “addictive” demo, can’t wait to see Peter’s Huda in action combined with new gesture control, likes Code-Monkeys’ tweaking of the input controls, enjoys Eskil’s “rant a day”, and loves the passion about perceptual computing that Simian Squared shared this week. Read more>

	Week Four Recap Amazing progress for all teams, but serious challenges still lie ahead. Read More ›

	We're Halfway There Challengers have made some impressive progress this week. Read More ›

	Judges Weigh In Judges have written up their thoughts for the work accomplished this week. Read More ›

Latest from the Challengers

	Sixense Studios Sixense shows off one of their Little Pigs and demos gesture recognition for hand and mouth control. Next up: multiplayer functionality and the first playable version of the “Three Little Pigs” story. Read more>		Lee Lee demos conferencing in action in this week’s post. He also gives us a detailed description of how the perceptual 3E avatar works, along with his troubles getting the voice networking to work. Read more>

	Code-Monkeys The Code-Monkeys share a great demo of Stargate Gunship, discussing the unexpected problem of the “UZ Factor”. Read more>		Simian Squared Simian Squared give us a first look at what the sculpting environment is going to look like, including the bowl, a wheel, and clay. We also get to see the Japanese-themed sculpting option. Demos are coming next week. Read more>

	Quel Solaar Eskil writes this week about API design when creating a UI toolkit. Next week we get to see what his user interface will actually look like. Read more>		Infrared5/Brass Monkey Laser cats, flamethrowers, and core game mechanics are what the team at Brass Monkey/Infrared5 have been up to this week. We also get to see the “rear view mirror” effect as a feature for the main character. Read more>

	Peter Peter walks us through the debugging process for an issue he faced with the gesture code. He’s also made the difficult to decision to drop voice recognition, but the interface is coming right along. Read more>

Latest from the Judges

	Steve Chippy notes that all the teams are in completely different places in terms of priority and rate of progress. He offers savvy advice for each coder: tells Peter to watch the barriers, enjoys Brass Monkey’s game play, is inspired by Lee’s video, wonders where the PerC input is in Eskil’s app, agrees with Code-Monkeys’ UZ factor , loves Sixense’s puppet progress, and enjoys the “quality artwork” from Simian. Read more>		Chris Chris reminds challengers that we’re more than halfway through – the rubber needs to meet the road. He gives Sixense props for wrestling with the depth camera, wonders why Lee didn’t test his app on a virtual assistant, likes Simian’s demo environment, chides Peter for not providing enough coding detail (but likes his playlist!), likes Eskil’s walkthrough but is not a fan of his overall approach, agrees with Code-Monkeys on the issue of UZ, and likes the audacity of Brass Monkey’s approach to obstacles. Read more>

	Nicole Nicole offers smart advice and encouragement for our coders this week. She enjoys the “action packed” gameplay of Brass Monkey’s app, wonders if gaze tracking might work for Code-Monkey’s game, thinks that Simian Squared’s pottery artwork is “grand”, loves Sixense’s pig renderings, advises Peter on hashing and file structure, is amazed at Lee’s “next generation” program, and cautions Eskil to make it as clear as possible what his framework is capable of. Read more>		Sascha Sascha is really excited about how far our Challengers have come in such a short time. He’s already put himself first in line to buy Lee’s teleconferencing software, asks Sixense to go even further with the cuteness factor, reminds Brass Monkey/Infrared5 of where a certain company called Rovio started, encourages Peter to keep on blogging, is giddy about Eskil’s UI project, and urges Simian Squared to go even further with the virtual pottery experience. Read more>

	Week Three Recap Amazing progress, but serious challenges are starting to rear their ugly heads for our coders. Read More ›

	Developers Are Forging Ahead Developers are blasting into Week Three, making good progress on some pretty incredible projects. Read More ›

	Judges Have Weighed In Judges have written up their thoughts on what the coders have been up to this week. Read More ›

Latest from the Challengers

	Sixense Studios Sixense give us a video demo on camera-controlled puppets as well as working video recording. We also get a sneak peek at concept art and the story that the puppets (and users!) will be telling. Read more>		Lee Lee gives us a video demo of his teleconferencing software in action, live from a virtual boardroom. He’s working on gaze tracking, document interaction, and it looks like audio is next on the to-do list. Read more>

	Code-Monkeys Code-Monkeys dive deep into the Perceptual Computing SDK this week, giving us a look at their K.I.S.S approach to solving complicated code issues and a free Unity 3D control tool download. Read more>		Simian Squared Simian Squared work on direction vectors this week, testing various scenarios on their very patient mother and making a working simulation. We’ll see new graphics next week. Read more>

	Quel Solaar Eskil gives us a look at a demo version of his new Betray platform layer, along with a sneak peek at the aesthetics of his user interface elements. Read more>		Infrared5/Brass Monkey Laser and fireball shooting are now in place for Kiwi Catapult Revenge, along with facial depth tracking (video demo included). A quick rundown of PerC possibilities is open for discussion. Read more>

	Peter: Peter adds a few filters to Huda, his photo editing app, along with histogram view animation. He’s also made Huda responsive to multiple finger positions. Read more>

Latest from the Judges

	Steve Steve notes that while cool features are great, coders can’t afford to get side-tracked by anything that will affect the core functionality of what they are working on. He’s at CeBIT this week, and has been able to chat with a few people in the PerC space; quite relevant to what our challengers are doing right now. We also see Steve in a video with fellow judges Sascha and Nicole – watch for the blooper! Read more>		Chris Chris continues to be impressed by the coders’ work. He likes Peter’s dedicated slog through territory others would fear to tread, asks Brass Monkey for eye tracking for his own “nefarious needs”, suspects Eskil of hiding something crazy up his sleeve, likes Code-Monkey’s simple code work, loves the Sixense puppets’ story, requests clay carnage from Simian Squared, and outright accuses Lee of being a vampire. Read more>

	Nicole Nicole gives a “tip of the hat” to Brass Monkey attempting eye tracking in the projects, as this is something that is truly cutting-edge. She asks for more details from Code-Monkeys and Sixense, loves Quel Solaar’s project, enjoys Lee’s 3D video demo, appreciates Peter’s insights, and looks forward to Simian Squared’s visualizations. Live video from CeBIT accompanies this post. Read more>		Sascha Sascha participates in a judges' video with Nicole and Steve live from CeBIT. You'll want to watch for what happens around the five minute mark! Read more>

	Week Two Recap The second week of the Ultimate Coder Challenge is rolling right along with demos, workable frameworks, and visual goodies galore. Read More ›

	Week 2 and we're off and running! Developers have posted what they've accomplished so far. Read More ›

	Thoughts on Week 2 Judges have penned their thoughts on Week 2's progress. Read More ›

Latest from the Challengers

	Sixense Studios Sixense talks about adding realism and perceptual input to their puppets, with a bit of a side riff on the Oscars and how it fits into their platform. Read more ›		Lee Lee gives us a “day in the life” view of how he wrangled the Perceptual Camera into generating a 3D construct in an initial prototype. Read more ›

	Code-Monkeys The Code-Monkeys talk about the evolution of UX, giving us their thoughts on the progress of true “Minority Report” computing. Read more ›		Simian Squared Getting clay to function digitally in a coding environment is turning out to be an interesting challenge for Simian Squared. Read more ›

	Quel Solaar Eskil gives us a detailed summary of his work on a platform layer with a bit of a twist: input access that comes from mouse, keyboard, touch, or any other hardware. Read more ›		Infrared5/Brass Monkey The team at Brass Monkey/Infrared5 discuss their progress with face tracking, gaze tracking, their game engine, and post a playable demo. Read more ›

	Peter: Peter gives us a detailed look at what he’s been up to this past week, complete with multiple videos, a rough interface sketch, and gesture recognition code work. Read more ›

Latest from the Judges

	Steve Steve likes how each team is charging ahead and it’s only week 2. All teams are confidently moving ahead with their projects, with great feedback on hardware and progress towards various PerC goalposts. Read more>		Chris Chris is impressed at the challengers’ continued progress, and notes that perceptual computing will mean a revamp of how we interact with our computers at the most basic of levels. Read more>

	Nicole This week, Nicole enjoyed the demo from Brass Monkey, was impressed with the Code-Monkey’s interface redesigns, liked Sixense’s work on the puppet art, was a bit puzzled by Quel Solaar’s framework,was interested in Lee’s depth sensor work, became intrigued by Simian Squared’s use of realism, and loved the level of detail Peter has been sharing. Read more>		Sascha Sascha gives each challenger personalized encouragement this week, focusing on visual effects (Brass Monkey), core interface design (Code-Monkeys), environment (Simian Squared), proof of concept (Sixense), images (Peter), the ultimate webcam (Lee), and frameworks (Eskil). Read more>

	It's A Wrap: A Look Back At Week One We saw the beginnings of some amazingly audacious projects in Week One of the Ultimate Coder Challenge: Read More ›

	Hello, World! Developers have written their first posts detailing their backgrounds and projects. Read More ›

	First Thoughts From Judges Judges have reviewed the first week of work from our challengers. Read More ›

Latest from the Challengers

	Sixense Studios Sixense Studios introduce themselves with a brief background intro and a sneak peek at their PerC puppet project. Read more>		Lee Lee gives us a detailed look at his background and what he intends for this new PerC project, complete with videos. Read more>

	Code-Monkeys The Code-Monkeys give us a quick intro of their team, along with a teaser for their PerC game, Stargate Gunship. Read more>		Simian Squared Simian Squared give us a look at their immersive PerC project, giving us a taste of how interactive computing can really be. Read more>

	Quel Solaar We’ve come a long way with the PC, but Eskil aims to show us just how much further we can go. He’s currently working on an API to simplify user input. Read more>		Infrared5/Brass Monkey Brass Monkey introduce their team and give us a finely detailed look at the technical aspects of what their project will include. Read more>

	Peter: Peter describes how he’s developing a photo-editing app that will take advantage of Perceptual Computing capabilities. Read more>

Latest from the Judges

	Steve Chippy is impressed with the size and scope of the projects introduced by our challengers. He believes each team is setting the bar pretty high, and looks forward to seeing these apps take shape. Read more>		Chris Chris notes that in order to impress him, teams must not only create apps that show off their hardware, but also incorporate perceptual computing. Like Chippy, he’s impressed with the sheer audacity of the coders’ projects. Read more>

	Nicole Nicole is excited about the wide variety of projects that developers are bringing to the table. She’d like to see more documentation from teams of the thought processes that go into major decisions, like which gaming platform they end up with. Read more>		Sascha Sascha looks forward to seeing more game details from Brass Monkey, as he’s a longtime aficionado of racing games. He’s also excited about Sixense’s pottery project, Peter’s photo editing app, and Eskil’s open source development. Read more>

Meet the Contestants

Select a contestant for more info

Developer Profiles

	Sixense Studios Sixense Entertainment was founded in 2007 by a team of experts in the visual simulation and entertainment industries. We recognized that the full potential of a 3D experience would only be achieved by a system that could recognize the user’s every gesture. With this in mind, Sixense has designed the ideal control platform for interacting intuitively with digital media in homes worldwide. Building on our ultra-precise motion tracking hardware technology we have created a software development platform for all motion input devices to deliver superior solutions for gaming, fitness, 3DTV control and other interactive media.		Lee Bamber Lee has over 20 years’ experience in the games industry and was involved with the very first version of LEGO Mindstorms that turns every day Lego into programmable robots! He started programming at the age of nine on the Commodore VIC-20 and over the next three decades went on to create such brands as Dark Basic, The 3D Gamemaker, FPS Creator and App Game Kit.

	Code-Monkeys Code-Monkeys is an application and web development company delivering award-winning solutions for over 12 years. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and using the best technology on the market, we are a full-service application development company focused on building applications that solve problems, affect change, and help grow business.		Simian Squared Simian Squared are a British video game developer, founded by brothers Robert Cummings and Giuseppe Landolina with a passion for unique and challenging projects. You may recognise them as the developers of Physynth, a uniquely beautiful physics-driven musical experience and The Other Brothers, a soon to be released platformer with a striking, modern take on retro style.

	Quel Solaar Eskil Steenberg runs Quel Solaar as a an independent development and research studio, working on games, creative tools, and technologies. While perhaps most known for the procedural action adventure game "Love", Quel Solaar has also produced a range of creative tool for everything form 3D modeling, to asset management and texturing. The studio has a strong commitment to opensource and shares much of the developed libraries and technologies under a Free BSD licence.		Infrared5/Brass Monkey Infrared5 is a digital agency that builds cutting edge technology for its clients like LucasFilm, Hasbro, Match.com and more. The business was originally started in 2007 based on our team members’ creation of the open source media server red5: http://red5.org. Since then we have expanded our areas of expertise to include web, desktop and mobile experiences. When working on the Star Wars: Trench Run project in 2009, our team members pushed the boundaries once again creating Brass Monkey: http://playbrassmonkey.com, a next generation browser based game system that uses phones as game controllers.

	Peter O'Hanlon Having been hooked on programming for more years than I can remember, it’s fair to say that I’ve developed on a wide variety of machines and platforms. While I used to work primarily with C/C++, for the last 11 years, I’ve focused heavily on C#, first with Windows Forms and ASP.NET, and for the last five years or so on WPF. In doing so, I’ve come to be fairly well known on Code Project.

Sixense Studios

Location: U.S.
Company: Sixense Studios
Website: www.sixense.com

Sixense Studios' Updates

Week 7
Is this really the final blog? It’s chip reporting in once again, and I can’t believe how quickly these eight weeks have gone by. It’s amazing to see how much the Ultimate Coders have been able to accomplish in such a short time. And that is truly an appropriate name: “Ultimate Coders”. Read more>

Week 6
Hey everyone, chip from Sixense reporting in once again. Wow, I am beat. Two days after GDC and my feet are still throbbing. Read more>

Week 5
Well this week has been really really cool. Why? Because all the pieces are finally starting to come together, and what we’re seeing is super exciting. But rather than tell you about it, we thought we’d just show you. Read more>

Week 4
Meet one of the little pigs! He is the first modeling stage and we are going after a more cartoonish silhouette with a bigger head, smaller body...etc. We already have the pig in Unity and can be driven with our new control system. Read more>

Week 3
While marionettes are something we are hoping to add in the final version of our puppet platform, along with rod puppets as well, it is not something we intend to have included in our initial “vertical slice” at the end of this contest. We are focusing on hand puppets for this proof-of-concept deliverable, and we’ve got some great stuff to show you! Read more>

Week 2
I’m sitting down and getting ready to watch the Oscars. However, I’ll be watching the pre-show; The Red Carpet. The part where everyone is judged on what they are wearing, and the main event is actually not what is on tv, but what is streaming on DListed’s live blog. After that, a bunch of famous people pat each other on the back and hand out gold statues or something. Read more>

Week 1
We are thrilled to have been invited to participate in Intel’s Going Perceptual: Ultimate Coder Challenge! What an amazing opportunity to work and collaborate with such talented groups, and with such cutting-edge technology. We are very eager to see what all of these talented teams can create. Read more>

Background

Sixense Entertainment was founded in 2007 by a team of experts in the visual simulation and entertainment industries. We recognized that the full potential of a 3D experience would only be achieved by a system that could recognize the user’s every gesture. With this in mind, Sixense has designed the ideal control platform for interacting intuitively with digital media in homes worldwide. Building on our ultra-precise motion tracking hardware technology we have created a software development platform for all motion input devices to deliver superior solutions for gaming, fitness, 3DTV control and other interactive media.

Sixense now develops immersive software content for all motion tracking technologies, including electromagnetic trackers (such as the Razer Hydra), depth cameras (such as Intel’s upcoming desktop camera) and hybrid inertial/optical systems (such as Sony’s PlayStation Move). Our first PlayStation 3 title, Portal 2 In Motion, was voted Best Use of PlayStation Move for 2012 by the readers of the official PlayStation blog. Sixense also developed the featured demo of the new depth camera for Intel’s keynote at CES 2013.

Project

Puppet Theater is a freeform and creative experience that allows users to intuitively interact with virtual puppets using motion input.

Technology

What technology will you use: (ie PerC, sensors): Position, orientation, voice, facial recognition and eye tracking.
What development language, frameworks will you use: Currently evaluating game engines; Valve's Source Engine, Epic's Unreal UDK, and Unity
Type of app: Crossplatform Multiplayer Interactive Medium
Your starting place: Creating a puppet mesh and rig. Researching game engines.

Lee Bamber

Location:UK
Company: The Game Creators
Website: www.thegamecreators.com

Lee's Updates

Week 7
Well folks, this final blog pretty much wraps up my entry into the Ultimate Coder Challenge, and I hope you found it interesting and inspiring. The last seven weeks have seen some very late nights, some triumphs and a fair few setbacks on a quest to build a Perceptual Computing app. Read more>

Week 6
I write my penultimate blog of the Ultimate Coder Challenge II from the comfort and isolation of my GDC hotel room, where I spent the Saturday coding away on my Perceptucam app. Read more>

Week 5
This week marks a gear change for me. I have finished cramming everything I could possibly manage into the ultimate Perceptual Webcamera and started deploying my builds to other devices and usage scenarios. Here is a brief whistle stop of the week’s progress. Read more>

Week 4
With the realisation that I couldn’t top my week three video, I decided the smart thing was to get my head down and code the necessaries to turn my prototype into a functioning app. This meant adding a front end to the app and gets the guts of the conferencing functionality coded. Read more>

Week 3
Welcome back to my humble attempt to re-write the rule book on teleconferencing software, a journey that will see it dragged from its complacent little rectangular world. It’s true we’ve had 3D for years, but we’ve never been able to communicate accurately and directly in that space. Read more>

Week 2
So what does Lee have in store for you this week? You may wonder, and you won't have to wonder for long as I have provided a nice big video for those who don't have the stomach for the reams of text to follow. Read more>

Week 1
Welcome to the start of another exciting adventure into the weird and wonderful world of cutting edge software development. Beyond these walls lurk strange unfathomable creatures with unusual names, ready to tear the limbs of any unsuspecting coder careless enough to stay on the path. Read more>

Background

Lee has over 20 years’ experience in the games industry and was involved with the very first version of LEGO Mindstorms that turns every day Lego into programmable robots! He started programming at the age of nine on the Commodore VIC-20 and over the next three decades went on to create such brands as Dark Basic, The 3D Gamemaker, FPS Creator and App Game Kit (with a little help from his friends at The Game Creators). His hobbies include skiing and drinking tea.

Project

A great ‘Perceptual Computing’ app must provide an experience that transcends the limitations of existing solutions. My project will be to create a new breed of Webcam software which solves the problem of bandwidth lag while teleconferencing with multiple users over the internet. At the same time, I will build features into the app to allow hands-free sharing and manipulation of images, voice and facial synthesis to protect your privacy and my favourite; the ability to transport yourself into a virtual 3D scene such as a conference room or Viking mead hall. Markets include professional video conferencing, remote-learning and of course entertainment and gaming. With only seven weeks to code this app from scratch, it’s ambitious to the point of foolishness, but I love a challenge and the final product (if I survive) will be the ‘must have’ app for your camera.

Technology

What technology will you use: Creative Gesture Camera

What development language, frameworks will you use: Dark Basic Professional & PerC SDK

Type of app: Game, tool, photo, music, education: Webcam

Your starting place: Related work done to date: New App

Code-Monkeys

Location: U.S.
Company: Code-Monkeys
Website: www.code-monkeys.com

Dev's Updates

Week 7
As the final post we really need to drill down on several things, explain how they effect the final product and that's likely to make an atypically long, and potentially boring post of pain and suffering...sorry Judges. But you should perhaps thank Nicole who clearly drove us to this. Read more>

Week 6
We’re fresh back from GDC and wow…what a great conference! We had so much fun meeting the other contestants, making fun of Lee, and showing off Stargate Gunship to hordes of Stargate fans. Read more>

Week 5
At Soma Games, we tackle everything as a team. Throughout this challenge, our primary focus has been integrating a brand new set of controls into a game that's currently in development. In order to let John McGlothlan focus on the perceptual computing sdk, I've handled the rest of the app. Read more>

Week 4
There’s this story in the Bible where the outcome of a battle is being determined by whether or not Moses can keep his arms up in the air. On its face it always struck me as a strange story with what seemed like a trivial task effecting the life or death of thousands. Read more>

Week 3
We here at Code-Monkeys are taking the crawl, walk, run approach to the creation of the Perceptual Input Manager, PIM for short. The first iteration of the PIM, is simply to create a hands only approach to the current Stargate Gunship control schema. Read more>

Week 2
It's been said that the iPhone single-handedly created what some are calling the UI Revolution. Five years ago, UX wasn't even a word and "User Interface" was on the Strangelove fringe of design conversations. Now, good UX designers - who are artists these days instead of engineers - are some of the most sought after and highly paid professionals in the tech world. Read more>

Week 1
The bell has rung and Code-Monkeys is ready to let loose its collective intellect to throw down the competition. We just narrowly missed the crown last round, grabbing second place with Wind Up Football. The sting still lingers, yet the drive has been renewed. Read more>

Background

Code-Monkeys is an application and web development company delivering award-winning solutions for over 12 years. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and using the best technology on the market, we are a full-service application development company focused on building applications that solve problems, affect change, and help grow business. Our strategy builds on our expertise and allows our clients to feel confident and secure that we’re capable of building and implementing any application and they know we’ll get the job done on time and on budget.

Project/Technology

PerC, sensors, Ultrabook, Sony Tablet Tap 20 Unity, our own Unity Plugins for Stargate Gunship.

Type of app: Game

Your starting place: A game that is in development but only touch based. -

Destination: We plan to write multi-touch plugins as well as full perceptual plugins for Unity 4 and windows 8. Currently Unity does not support either but we have the tools and the knowhow to create our own pathway.

We will publish on the Windows Store.

Simian Squared

Location: UK
Company: Simian Squared
Website: www.simiansquared.com

Dev's Updates

Week 7
We've had an extremely hectic week but we're still here and Rob's going to talk about doing the sculpty-stuff - before we jump in, just want to say thank you again to Intel for inviting us up to GDC - having the opportunity to meet the Intel team and a fantastic group of developers all interested in pushing the boundaries was great. Read more>

Week 5
Frankly, the API and SDK for developing with Unity and the Perc, are well-written and comprehensive all things considered. I do not know about other teams, but from my perspective, this is far from the wild west of experimental programming back in the 8 bit and 16 bit Amiga days of copper list hacking and trial and error pioneering stuff. Read more>

Week 4
This is a shot of the current version of the bowl (to catch the flying bits of clay), and on the right hand side, i've included the wheel that the pottery spins on, please note these are heavily works in progress and texturing has not begun yet. Read more>

Week 3
We were able to get a model in and deforming to touch however we noticed an issue with teleporting touches so we decided to use linear interpolation to interpolate between touches which gave us a longer-lasting direction vector. Read more>

Week 2
Good morning and thanks for popping in to our cozy little corner of the blogosphere, it's week two of the Ultimate Coder: Going Perceptual Challenge and I'm here to give you the low-down on what we've been up to! I've just made a warm pot of tea and have managed to find a single perfectly formed biscuit in the tin (Rob's brutish foraging has left most of them in pieces, what a crime!) but I've got what I need to get comfortable and reveal all. Read more>

Week 1
I thought we'd use this opportunity to introduce ourselves and tell you about what we will be doing with the Perceptual Computing platform and where we're coming from with our ideas. Read more>

Background

Simian Squared are a British video game developer, founded by brothers Robert Cummings and Giuseppe Landolina with a passion for unique and challenging projects.

You may recognise them as the developers of Physynth, a uniquely beautiful physics-driven musical experience and The Other Brothers, a soon to be released platformer with a striking, modern take on retro style.

Project

We will be creating an immersive, experience that will give users the chance to use their hands to sculpt digital clay into pottery. The user will use physical gestures and motions to mould, manipulate and then paint the clay.

We will put a large emphasis on getting it to feel as natural, and look as beautiful as possible to give the user a wonderful experience that also fully demonstrates the power of the PerC and Ultrabook.

Technology

We will be using the PerC hardware to allow the user to interact directly with their digital clay - sculpting, moulding and painting it physically with their hands as well as using the Ultrabook's unique form factor and it's touch screen to access the tools.

We will be using Unity and our proprietary engine, Simian Tech.

Type of app: Entertainment, Creativity

Your starting place: With Physynth, one of our goals was to look at new ways to create an immersive experience for the user. We used the device's physical orientation to simulate light passing across the surfaces as you moved it, as if it were an actual physical device, as well as adjusting the onscreen graphics in relation to your movement to create a unique sense of 3D depth.

We had just really scratched the surface of what we wanted to do at the time, and with the PerC hardware, we'll be going all-out with these kinds of technology.

Physynth was aimed at musicians, however this time we're creating something that anyone of any age and background can appreciate and enjoy.

Quel Solaar

Location: Sweden
Company: Quel Solaar
Website: www.quelsolaar.com

Dev's Updates

Week 7
This is my last Blog update for the Challenge and there are only a few days left before delivery. Since the last post, I have been to LA and then flown to Tokyo and tomorrow I'm moving on to Seoul. Life has been busy, but life should be busy. Read more>

Week 6
Last week I and most other participants in the contest ran around GDC showing stuff off, so not much got done in terms of coding, but i for one learned one thing: People wanted to know how my head tracker works. So this week I will do my best to describe the algorithm and the process I used to come up with it. Read more>

Week 5
I want to use this weeks blog post to set the record straight on the camera. I feel that a lot of false expectations have been created of what it can and can not do. You may call this my "review". Read more>

Week 4
This week Ive been thinking a lot about how to design a UI toolkit, and this is about to get very techy, because I would like to talk about API design. Read more>

Week 3
Last weekend I finished off the Beta version of Betray. And that means that its time to start thinking about building my Gui tool kit. Before we get going lets strategize a bit about how I'm going to do this. Read more>

Week 2
There is a fundamental problem when creating new hardware: you need software using it before anyone is willing to buy it. The problem with getting software written for new hardware, is that no one wants to put in the time to build applications using hardware that no one has bought yet. Read more>

Week 1
DYour PC is an amazing peace of kit, it’s amazing because no other computing platform is as versatile and no other platform is so open for innovation. You can buy hardware for it from thousands of vendors, you can hook it up to just about any display or input device and you can make it do just about anything. Read more>

Background

Eskil Steenberg runs Quel Solaar as a an independent development and research studio, working on games, creative tools, and technologies. While perhaps most known for the procedural action adventure game "Love", Quel Solaar has also produced a range of creative tool for everything form 3D modeling, to asset management and texturing. The studio has a strong commitment to opensource and shares much of the developed libraries and technologies under a Free BSD licence.

Project/Technology

The project under taken during the challenge will be to enhance a simple to use platform library with features such as multitouch, tilt sensors, head-tracking and stereoscopics. There are several different types of existing applications such as "Adri Om", a data visualization tool, (http://youtu.be/KJ-0ETTjHDk) and "Dark side of the moon", a Real Time strategy game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFvAMPsO-NA) using the platform library that will be modified to showcase the possibilities with these technologies. Further I will develop a identified interface toolkit with sliders, buttons, menus and so on designed specifically for software development where the application may run on as diverse hardware setups as: tablets, TVs, PCs, Laptops, convertibles, tables, head-mounted displays or large scale multi-user walls and include features such as wands, head tracking, multitouch and stereoscopics.

Infrared5/Brass Monkey

Location: U.S.
Company: Infrared5/Brass Monkey
Website: www.infrared5.com, www.playbrassmonkey.com

Dev's Updates

Week 7
This the final week in the contest, and we think that we’ve got a pretty solid game out of the six weeks we’ve been at this. This week we will focus on adding that little bit of polish to the experience. We know that Nicole suggested not adding more features, but we simply couldn’t resist. Read more>

Week 6
For week six Chris and Aaron made the trek out to San Fransisco to the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) where they showed the latest versions of our game Kiwi Catapult Revenge. The feedback we got was amazing! Read more>

Week 5
We definitely lost one of our nine lives this week with integrating face tracking into our game, but we still have our cat’s eyes, and are still feel very confident that we will be able to show a stellar game at GDC. Read more>

Week 4
Week three seemed to go much better for the Infrared5 team. We are back on our feet with head tracking, and despite the judges lack of confidence in our ability to track eyes, we still believe that we've got a decent chance of pulling it off. Read more>

Week 3
Week Two brought with it some interesting challenges. We’ve finished our first sprint and many of the features for Kiwi Catapult Revenge are now complete. We were pleased to see that all the tasks we set for ourselves wasn’t too big of a bite to take, and our knowledge of the capabilities of the perceptual computing camera and the PC SDK are making us comfortable with achieving our goal of eye/gaze tracking. Read more>

Week 2
This week our team made a ton of progress on our game Kiwi Catapult Revenge. In their posts, the judges made some suggestions that the projects we are undertaking are ambitious and are perhaps a bit more than what can be accomplished in seven weeks. We have to agree that none of the teams are taking the easy way out, and we feel that because everyone is taking on such lofty goals it will only spur on more creativity from the entire group of competitors. Read more>

Week 1
We are very excited to be working with the Intel Perceptual Computing (IPC) SDK and to be a part of the Ultimate Coder Challenge! The new hardware and software that Intel and its partners have created allows for some very exciting possibilities. Read more>

Background

Infrared5 is a digital agency that builds cutting edge technology for its clients like LucasFilm, Hasbro, Match.com and more. The business was originally started in 2007 based on our team members’ creation of the open source media server red5: http://red5.org. Since then we have expanded our areas of expertise to include web, desktop and mobile experiences. When working on the Star Wars: Trench Run project in 2009, our team members pushed the boundaries once again creating Brass Monkey: http://playbrassmonkey.com, a next generation browser based game system that uses phones as game controllers.

Project

We are interested in what becomes possible when combining game play experiences like those available on Nintendo’s Wii U and Microsoft’s Kinect. To that end, we plan on using the perceptual computing SDK for head tracking, allowing the player to essentially peer into the tablet/laptop screen like a window. When the player moves his/her head the view of the 3D world will change depending on the angle of the player’s vision. We’ve seen other experiments of this sort and believe that combining this with a smartphone as a controller would create a very realist and immersive experience. In this game, the player would be using the phone as a virtual steering wheel where he/she drives a vehicle in the 3D environment. When the player turns his/her head the view changes so that it feels like he/she is literally looking though the vehicle’s windshield into a real world. In addition to this core mechanic of the game, we plan on experimenting with other features like having the driver player dodge projectiles that are coming towards his/her head to avoid being killed in the game and using eye tracking for aiming and shooting.

Technology

What technology will you use (ie PerC, sensors) - Brass Monkey SDK, Intel Perceptual Computing SDK

What development language, frameworks will you use - Unity/C#

Type of app: Game, tool, photo, music, education - Game

Your starting place: Related work done to date - Brass Monkey SDK

Peter O'Hanlon

Location: United Kingdom
Company:Individual
Website: Confessions of a Coder, The Code Project

Week 7
As this is the final post, I'm not going to be showing code here. What I've been concentrating on since last week is tightening up on the application, testing it, and coping with those funny little niggles. I thought, instead, that I'd talk about what this contest has taught me and what I see happening from here on. Read more>

Week 6
Well here we are, nearing the end of the Perceptual Challenge. There's not much longer to go with the competition, so it's time to start locking things down. and really starting to test the application. Read more>

Week 5
Rather than doing a day by day update this week, I've waited until near the end of the week to cover the progress I've been making this week. It couldn't be more timely, given Steve's update this week as I'd reached a lot of the conclusions he did regarding gesture performance and also layout of the interface (a point he raised elsewhere). Read more>

Week 4
The judges will be pleased to know that this blog entry is a lot less verbose than previous ones. This isn't because there's not a lot to talk about, but rather because I'm concentrating on writing a lot of code this week, and I've hit a real roadblock with regards to the gesture camera. Read more>

Week 3
Well, it's week 2 now and development is carrying on apace. I've managed to get a fair bit into Huda in the first week, so the question has to be asked "Will Peter manage to maintain this awesome pace?" We all know that was the question you wanted to ask, but were far too nice to ask, so we'll take it as read, shall we? Read more>

Week 2
Well, this is the first week of coding for the Perceptual Computing challenge, and I thought it might be interesting for you to know how I'm approaching developing the application, what I see the challenges as being, and any roadblocks that I hit on the way. I must say, up front, that this is going to be a long post precisely because there's so much to put in here. Read more>

Week 1
A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to be asked if I would like to participate in an upcoming Intel® challenge, known at the time as Ultimate Coder 2. Having followed the original Ultimate Coder competition, I was highly chuffed to even be considered. Read more>

Background

Having been hooked on programming for more years than I can remember, it’s fair to say that I’ve developed on a wide variety of machines and platforms. While I used to work primarily with C/C++, for the last 11 years, I’ve focused heavily on C#, first with Windows Forms and ASP.NET, and for the last five years or so on WPF. In doing so, I’ve come to be fairly well known on Code Project, where I’ve written one or two articles that seem to have been well received. At the same time, I’ve released a few Open Sourcey type of things such as an MVVM framework for WPF and a couple of Visual Studio addin, as well as starting the XAML Experts group on Facebook. This is all part of my families fiendish master plan for me not to have a life.

Project

Huda is a photo editing application, which works differently to just about any photo editing package you’ve ever used before. In most applications of this type, edits are destructive – in other words, once you’ve saved it, the original picture is lost. By keeping things separate, you can change the order of filters, insert new filters, remove them and so on. Huda, makes use of the Ultrabook and Perceptual Computing to provide a wide variety of inputs and manipulations – bringing the type of manipulation you see in films like Minority Report to real world applications.

Technology

Huda will use touch screen, sensors, PerC – if time permits, it will also make use of the Intel cloud.

It will be developed in WPF and C#.

Huda is a photo editing application.

Huda is being developed from scratch, but will use the AForge library for photo filters.

Meet the Judges

Select a Judge for more info

Steve "Chippy" Paine
Chippy is the owner of Ultrabooknews, Carrypad and UMPCPortal mobile computing websites which were started in 2006 just before the 'UMPC' was launched. Between 1985 and 2006 Chippy had a career in the Internet industry with roles ranging from customer service to IP security design. He started computing and coding in 1983, his first internet post was in 1988 and his first blog in 2000.

Chris Maunders
Chris is the Australian co-founder, administrator, and chief editor of the Code Project, an active community where developers exchange ideas and keep up with the latest technologies to help with day-to-day programming. Chris has been programming in various languages since 1988 and is a global Microsoft Visual C++ MVP.

Nicole Scott
Nicole is an aspiring gypsy who is addicted to making videos about technology. She is currently based in Taipei because of her need to get her hands on the latest gadgets first and an enthusiastic attitude towards eating.

Sascha Pallenberg
Sascha is one of the best known German bloggers. He is currently situated in Taiwan and writing for the English blogMobilegeeks.com and for the German Mobilegeeks.de. The main focus lies on Smartphones, Tablets and Notebooks. During three consecutive years in 2010-2012, Sascha won the Top 20 Smart Mobile Device Pundit Award for the most influential bloggers and journalists in the area of Mobile Computing.

Steve "Chippy" Paine

Location: Germany
Website: www.ultrabooknews.com

About Steve

Chippy is the owner of Ultrabooknews, Carrypad and UMPCPortal mobile computing websites which were started in 2006 just before the 'UMPC' was launched. Between 1985 and 2006 Chippy had a career in the Internet industry with roles ranging from customer service to IP security design. He started computing and coding in 1983, his first internet post was in 1988 and his first blog in 2000. He lives with his Wife and two kids in Germany.

Chris Maunder

Location: US
Company: Code Project
Website: CodeProject.com

About Chris

Chris is the Australian co-founder, administrator, and chief editor of the Code Project, an active community where developers exchange ideas and keep up with the latest technologies to help with day-to-day programming. Chris has been programming in various languages since 1988 and is a global Microsoft Visual C++ MVP.

Nicole Scott

Location: US
Company: MobileGeeks
Website: www.mobilegeeks.com

About Nicole

Nicole is an aspiring gypsy who is addicted to making videos about technology. She is currently based in Taipei because of her need to get her hands on the latest gadgets first and an enthusiastic attitude towards eating.

She has been in online video since 2006 where she got her start as a technology journalist focused on mobile start-ups. In 2009, she moved to Taipei to launch Netbook News with Sascha Pallenberg. Following the trends and the evolution of the Netbook together the duo launched Post PC Nation and Mobile Geeks.

When she is not delivering her sass online you can find her cycling the river path, passed out on a plane or with lips warm from laughter.

Sascha Pallenberg

Location: Germany
Company: MobileGeeks
Website: www.mobilegeeks.de

About Sascha Pallenberg

Sascha is one of the best known German bloggers. He is currently situated in Taiwan and writing for the English blog Mobilegeeks.com and for the German Mobilegeeks.de. The main focus lies on Smartphones, Tablets and Notebooks. During three consecutive years in 2010-2012, Sascha won the Top 20 Smart Mobile Device Pundit Award for the most influential bloggers and journalists in the area of Mobile Computing.

Watch the latest Ultimate Coder Challenge videos:

From behind the scenes commentary to breakthrough demos and early prototypes, experience the amazing sights and sounds of the Ultimate Coder Challenge via weekly videos from our Challengers and Judges.

Challengers' Videos:

Community Manager Bob Duffy demos Eskil Steenberg's "Seduce" head tracking.

Lee Bamber

Lee talks about the past seven weeks of Ultimate Coder Challenge, the future of perceptual computing, and gives us a link to the final download of his app.

Lee Bamber

Lee shows off the new "Perceptual Sparks" feature in his teleconferencing app.

Sixense

Sixense show us the new hand calibration feature for their Puppet in Motion app.

Sixense

Check out Sixense's new scenes – and follow Surfer Pig as he takes a walk through the forest and the suburbs.

Brass Monkey/Infrared5

Infrared5 show off the latest iteration of Kiwi Catapult Revenge, along with game play from GDC.

Code-Monkeys

The Code-Monkey team review the Ultimate Coder Challenge, encouraging their fellow coders and calling out their favorite projects and features.

Judges' Videos:

Steve “Chippy” Paine

Live from GDC, Ultrabooknews.com reporter Ben Lang interviews Ultimate Coder Chris Allen of Brass Monkeys/Infrared5.

Steve “Chippy” Paine

Ben Lang of Ultrabooknews.com interviews Sixense about their Puppet in Motion app.

Challengers' Videos:

Lee Bamber Live from GDC, Lee shows us the latest version of his perceptual computing teleconferencing app.	Lee Bamber Background noise at GDC poses issues to Lee’s teleconferencing app, fortunately, he’s got other input methods that work in these situations.	Peter O'Hanlon Peter shows how gesture controls work to call filters in Huda.
Sixense Sixense show a demo of their recording feature in the Puppet In Motion app.	Code-Monkeys The team take a cue from KISS frontman Gene Simmons with this week’s update.	Eskil Steenberg Eskil shows us a brief demo of how head tracking works in his project.
Brass Monkey/Infrared5 Brass Monkey/Infrared5 highlights their entry in the challenge "Kiwi Catapult Revenge" at GDC 2013.	Sixense Sixense Entertainment highlights their entry in the challenge "Puppet In Motion" at GDC 2013.	Code-Monkeys Code-Monkeys highlights their entry in the challenge "Stargate Gunship" at GDC 2013.
Lee Bamber Lee Bamber of the Game Creators highlights the challenges in the competetion and gives a look into their voice recognition and virtual teleconferenceing entry at GDC 2013.	Simian Squared Simian Squared highlights their entry in the challenge at GDC 2013.	Quel Solaar Eskil talks about his Ultimate Coder Challenge project at GDC 2013.
Simian Squared Simian Squared talk about their pottery app for the Ultimate Coder Challenge at GDC 2013.	Quel Solaar Eskil discusses his cutting-edge perceptual computing app at GDC 2013.

Challengers' Videos:

Lee Bamber Lee talks about his longest coding streak ever, along with adding voice recognition and a new scene to his teleconferencing app.	Lee Bamber Lee shows us what his teleconferencing app looks like when he attaches the PerC camera in Flip Back Mode (we also get a glimpse of the new medieval church background!).	Lee Bamber Lee shows us what the teleconferencing app looks like in action with a traditionally mounted camera; this provides the best gesture and camera data in his experience.
Peter O'Hanlon Peter shows us visual progress of where Huda, his photo editing application, is currently sitting in Week 5.	Eskil Steenberg Eskil shows us the first demo of his "Seduce" interface toolkit.	Brass Monkey/Infrared5 Chris and Steff present their Week 5 update from within the game of Kiwi Catapult Revenge.
Sixense We get a walkthrough of the story through the eyes of the Big Bad Wolf: we visit Surfer Pig, then Lumberjack Pig, than Suburban Pig.	Simian Squared Simian Squared gives us a first look at their pottery app, tentatively named "Pot". We see background and a working pottery wheel.

Challengers' Videos:

Lee Bamber Lee gives us an updated demo of his teleconferencing app, with a look at conferencing in action.		Lee Bamber Lee shows us how the Host and Call functions work on two different computers.		Sixense Sixense shows us how the traditional Pinch gesture looks like when controlling the mouth of a virtual puppet.
Sixense We get to see Sixense's puppet move with gesture control, using the hand normal, position, and openness corresponding to the puppet's movements.		Brass Monkey/Infrared5 Brass Monkey test different methods of face tracking using OpenCV.		Code-Monkeys The Code-Monkeys demo Stargate Gunship, discussing the issue of the "UZ Factor" (user laziness).

Judges' Video:

Sascha Pallenberg, Nicole Scott, Steve "Chippy" Paine

Sascha, Nicole, and Steve are live from CeBIT, discussing each challenger's progress this week. Watch for the surprise five minutes in!

Challengers' Videos:

Sixense Sixense demos controlling a puppet with the camera, as well as workable video recording so users can record and share their own creations.		Lee Bamber Lee shows us a live demo of his teleconferencing software, straight from a virtual boardroom.		Code Monkeys The Code-Monkeys give updates on how they’re integrating the PerC camera into Stargate Gunship.
Quel Solaar Eskil shares progress on his platform layer, called Betray, complete with a plugin interface for modifications		Brass Monkey Brass Monkey give us a demo of depth mask displayed in Unity.

Judges' Video:

Nicole Scott, Steve "Chippy" Paine, Sascha Pallenberg

Judges discuss the progress in Ultimate Coder, and give each challenger specific advice/constructive criticism. Nicole Scott, Steve Paine, and Sascha Pallenberg participate.

Challengers' Videos:

Brass Monkeys, Simian Squared, Lee Bamber Challengers discuss what they are doing for Ultimate Coder, what challenges they've faced so far, and what we can look forward to. (full Hangout: http://youtu.be/462Jnv0Cltg)	Brass Monkeys/Infrared5 Chris talks to the team about head tracking, art, and more.	Peter O'Hanlon A sample of Huda in action, opening up folders and choosing a picture to view.
Lee Bamber Lee talks about his webcam app with technical details, specifically touching on depth and 3D modeling.	Code Monkeys An in-depth discussion of what the Code-Monkeys plan to do in the Challenge.	Sixense Parody from the Oscars of sock puppets and the movie "Flight” gives us an idea of what Sixense app could produce.
Sixense Media Molecule explains a similar vision to Sixense Puppet Platform at the PlayStation 4 showcase.	Code Monkeys The Code-Monkeys' team is introduced.

Challengers' Videos:

Peter O'Hanlon Peter gives us the first draft of Huda, his image editing application.	Peter O'Hanlon Huda gets a restyled folder tree, filter control, and folder view – complete with touch.	Code Monkeys Code-Monkeys' John Bergquist introduces himself, the Ultimate Coder Challenge, hardware, the team, and what they'll be doing.
Simian Squared Demo of Physynth, “a retro tinker toy where you can play with sound and physics.”	Lee Bamber Lee introduces himself, the Ultimate Coder Challenge, and gives a quick tour of his background.	Lee Bamber Lee shows us a very cool speeded-up view of building a PC.
Lee Bamber Un-boxing video of the Perceptual Computing camera.	Lee Bamber Un-boxing video of the convertible Ultrabook.	Lee Bamber Playing around with the different form factors of the convertible Ultrabook.
Sixense Demo of the Portal 2 Sixense MotionPack with the Razer Hydra.	Sixense Demo for CES 2013 using the Creative Labs Gesture Camera and the Intel Perceptual Computing SDK.