Back to Work (And Lots Of It)

Posted on by Simon Cutajar

Almost two weeks have passed since my last post, and for good reason too. Here at the IT University of Copenhagen, we officially started lectures on the 29th of August, and were immediately loaded with loads of work to do.

Looking at the timetable, and coming from a background where I had loads of lectures at the University, you wouldn’t have thought that it could possibly get this busy. Just 20 hours of lectures a week, that doesn’t sound too bad.

Game Design however, thought otherwise. Apart from assignments that are given every lecture (usually for the next corresponding lecture), we also had to prepare reading as a background to the following lecture. And don’t think that the reading consisted of reviews for upcoming games, oh no. Engaging academic papers, sometimes naming loads of philosophers, psychologists and sociologists that all discussed games from an academic perspective, as well as several books. The average is around 3 papers and a book chapter for the following lecture, and the content isn’t an easy read either.

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Introduction Week at ITU

Posted on by Simon Cutajar
Foam Dice

Foam Dice

This week was the introduction week at the IT University of Copenhagen. I was a little nervous, since not only was it a new experience and a new setting in a completely different country, but also because I knew absolutely no-one.

Tuesday was an introductory day dedicated to all international students. Although I didn’t know anybody, I felt that it was easy to just sit down and talk to people. After an introduction to studying in Denmark and the way the system is organized, we were taken by boat to Nyhavn, and then walked to a restaurant in the Kongens Nytorv area, where we had dinner generously paid for by the university. Here, I spent the rest of the evening talking to 3 Italians, a Spaniard, several Romanians, and an Icelandic girl. I also met a German guy who I had been speaking to, since we had been trying to look for an apartment together, and I met a Belgian guy whose blog I had also been following.

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The Lodging Problem

Posted on by Simon Cutajar

Here’s my story of how I, as a Masters student, found lodging in Copenhagen. Your mileage may vary, of course.

As soon as I got my acceptance letter from the IT University of Copenhagen, I instantly decided to start looking for lodging, since I had heard how difficult it is to find.

Initially, I browsed Craigslist in the hopes of finding a suitable apartment or a room that could be rented. However, the only replies I got back were scams (usually from a Nigerian missionary who could not show me the apartment, but was willing to send me the keys to a very cheap flat in the city centre, if only I could send him some money as a deposit to prove that I was not wasting his time). I was later informed that the Danes do not usually use Craigslist anyway.

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Off to Copenhagen!

Posted on by Simon Cutajar

The day has finally arrived!

Tomorrow, I’ll be leaving for Copenhagen in order to prepare for my Masters in Media Technology and Games at the IT University of Copenhagen. The course officially starts on the 29th of August, but I decided to arrive a little earlier in order to settle lodging.

Lodging was one of my main concerns during the summer. When they said it was very difficult to find proper accommodation in Copenhagen, they weren’t lying. Out of the e-mails I sent, nobody ever answered me. I only heard from them some two weeks later to inform me that the place had successfully been rented out. I’m hoping that if I’m physically in Copenhagen, I should stand a better chance at finding suitable lodging.

I still feel a little queasy and anxious, since this is something totally new for me, but at the same time, I can’t wait!

ITU Copenhagen accepted me!

Posted on by Simon Cutajar
ITU Copenhagen acceptance envelope

ITU Copenhagen acceptance envelope

I’ve just been accepted for a Masters degree in Media Technology in Games at ITU Copenhagen, Denmark! :)

The deadline for the application was the 1st of April, 2011, while the acceptance letter was posted from Denmark on the 31st of May, 2011. It arrived in Malta on the 3rd of June, 2011 (quite quick, I must say). The university had informed potential candidates that they should expect to receive an answer by the 15th of June, 2011.

In particular, I chose the Technology stream, which allows me to learn more about the more technical areas of games, such as game engines and AI. I’m also interested in topics such as procedural content generation and games design.

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Fuzzy Logic Controller

Posted on by Simon Cutajar

Fuzzy Logic Controller, as the name implies, is a fuzzy logic controller written in C# as part of my CSA3200 – Machine Learning, Expert Systems and Fuzzy Logic course.

The fuzzy logic controller is intended to control a plant, represented by the given equation:

DP(t) = sign(DH(t)) K |DH(t)| ^ {0.75}

where DH(t) is the input delta pressure into the plant, and DH(t) is the output delta heat of the plant. This is an oversimplification of the steam engine boiler, but a precise model is not needed.

The controller’s input is defined in terms of the pressure error at time t (PE(t)) and the change in pressure error at time t (CPE(t)), and its output is defined in terms of delta heat (t+1).

PE(t) is defined as being the pressure at time t (P(t)) minus the set point pressure (an initial reference value). CPE(t) is defined as being the pressure error at time t (PE(t)) minus the the pressure error at time t – 1 (PE(t-1)).

P(t) is defined as being the pressure at time t – 1 (P(t-1)) plus the delta pressure at time t (DP(t))

The following parameter values were used to simulate the plant and the controller, but these may be changed when running the program:

  • set point = 500
  • range of Pressure Error = [-5,5]
  • range of Change in Pressure Error = [-5,5]
  • range of Delta Heat = [-5,5]
  • number of sampling points = 41
  • maximum number of iterations = 40

The fuzzy production rules and parametric definitions of the values used in the fuzzy logic controller may be built from editors in the program. The files used for the assignment may be downloaded below.

[download_box]Download the fuzzy logic controller source code.[/download_box]

[download_box]Download the production rules and parametric definitions.[/download_box]

[download_box]Download the assignment documentation.[/download_box]

[toggle title="Known Errors"]

[warning_box]Known bugs in the fuzzy logic controller:

  • the PE by CPE space does not render the path taken by the controller

[/warning_box]

[/toggle]

Academic Writing

Posted on by Simon Cutajar

Here’s a list of academic essays that were given to me as assignments. The topics vary.

ICTSA Programming Competition 2011

Posted on by Simon Cutajar

I decided to take part in the ICTSA programming competition, which is renowned for having challenging problems to solve, along with a friend of mine. The problem that was released this year (described in full at the competition site) involved a robot that could traverse a map, containing different altitude values. The aim of the problem was to create a route for the robot to follow, maximizing the area of the map taken by photographs, while minimizing the energy costs encountered by traversing the map.

We approached the problem in a number of different ways, such as optimization algorithms and evolutionary algorithms (including genetic algorithms, harmony search, simulated annealing and others). We also considered decision trees, mimicking the way IBM’s Deep Blue played chess, by looking forward and considering each step. Other algorithms that we considered included Bresenham’s Line Algorithm and Bresenham’s Circle Algorithm (for the photography range and the line of sight algorithm), as well as the use of quadtrees.

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A Literature Review

Posted on by Simon Cutajar

Since I’m in my final year, I’m currently undertaking a task that every final year ICT student must take; the thesis. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

My chosen title is Information Extraction Over the Internet for a Dynamic Game, which involves heavy reading about the semantic web and about content generation in games. However, there are very few papers that combine both topics. One of the main problems I’ve found with the literature review is that I keep finding more and more papers that seem relevant, however, there’s no chance in hell that I’ll have to read and properly understand all of them, especially with more lecturers giving us assignments.

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