UN Project: An Overview of My First Two Semesters

As I sit here on the flight back from St Lucia into JFK. I look around at our group and notice many of us are sleeping. Those of us who are not are either reading, on our computers, or just sitting quietly. Everyone is tired from this week of testing. I have some time to reflect on things and I am thinking about what I have done since I have been on the project. I started on this project in May, 2009. I had been working at the center for the school year on another project that was ending for the summer. I was one of 3 programmers fresh to the project. We were replacing others who had just graduated. We joined the team that had been working on a project being funded by the United Nations with the goal of ending violence against women. Our task for the summer was to prototype the mini games that would be in the game as well as other pre-production tasks such as figuring out how to interface our Flash game with a database. None of the programmers had done this before. We accepted this challenge and continued to work on it over the summer. We made progress and several prototypes were made by the end of the summer. As the summer came to an end we prepped for school to start again, as this would have a large effect on the team.
When the fall semester started, I was offered the position of lead programmer for the team. Since high school, I have considered myself a good leader. On top of that, over the summer I had read books on everything from programming methodologies to how to be an effective manager so I felt prepared for the job. I also knew a lot about the game and how it was supposed to work from a programming standpoint because I was the one who made the architecture (with input from various people). I requested a team of students that I felt could get the job done. We were then able to use volunteers to grow our team to an even larger number. Before I knew it I was managing a team of 9 programmers. We were working on an architecture that was created by me. This is all at the start of my junior year of college.
Over the semester we created a lot of the game’s content. We created four mini games with almost all of their functionality completed. We also created the narrative portion of the code. To go with the narrative, we also made a tool that allows designers to create XML that is formatted to be read by our code. This meant the designers wouldn’t have to write any XML. I feel like we were able to get a lot accomplished. I am very happy with how things are progressing.
Now we are returning from St. Lucia where we tested in four different locations. I saw a game that I helped create get played by dozens of kids. This whole project seems unreal. I would have never guessed even a year ago that I would be the lead programmer for the UN project. I first heard about it from a friend before I was working at the center. The concept behind it was something that was so large. I thought that it must be so cool to work on it. I never dreamt that I would eventually get to work on it.
Working on this project has been thrilling. For example, after meetings I would find myself happy because I knew I was a part of something. I remember one meeting in particular. It was one over the summer where we were dealing with scoping issues. It was a very long meeting and I remember as I left for lunch (the meeting was so long it had a lunch break) I had the biggest smile on my face and a remarkable feeling inside me. While we were struggling with a very large issue, I still couldn’t help but feel lucky to be doing my part to try and end this problem. I don’t think that many people can say that about their work meetings. I realize this and consider myself lucky to be doing something I love. It is very surreal as a college student to be working on something like this. I am making a game that is both a great portfolio piece and for a wonderful cause. I am grateful for having had this opportunity.

For more information on this project
Website: http://www.emergentmediacenter.com/UNVAW/
Blog: http://emc-gamestakeonvaw.blogspot.com

For more information on the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College
Website: http://www.champlain.edu/Emergent-Media-Center.html
Blog: http://emergentmediacenter.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/EMCchamp