My First Tech Position

The big day has finally arrived, not only does today officially mark the end of my dissertation - culminating in a poster session - but it also marks the day where I am finally given the responsibility of a technical position in TSC.

As for the end of my dissertation, the poster session (as always) was a huge waste of time (about three hours in total) plus designing and printing - which as I mentioned yesterday, could have been a degree in itself. I was supposed to be judged/marked and questioned on the project by one of my tutors Ph.D. students as he was unable to attend. If this student did turn up, I didn't even know their gender! As for the other viewers, teaching tools aren't the most exciting projects from the students point of view - especially when some of the projects involved gaming. I managed to entice three people into listening to me explain my project, one external visitor who seemed to speak to everyone (and so doesn't count). The two other lecturers had never even used Matlab before and so my plans for setting the lecturers the challenge of coding fell flat on its face because they wouldn't even know the simplest syntax.

After wasting so much time on practically nothing, I decided skip the extra lecture from IBM afterwards. It was also the poster prize ceremony but I was fairly confident that I wasn't in the running for that.

Thankfully, this evening went much better. Having only dabbled in light before, offering a helping hand here and there, I had a lot to learn tonight. I had a babysitter who gave me an amazing amount of help showing me what to do including the simple things that you don't normally think about - in my case fundamental things like power.


After rigging a fairly simple set of lights and it was time to start programming. Looking at a lighting desk for the fist time is pretty daunting but surprisingly intuitive once you know what each button does. The main insight was programming the position memories and chases (sequences of attribute changes) as previously I had no idea where to even start. My creative side is fairly limited at the moment but I hope that with time I will get to know what is capable of being done and perhaps be a bit more experimental.

Operating the desk during the event was the most enjoyable part. The music at Roar is pretty poor in my opinion (mainly urban and r&b stuff). I do listen to Radio 1 on occasion - although it usually gets switched off very quickly when they start playing music but I knew most of the songs being played. The only thing you really need to know is when to switch on the special lights - the strobes and blinders (really bright lights for the climactic parts of some songs). I think I did a fairly good job and even though no one would ever complain the crowd seemed to react well to the show.