The Daily Collegian Gamers watch a match end at the Super Smash Bros. Tournament, which was held Friday to raise money for The Game Design Club. Gamers compete, fundraise for club By Sarah Becks FOR THE COLLEGIAN Tension was high and the pres sure was on when crowds gath ered in front of two screens to watch people fight with their favorite video game characters. The Game Design Club (GDC) hosted a "Super Smash Bros." tournament Friday to raise funds for new equipment and software for the club. More than 60 people signed up for the brawl. “No matter how much you play, something unseen before will happen," Max Spangler (fresh man-division of undergraduate studies) said. "Even a novice could beat a champion." Part of the popularity of "Super Smash Bros." also comes from its longevity it’s a game that has been played since its players were in grade school. Hank Fox (freshman-computer science) is one of those players. “It’s been around since Nintendo 64. then Game Cube and now the Wii. It's a classic." Fox said. All night there was a competi tive air in the room. Occasionally there would be an outburst from the audience when the underdog would come from behind at the last minute to win a battle. Excited gamers all came pre pared to give it their best shot. Three hours later, the winner was announced. Paul Urban (junior-division of undergraduate studies) stepped up his game after losing his first match of the night to become the with an Ecuador Immersion Experience overall winner of the tournament. Urban said he switched up his player to help rise from the loss and go on to be the ultimate win ner. "I tried using a different char acter, Meta Knight, who is rated the best character in the game,” Urban said. "I stayed in the mid dle and tried to disrupt the other characters." Urban hosts weekly Brawl tournaments and has played some of the players who showed up to the GDC tournament. “There wasn’t that much pres sure the last game. I played the competitor before, and I just treated those final matches just like any other games,” Urban said. GDC members said they were excited by the large turnout and crowd enthusiasm. The club also creates and designs games like card games, board games and role-playing games. "We hope to bring out a fin ished game we’ve been working on and show it off by the end of the year." Alan Salkind (senior mechanical engineering) said. "We re even currently working on a game that has Xbox market potential." The GDC recognizes the job opportunities for game designing and hopes to promote more class es that emphasize game design education at Penn State, Salkind said. The club has also made con nections with several internships that involve getting associated with the game design community, he said. LOLA 1. Team places 3rd in challenge A team of students trav eled to Canada to tackle an energy competition. By Alexa Agugliaro COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Despite some hurdles, a team of four Penn State students placed third overall in a recent energy competition held at the University of Alberta in Canada. Though they missed the first day of competition, had to over come a “party school” stereotype and were the only non-Canadian team participating, the Penn State team tackled the first annu al Alberta Energy Challenge, held from Sept. 16-19. William Atcheson and his three teammates Lora Hutelmyer, Daniel Drufovka and Lisa Dannewitz were the students involved in the case study. Atcheson (senior-energy, busi ness and finance) said his energy and environmental economics professor, Andrew Kleit, played a major role in recruiting students to the competition. Kleit is the A model shows off her wedding dress at the 2010 Wedding Showcase in the Bryce Jordan Center. Soon to-be brides and grooms flocked to the event for wedding dresses, food and photography. enn State University ST WEEK! ay, September 27 throug Friday, October 1 -Robeson Center unction Lounge 9am to 7pm ,sored b y Office of Union and Student Ac»i founder of the energy business and finance major (EBF), which was established in 2004. “He’s been a great mentor and really helped prepare us for the competition,” Atcheson said. Nine Canadian teams and one American team participated in the competition in which groups solved a case study for Cenovus Energy, an integrated oil compa ny. Students were given 36 hours to put together a case to present to a panel of judges about how to combat the negative image of oil sands, Dannewitz (senior-energy, business and finance) said. Hutelmyer (senior-energy, business and finance) said the projects at hand were relevant to today's issues, especially BP’s recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The judges were Cenovus Energy representatives, which made the competition very real, she said. "It was great to have real-life exposure to the industry and at the same time meet wonderful people." Hutelmyer said. Monday, Sept. 27, 2010 I Drufovka (senior-energy, busi ness and finance) said his experi ence was all about teamwork and “keeping your cool” in highly stressful situations. He said they had a good team dynamic and though they were the only team unsupervised, they were able to make it to the finals. Team members said the EBF curriculum is applicable to real life situations. “If we didn’t have the back ground knowledge of what we know from being a EBF major, we definitely would have lost,” Atcheson said. “I’m glad we were able to put the fairly new major on the map.” Though this was the first ever Alberta Energy Challenge, the University of Alberta will contin ue the competition annually and Dannewitz said she hopes her team set a good example for future students. “We wanted to start a tradition and now that we know what to expect, we hope next year’s team can do even better,” she said. To e-mail reporter: amas4s3@psu.edu
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