Most of the important stuff is already posted over on the MSDN Student Flash Blog or captured by the PressPass release.   You can see the project abstracts and some pics in the image gallery.  Even better pics at the Flickr gallery.  Just adding my two cents;

 

The 1st place application was truly amazing.  They designed an application that teaches elementary aged student spelling and phonics using Tablet PC.  They had some video footage of kids in a classroom actually using the app.  The kids were so excited they were laughing, squealing and clapping.  I think that these gents have a real shot in Yokohama.

 

Big thanks to Robert Scoble for swinging by our kick-off event on Friday morning.  Some big oooh's and ahhhh's went out when we told the students he was coming by.  I snapped a pic of Scoble with Brian Tinkler, one the SDI judges from INETA.  Not bad for a guy who normally takes HORRIBLE pictures.  Brian seemed pretty excited. :)

 

Scoble swung by and did a few interviews including with Brian Desmond, overall winner of the High School IT Quiz category.  Brian is 17 and has already been a Windows Server MVP for 3 years!   Unreal.  Have fun in Yokohama Brain Brian! :)  Also got a quick interview the two ladies from Team Boston Partners--the only all-female team in the SDI--Tonia Giso and Ching Chang.  Hoping that video goes up on Channel9 soon. Pat Phillips also did a audiocast interview with these two--I'll update this post when I get pointers to these. 

 

I had the pleasure of organizing and managing a Halo 2 tournament on Friday night.  I had hoped to take pics, shoot video and blog that...um....no.  Pretty hectic keeping that running even semi-smoothly!  Hopefully some of the students took some photos that we can add to the Flickr gallery.  All in all though, I think that the students had fun.  They had the misfortune to run up against "Char" and "Cy" though.  Trust me--this is not a good thing! :)

 

The goal wasn't to have a vicious smack down but to give the students an opportunity to meet and socialize with Microsoft folks.  We played 2v2 Team Slayer, pairing students with a Microsoft employee.  I think that the students were pretty excited about this.  I only wish that we'd had enough, TVs, time and helpers to do a double elimination style tourney.  Or maybe had a bunch of smaller TVs for a "practice pit."  Oh well, I will just add to the list of lessons learned this past weekend! 

 

I think it was a good weekend all-up and I truly appreciate the students' energy.  There were some great presentations and  great applications.  I was pretty encouraged by the many students that were already discussing what they were going to do for next year's competition.  Looking forward to it...