In this meetup, we’ll use the Python programming language and the Pygame collection of game development libraries to write a game similar to this “Super Bowl Streaker”-themed parody of the old videogame Tecmo Bowl:
That’s right, we’re going to build a game where the player controls the guy who ran onto the field in a pink leotard during the Super Bowl, and the goal of the game is to dodge security for as long as you can.
While writing the game, you’ll learn about key game programming concepts including the main event loop and collision detection, as well as everyday programming topics including object-oriented programming and data structures.
This is going to be a “code along with the instructor” exercise. I’ll explain a key concept for the game, and then we’ll code it together. By the end of the session, you’ll have a working game that you can play but even modify and improve on!
What will you need for the Programmers of Portables Meetup?
Even this decade-plus-old hardware (which I own) will do.
Aside from a computer (which could run macOS, Windows, Linux, or Raspberry Pi OS) made sometime in the past ten or so years and an internet connection, you’ll need:
Zoom (I’ll provide a link to the Meetup as the day gets closer)
All you need for this session is just some programming experience, and it doesn’t have to be in Python. If you can code a “Magic 8-Ball” in JavaScript, you’ll understand most of what we’ll cover when writing our game.
Chances are that when you read this, the Big Game (I can’t call it by its official name because the NFL guards its trademarks a little too zealously) will have come and gone, and Tampa Bay will have emerged the victor. Congrats, Tampa Bay!
Chinese New Year happens on Friday, February 12, and this year is the Year of the Ox — or more specifically, because each year name comprises the name of a zodiac animal and an element, it’s the year of the Metal Ox. 恭喜发财 / Gōngxǐ fācái / Kung hey fat choy!
…and it’s also another week in Tampa Bay’s tech scene, where there’s always a lot going on. That’s what this list is for — connect, share, stay safe, and Make It Tampa Bay!
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At the same time, while I’ve wanted to keep covering iOS, I also wanted to expand into other portable platforms, namely programming Android, smart watches, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino devices.
I’m going to scratch these two itches by re-tooling Tampa iOS Meetup into a new meetup called Programmers of Portables, or PoP for short. If you want to know what kind of platforms and programming this meetup will cover, just read its motto: “If it fits in your hand, it’s on-brand!”
Some of the topics I’m planning for this year:
iOS and watchOS programming with Swift
Android programming with Kotlin
Cross-platform mobile programming with Flutter
Raspberry Pi programming with Python
Arduino programming with Arduino’s C-like programming language
Wearables (after all, “portable” is related to the French verb porter, which means “to wear”)
I’m going to keep the beginner-friendly focus with this revamped meetup, but don’t let “beginner-friendly” fool you into thinking that it means “simple”! In some of my “beginner-friendly” classes, we wrote:
a machine learning app that tried to identify common objects,
a machine learning app that tried to identify the kind of room your were in, and
a machine learning app that could identify various members of the Avengers.
My plan is to return to regular meetups, which will be Zoom-based until the pandemic gets under control.
I’ll announce the first meetup shortly. In the meantime, let me know what topics you’d like me to cover at PoP. You can do it in the comments for this post, or on my Twitter or LinkedIn accounts.
Among the YouTube videos produced by the Tampa Bay Super Bowl LV Host Committee, there’s one promoting Tampa Bay as as the tech hub you didn’t expect: TAMPA BAY: An Unexpected Destination for the Tech Industry, which you can watch below:
It’s a great promo for the tech virtues of “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”, featuring these locals:
Jacqueline Darna, CEO and Medical Inventor of Nomo Nausea
Joy Randels, CEO and Founder of New Market Partners, person behind a lot of things in the Tampa Bay tech scene, and indirectly the reason I live here now
The only thing I’ll nitpick about the video is that St. Pete and Clearwater are underrepresented, appearing only as beach scenes. Let’s let the world know that they’re part of Tampa Bay, and home to Tech Data, Jabil, KnowBe4, The Penny Hoader, and Malwarebytes’ east coast office to name a few players, as well as the birthplace of Wikipedia!
In fact, when it comes to “Tampa Bay”, I view it as the area served by Tampa International Airport (TPA). This means that I count Sarasota County — home to advertising and marketing tech companies and agencies including AdRizer, DealersUnited, FloorForce, Perform[cb], and Revcontent — as part of Tampa Bay.
Welcome to the first week of February 2021, and Happy Groundhog Day in advance! Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, February 1 through Sunday, February 7, 2020.
By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.
For the time being, this list will include only those events that can be attended online because…
1 in 12.6 Americans has contracted COVID-19 (26 million cases out of a population of 328 million, which is 1.1 million more than last week).
1 in 747 Americans has died from COVID-19 (439,000 dead out of a population of 328 million, which is 22,000 more than last week).
…and we’re still experiencing a post-holiday spike that has a number of ICUs across the country running at maximum capacity.
We live in the age of broadband and ubiquitous computing — make the best use of it. Stay safe, stay connected, skill up, and #MakeItTampaBay!
Don’t forget that The Big Game (I can’t use its official name, because the NFL are rather litigious with people who use it without paying licensing fees) happens this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.
If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.
Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!
Tomorrow night, the Tampa Bay chapter of WITI (Women In Technology International) is hosting a showcase of technology businesses owned by women. It takes place online tomorrow, Wednesday January 27th, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. EST.
When: Wednesday, January 27, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. EST
Where to register: Here’s the registration page. Men are welcome to attend. WITI members can attend for free; there’s a $10 admission for non-members.
The showcase
Event schedule
5:30 pm to 6:00 pm – Gather and Welcome
6:00 pm to 6:15 pm – Woman Owned Tech Business 1
6:15 pm to 6:30 pm – Woman Owned Tech Business 2
6:30 pm to 6:45 pm – Mix and Mingle
6:45 pm to 7:00 pm – Woman Owned Tech Business 3
7:00 pm to 7:15 pm – Woman Owned Tech Business 4
7:15 pm to 7:25 pm – Mix and Mingle
7:25 pm to 7:30 pm – Thank you and Goodbye
Suzanne Ricci, Computer Coach Training Center
Moderator: Suzanne Ricci
The showcase will feature a panel moderated by Suzanne Ricci, Chief Success Officer at Computer Coach Training Center and WITI Network Director.
Since 2000, Suzanne has helped thousands of IT and business professionals, in Tampa Bay, achieve their career goals through customized training strategies. Starting off her career as a Web Designer, she possesses over 25 technical certifications and 20 years of IT and training experience.
Panelists
Chelsea Pierre, Blerds Leading Technology
Chelsea Pierre is the Founder and CEO of Blerds Leading Technology, also known as BLT. She incorporated Blerds Leading Technology in June 2020. As Founder and CEO, Chelsea is focusedon accelerating the movement of diversity and inclusion one datacenter at a time by providing resources, scholarships, and other avenues for minorities in the IT field to excel in their career.
Prior to opening BLT, Chelsea Pierre was a Cyber Network Engineer for the Department of Defense. Alongside her career, she has motivated multiple IT professionals by holding instructor positions for both Pluralsight and Cybrary e-learning platforms, mentoring individuals on social media platforms, inspiring others from behind the podium of multiple tech conferences, such as Black Tech Alabama, and have affiliated herself with multiple local tech organizations, to include once holding the position of Chapter President for Blacks in Technology Central Florida.
Chelsea Pierre is prior Air Force and holds a bachelor’s degree in Applied Computer Science with a concentration in Leadership Studies from Troy University and is currently working on her Executive MBA at Auburn University.
Tonya Elmore, STAR-TEC Enterprises
Tonya Elmore is founder, President & CEO of STAR-TEC Enterprises, Inc. a not-for-profit corporation that specializes in working with innovators and entrepreneurs. Under Tonya’s leadership the Tampa Bay Innovation Center was established to house and provide programming for startups. The Innovation Center, an incubator for early-stage technology firms, is a regional, national and international known success story that has been in operation for 17 years that continues to build momentum in Pinellas County, Florida. Twice the Innovation Center has been awarded winner of the Tampa Bay Technology Forum’s Professional Services Company of the Year. It has also been recognized by Entrepreneur.com among the top 10 roundup of international business incubators.
Tonya holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and an executive MBA from the University of South Florida. In 2007, Tonya was among the first graduating class to receive a professional designation as a “certified incubator manager” from the National Business Incubator Association. She is a certified coach/facilitator for the Wendy Kennedy “so what, who cares, why you?”, Kauffman Fast Trac Tech Venture and CO.STARTERS programs.
Ms. Elmore has served as a vice-chair for the Florida Business Incubator Association. She has been named as among the top twenty technology leaders in the Tampa Bay region. Tonya has participated in numerous media appearances and interviews, including Fox 13 Good Day Tampa Bay as an expert on entrepreneurship and early growth strategies.
Tonya serves on the Operating Council of the St. Petersburg Innovation District, the Advisory Board for the Suncoast Developers Guild and as a board member for Synapse. She was most recently recognized by Florida Trend as “One of the People to Know in St. Petersburg” and by the Tampa Bay Business Journal as “One of 25 People to Watch in 2020”. Elmore previously held a Top Secret Security clearance while working on Defense Contracts.
Veronica Lane, Veronica Lane Consulting
Veronica Lane, Founder and CEO, PMP, PMI-ACP, Founder and CEO of Veronica Lane Consulting, LLC, graduate of Florida A&M University, has over 25 years of active project management and corporate training expertise. Her project management training excellence has afforded her the opportunity to train both the private and public sectors of business and government.
Christina Dills, Smart Edge Technology
Christina Dills, CEO, Smart Edge Technologies, is a leading professional and entrepreneur in emerging technologies with excellent technology solution ideation and execution to grow and develop business. She brings over 15 years executive experience in leading market strategy and business intelligence for multinational companies. She is actively leading Smart Edge Technologies a retail analytics company and Immunity Ledger a non-profit educational and blockchain data repository for health verification. She also consults several international companies for overall digital transformation strategies
Since we’re still deep in a pandemic and the unemployment scenario that comes with it, the job market is even tougher to navigate than usual. Finding a job these days isn’t just about doing the right things, but also about not doing the wrong things.
If you’re having trouble landing a new job, or are just feeling frustrated about how your job search is going, you might want to attend Computer Coach’s free online workshop tomorrow: 12 Things You May Be Doing Wrong in Your Job Search. They’ll cover 12 common mistakes people make in their job search and how to start doing them right.
Saying that Computer Coach are a Tampa Bay tech training school doesn’t do them justice. They’re also active participants and sponsors at local events, regular tech meetup organizers, and part of what makes the Tampa Bay tech scene special.
Computer Coach have been doing so much for the local tech scene during the pandemic. They’ve helped connect Tampa Bay locals with not just tech training, but funding for it as well.
Over the past summer and fall, they quickly spun up all sorts of tech courses so that students could complete them before the end of the 2020 calendar year in order to qualify for education grants. I should know; I taught a couple of their Python and JavaScript courses, which helped both the students (who were looking to skill up) and me (I was looking for work at the time, and the pay and experience were helpful).
In this meetup, we’ll use the Python programming language and the Pygame collection of game development libraries to write a game similar to this “Super Bowl Streaker”-themed parody of the old videogame Tecmo Bowl:
At the same time, while I’ve wanted to keep covering iOS, I also wanted to expand into other portable platforms, namely programming Android, smart watches, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino devices.
I’m going to scratch these two itches by re-tooling Tampa iOS Meetup into a new meetup called Programmers of Portables, or PoP for short. If you want to know what kind of platforms and programming this meetup will cover, just read its motto: “If it fits in your hand, it’s on-brand!”
