My story Imagine cup, or how Microsoft makes life brighter
It all started with the fact that once I arrived at the AppsMafia hackathon, and there I looked into the hall where Dmitry Soshnikov, a technological evangelist of Microsoft, spoke all day long.
Toward the end of the day, he told about the large international technological student competition Imagine cup . From that moment on, my life began to change greatly.
At that time, I had already completed university studies as a student and became a graduate student. When Dmitry told about this competition, I regretted that I did not know about it earlier, because now, as it seemed to me, various “student bonuses” were over for me. But in fact, everything has just begun, since graduate students can also participate in this competition.
Soon a team was assembled from the excellent students of my university. One of them already had a great project idea, and we decided to come up with this idea at the competition.
The essence of our project is a simpler choice of resort for travel. Each of us has come across the fact that on the websites of major tour operators it is necessary to choose from countries about which we know nothing: neither what prices there, nor what types of recreation will be available. Calling around travel agencies in search of a suitable solution takes a lot of time, since each of them has to answer a certain number of questions. We decided to combine both of these approaches, and create a service that will ask visitors questions about their preferences on vacation, and as a result, the user will receive a list of resorts that meet the specified criteria.
Work has begun to boil. First of all, it was necessary to choose a platform for the implementation of our project. We decided to implement it as a web service, because our choice was based on Microsoft Azure cloud hosting, and C # was chosen as the language for development due to its specific merits. In particular, thanks to ASP.NET technology, you can build a good web service, and it is convenient to write it in C # for it. We were also attracted by code portability: we wrote some functional parts as console applications, debugged them, and transferred them to ASP.NET.
The next step was to choose a source of data on resorts and the types of recreation available in them, on the basis of which our service should issue. After some searches on the Internet, we came across a special section of the site Booking.com .
At first glance, it looks like our idea, but the difference is that here it is necessary to choose the type of activity from a large list, and in fact visitors can not always know what exactly they want, or what it is called. We want to reduce user actions to a minimum, to give them exactly what is needed.
In order to have time to make a prototype of the application to the first (regional) final, we decided to make the issue not by resorts, but more generalized - by countries. We collected a base of countries and types of recreation available in them, as a result, the scheme of our database looked like this:
')
a table of resorts (they are the countries in this case), a table of types of recreation, and a table of their correspondences, in which the weight of conformity is also indicated. It is necessary to determine the relevance of a country, as in different countries this or that type of recreation is present in different amounts.
In parallel with the collection of information, the development of the functional part and design was carried out.
Also at that time, within the framework of the Imagine cup, there was an online contest “Brain Games”, and we also participated in it between times.
As a result, by March 19, when there was a regional final in Moscow, the prototype of our service looked like this .
The event itself was organized as always great: tea, coffee, cookies, lunch, start on schedule.
We spoke mediocrely, did not take a prize, but it was interesting to listen to the performances of other teams.
It was the first thing that changed my life for the better, because instead of the gray winter days I had bright days working in a team and developing my service.
Toward the end, when the jury members left to confer, we were entertained by MSP - Microsoft's partner students . They talked about how fun their community was and called everyone. Having become a graduate student, I heard about this program, but I thought that it was already too late for me to participate in it - because it is for students. But when I talked to the guys from MSP, they said that graduate students could also participate in it, and that they would welcome me into their ranks.
After some time, I already held an event at my university, supported by MSP, dedicated to Microsoft and what it can give to students. And it is unforgettable when you tell interested people about new technologies, organize contests and give gifts from Microsoft.
It was the second factor that made my life even better, because I became part of a large student community, to which Microsoft provides all the support.
Participating in MSP contests at the same regional finals, I was presented with many cool souvenirs, including a game for the XBOX 360. But since I did not have this console at that time, I decided for myself that I would definitely get it, and in the same way - winning it in a competition from Microsoft.
A month has passed, and the time has come for the national Russian final of the Imagine cup, which was held in Moscow. A lot of interesting things were promised at this event: in addition to the performances of the teams themselves, technological speeches, contests, and a tour of the Mail.ru headquarters where the event took place.
This event also went great: interesting performances, competitions from MSP, and in the end I was in for a surprise. When they awarded participants for victories in various additional nominations, they said a few words about the Brain Games, and that it also has winners in Russia. What was my surprise when it turned out that these winners are me and another guy from my team! We have already forgotten that we participated in this competition. Luckily, both of us were present in the hall that day, and received - what would you think? - XBOX 360! That is, I really got it as I decided, winning the competition, only participated in it before I made myself this promise.
As a result, thanks to Microsoft and Imagine cup, my life became brighter, because:
1. I led the team and together we studied ASP.NET, C #, and put our knowledge into practice.
2. I became a Microsoft partner student, and now I am part of a large international student community and I represent Microsoft at my university: I talk about its technologies, I struggle to get DreamSpark Premium.
3. Won in an international competition and believe in yourself.
Now I am following the events in the Imagine Cup and Microsoft, and I plan to reassemble the team to participate next year.
This is #myimcupstory, and this is my What's next.
Toward the end of the day, he told about the large international technological student competition Imagine cup . From that moment on, my life began to change greatly.
At that time, I had already completed university studies as a student and became a graduate student. When Dmitry told about this competition, I regretted that I did not know about it earlier, because now, as it seemed to me, various “student bonuses” were over for me. But in fact, everything has just begun, since graduate students can also participate in this competition.
Soon a team was assembled from the excellent students of my university. One of them already had a great project idea, and we decided to come up with this idea at the competition.
Our project
The essence of our project is a simpler choice of resort for travel. Each of us has come across the fact that on the websites of major tour operators it is necessary to choose from countries about which we know nothing: neither what prices there, nor what types of recreation will be available. Calling around travel agencies in search of a suitable solution takes a lot of time, since each of them has to answer a certain number of questions. We decided to combine both of these approaches, and create a service that will ask visitors questions about their preferences on vacation, and as a result, the user will receive a list of resorts that meet the specified criteria.
Work has begun to boil. First of all, it was necessary to choose a platform for the implementation of our project. We decided to implement it as a web service, because our choice was based on Microsoft Azure cloud hosting, and C # was chosen as the language for development due to its specific merits. In particular, thanks to ASP.NET technology, you can build a good web service, and it is convenient to write it in C # for it. We were also attracted by code portability: we wrote some functional parts as console applications, debugged them, and transferred them to ASP.NET.
The next step was to choose a source of data on resorts and the types of recreation available in them, on the basis of which our service should issue. After some searches on the Internet, we came across a special section of the site Booking.com .
At first glance, it looks like our idea, but the difference is that here it is necessary to choose the type of activity from a large list, and in fact visitors can not always know what exactly they want, or what it is called. We want to reduce user actions to a minimum, to give them exactly what is needed.
In order to have time to make a prototype of the application to the first (regional) final, we decided to make the issue not by resorts, but more generalized - by countries. We collected a base of countries and types of recreation available in them, as a result, the scheme of our database looked like this:
')
a table of resorts (they are the countries in this case), a table of types of recreation, and a table of their correspondences, in which the weight of conformity is also indicated. It is necessary to determine the relevance of a country, as in different countries this or that type of recreation is present in different amounts.
In parallel with the collection of information, the development of the functional part and design was carried out.
Also at that time, within the framework of the Imagine cup, there was an online contest “Brain Games”, and we also participated in it between times.
Regional final Imagine cup in Moscow
As a result, by March 19, when there was a regional final in Moscow, the prototype of our service looked like this .
The event itself was organized as always great: tea, coffee, cookies, lunch, start on schedule.
We spoke mediocrely, did not take a prize, but it was interesting to listen to the performances of other teams.
It was the first thing that changed my life for the better, because instead of the gray winter days I had bright days working in a team and developing my service.
Toward the end, when the jury members left to confer, we were entertained by MSP - Microsoft's partner students . They talked about how fun their community was and called everyone. Having become a graduate student, I heard about this program, but I thought that it was already too late for me to participate in it - because it is for students. But when I talked to the guys from MSP, they said that graduate students could also participate in it, and that they would welcome me into their ranks.
After some time, I already held an event at my university, supported by MSP, dedicated to Microsoft and what it can give to students. And it is unforgettable when you tell interested people about new technologies, organize contests and give gifts from Microsoft.
It was the second factor that made my life even better, because I became part of a large student community, to which Microsoft provides all the support.
Participating in MSP contests at the same regional finals, I was presented with many cool souvenirs, including a game for the XBOX 360. But since I did not have this console at that time, I decided for myself that I would definitely get it, and in the same way - winning it in a competition from Microsoft.
National final
A month has passed, and the time has come for the national Russian final of the Imagine cup, which was held in Moscow. A lot of interesting things were promised at this event: in addition to the performances of the teams themselves, technological speeches, contests, and a tour of the Mail.ru headquarters where the event took place.
This event also went great: interesting performances, competitions from MSP, and in the end I was in for a surprise. When they awarded participants for victories in various additional nominations, they said a few words about the Brain Games, and that it also has winners in Russia. What was my surprise when it turned out that these winners are me and another guy from my team! We have already forgotten that we participated in this competition. Luckily, both of us were present in the hall that day, and received - what would you think? - XBOX 360! That is, I really got it as I decided, winning the competition, only participated in it before I made myself this promise.
What gave me a Imagine cup
As a result, thanks to Microsoft and Imagine cup, my life became brighter, because:
1. I led the team and together we studied ASP.NET, C #, and put our knowledge into practice.
2. I became a Microsoft partner student, and now I am part of a large international student community and I represent Microsoft at my university: I talk about its technologies, I struggle to get DreamSpark Premium.
3. Won in an international competition and believe in yourself.
Now I am following the events in the Imagine Cup and Microsoft, and I plan to reassemble the team to participate next year.
This is #myimcupstory, and this is my What's next.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/221975/
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