This last week Atomic made a trip down to a not so sunny Melbourne to attend what’s been dubbed ATOMIC TUESDAY at Monash University’s awesome Computer Games Bootcamp.
What a day!
The CGBC is run by the Faculty of IT, and it’s an annual event that sees thousands of high school kids attend a week of workshops, talks, gaming tournaments and general fun. It’s streamed live all over the world, and is aimed at providing a look inside the gaming and technology industries. This is Atomic’s second year as a part of the event, and we’re very proud to partner with Monash in this excellent initiative.
And it doesn’t hurt that Monash is great to work with, and really help make our day a lot of easier. With great volunteers on hand, an excellent AV crew, and such passionate kids, it really is a pleasure to go down there each year.
For 2012 we had a range of vendors and industry partners with us, along with what felt like a metric tonne of prizes and stuff to giveaway. And let me tell you, when you mention free stuff to a room with hundreds of excited kids in it, the reaction is pretty damned impressive!
The day kicked off with a talk from Intel, and covered the gamut of the company’s recent tech effort’s, from overclocking with Ivy Bridge to getting up to speed with Intel’s SSDs. Tony Trubridge, from pro gamer outfit Team Immunity, lead off with the presentation.
Razer followed up, with a pro-gamer’s tale of how the peripheral company really saved him and his clan. It was a great talk, actually – it wasn’t about Razer’s gear, but told an excellent story of how the company’s making a lot of effort to support gamers at a grass roots level.
Cooler Master leant us a tame shout caster, so while he talked up OCZ’s SSD range, and all the benefits of choosing a solid state drive, we also handed a few of them out to the audience. In fact, all through the day we were tossing away t-shirts of all kinds, neat backpacks from Sapphire, OCZ SSDs and USB sticks, a couple of Razer controllers, and even a new Sniper mobo from GIGABYTE.
So much stuff!
We had Sapphire up next, with a video on its range of cards, which covered everything from overclocking to cooling. Sure, it might have a few false endings, but it kept the crowd on its toes, and everyone got excited with the news that there was a new video card to be given away!
Monash took the stage briefly before launch, to talk up opportunities at University, I snuck off for a quick hamburger (and maybe a cheeky beer), and then we were back into it. Cooler Master showed off a mess of hot peripherals, including the epic new Cosmos II case. GIGABYTE, and our old pal Dino, took the stage last, and he showed a range of videos that focused on all the motherboard-maker’s excellent features, and even got a few young punters up on stage for an impromptu trivia challenge.
That pretty much was the day done. I shared a few tales about games journalism and why it’s a good career choice, there was some cosplay, and everyone had an awesome time. Then, at 6pm, we got a mess of Atomicans in once all the kids had left and did it all again, with Dino even breaking out some LN2 for some sub-zero overclocking. There was great good, a few more beers, and great chats with some of the Melbourne Atomic Crew.
So thanks everyone for helping to make a great event. We’ll be back next year, Monash – see you then!
