Once again, the Global Game Jam event is coming back to Cogswell Polytechnical College. Previous years have been major successes, with both professionals and students collaborating on fully functional games. Last year’s game jam yielded 13 games, which was the most of any other jam site in the US!
For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, the Global Game Jam event takes place every year in one weekend all across the globe. This means that thousands of people are working on games continuously for one weekend, allowing the participants to be a part of a worldwide gaming phenomenon! Participants form teams and each team creates a game over the 48 hour period. This means everything from concept to programming to audio recording for aural cues happens before the end of the event, resulting in a finished product that is playable and possibly available for sale soon after. Many Cogswell students from all majors and backgrounds get involved in this huge game creation frenzy. No matter what one’s part, each person has something they can take credit for and put in his or her portfolio. From an audio perspective, it provides a great opportunity to work on becoming efficient, because one needs to be when there are multiple teams who desire to have sound effects in their games and a short range of time to get it done! Space is limited, so if you want to make sure you get into the Global Game Jam, register early!
Speaking of AUDIO and JAMS, if you come by the campus on Mondays between 11:00am and 3:00pm you may hear some beautiful music filtering through the hallways near the studios! The Audio Producers and Engineers Club (APEC) is holding a weekly jam session where fellow students can bring their instrument of choice and create music in an improv setting. APEC has been very involved in creating opportunities for Digital Audio Technology students, as well as all other majors, to enrich their aural worlds. The club has been active in lobbying for equipment requested by students, extended acoustics knowledge in hands-on projects, and holding workshops to further investigate recording techniques.
-Rachel
Go read it, see the trailer, and get stoked!
Cogswell’s newest 
Toys In the Attic principal Larry the O is now an adjunct faculty member in the B.S. Digital Audio Technology program at Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale, Calif. Located in the beating heart of Silicon Valley, Cogswell has provided technical and engineering education in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1887, and began offering degrees in digital media production early in the game. In his first term, the O will be teaching Studio Recording 1, a required course in the Digital Audio Production track of the DAT program. The DAT Program, under the direction of Dr. Tim Duncan, gives students a thorough conceptual and theoretical grounding, in an environment that emphasizes real-world production situations.
On November 5, students at Cogswell were marching to the beat of a new drum – one they were testing for the Samsung Electronics Mobil Communications Lab. 
Shaking the phone using various arm motions releases the pleasing, pebble against drum-head sound. The application can be used as a solo instrument or – in the Studio mode – lets you to arrange backing tracks, record arrangements, mix them together into your own songs and then send them to others. Users can even export them as WAV files to create personalized ringtones for their phones.