RETROGames Tampere

This is the website of the Rad Engineers Thoroughly Researching Oldschool Games-workshop by EESTEC LC Tampere.

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Sitsit or sittning are a type of party where you sit. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? At the beginning it might sound boring, but when you add alcohol, food and singing into the mix it gets really fun. There are few basic rules how to behave at the party, but those rules are easy to remember and will be told by the Master of Ceremonies (MC) who makes sure that the party flows well. The MC can also suggest songs to be sang, but usually after few drinks everybody start suggesting their own favorites by having some kind of funny speech and connecting the song to it by some very flimsy transition. Some songs are printed in small booklets so everybody knows the words. At some point of the party food is served with wine and after that singing just continues. When the night continues it’s time for dessert, coffee and Jaloviina. After Jaloviina signing is - if possible - even more fun. Before everything gets too wild the last song, Ikuisen teekkarin laulu (Eternal teekkari’s song), is sang to show respect to all the past generations of teekkaris. After that everybody goes home to sleep (or not and everybody goes to afterparty and afterafterparty and afterafterafterparty and... :) ).

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Hervanta is a lively and unique suburban located 8 kilometers south from Tampere city center. Hervanta was founded in the 1970’s and it has now more than 22 000 people, most of whom are students. By area Hervanta is pretty small, only about two by two kilometers. This means that services and people are near wherever you are. In the center of Hervanta lies the shopping mall Duo, containing three grocery shops, Alko and Subway. (OK, it has some other shops as well, but who needs those, Alko is btw where you need to go if you want something stronger than beer). Hervanta’s center has also many pizza/kebab places and pubs. We even have our own nightclub called Cupola, which by the way was founded under our Student Union. There are many reported cases where people notice that they haven’t visited the city center for months just because there hasn’t been anything that couldn’t be done in Hervanta.

Hervanta has it all.

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Tampere is the largest inland city in the Nordic Countries, situated between two lakes, Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. The city was founded in 1779 by King of Sweden Gustav III and it has since grown around Tammerkoski rapids which still run through the city centre. Tampere is dubbed the "Manchester of Finland" for its industrial past as the former center of Finnish industry, and this has given rise to its Finnish nickname "Manse", short for “Mansester”, as Finns would pronounce Manchester not being used to a few sounds used in e.g. English. The city has about 220 000 people, making it Finland's third largest city and largest city outside Helsinki metropolitan area. Tampere has two universities, University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology. The city also has a university of applied sciences, a Finnish weardo in the field of study. These three universities make sure that student life in Tampere is lively.

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Survival Guide: How to get to Tampere

Tampere has an airport, where at least AirBaltic, Finnair, Blue1 and ryanair operate. Finlands largest airport is in Helsinki. If you only get a flight there you need to take a bus or train ride to Tampere. For that there are three ways:

A Bus ride straight from the airport lasting about 2 hours and costing 27 euros one way with matkahuolto busses (buying return tickets will save you 10%). You buy the ticket with cash (matkahuolto hasn’t noticed that we live in the 21st century) from the driver and you don’t need to book anything in advance.

A train ride, which also lasts about 2 hours and which prices depend a lot on how much in advance you book them. [please disregard the student prices on train or bus websites, they only accept Finnish student cards :(]

An adventurous chance of taking Onnibus (tickets start from a few euros), which leaves from Helsinki city center, but gets you directly to Hervanta, where you’ll be staying. Onnibus is of course a good idea, if you want to see some of Helsinki. Please reserve enough time to get to the city center. Easiest way to get to Helsinki city center is to take Finnair’s city bus from the airport. This bus costs 6.30 (from the driver with cash or debit/credit card) and the bus leaves every half an hour. The city bus and onnibus doesn’t stop at the same place. The city bus stops near the railway station and Onnibus leaves from the main bus station of Kamppi (walking distance 500 meters). When booking the Onnibus choose stations named “Helsinki” and “Tampere(Hervanta)”. There is also station called Tampere, but that’s not what you want.

You can also look for cheap flights to Tallinn or Stockholm. If you get to Tallinn take a ferry to Helsinki and then a bus or train to Tampere. From Stockholm you need to take a ferry to Turku or Helsinki and then a bus or train to Tampere. Those ferry rides take around 12 hours, so please consider this, when booking flights to Stockholm.

You can start planning your trip here: http://www.journey.fi/

for schedules and prices please check: Buses: http://www.matkahuolto.fi/en/ http://www.onnibus.fi http://www.onniexpress.fi http://media.finnair.com/files/pdf/FINNAIR_CITY_BUS_TIMETABLE.pdf

Trains: http://www.vr.fi/en/index.html

Ferries: http://www.tallinksilja.com/en/web/int/stockholm-turku (ferries Stockholm - Turku) http://www.sales.vikingline.com/en/find-cruise-trip/route-traffic/stockholm-turku-vv/ (ferries Stockholm - Turku) http://www.tallinksilja.com/en/web/int/helsinki-tallinn (ferries Helsinki - Tallinn) http://www.sales.vikingline.com/en/find-cruise-trip/route-traffic/helsinki-tallinn-vv/ (ferries Helsinki - Tallinn) https://www.eckeroline.fi/ (ferries Helsinki - Tallinn)

https://laevapiletid.ee/en (ferries Stockholm - Helsinki, Tallinn - Helsinki)

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Making of...

Part 1

The Idea of RETROGames started while brainstorming cool ideas for a workshop. First we only wanted to recreate the good old Snake on classic Nokia 3310. Then we managed to get some Intel Galileo Gen2 development board through our Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering. Afterwards the idea expanded to creating multiple retro classics. Nokia 5110 LCD shields were the most suitable for us and soon we tried to create some images on the LCD. The first experiments with the Nokia 5110 LCD were a bit messy since we had to solder the wires directly into the LCD but it still worked. Soon we came to the conclusion that we needed an actual shield for the LCD and the controller buttons. Our friend gladly helped us with the schematics and with the corroding of the circuit board. The first versions of the gaming controller shield were unfortunately faulty because of the homemade equipments. After using the tools of our Department of Electrical Engineering the new shield was great success. The final step with the shield was the testing part and getting some images on the LCD again. Fortunately the testing worked out and we even became inspired to make an awesome film with the LCD using some bitmaps. To be continued...

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There it is: Our next workshop, coming this fall!

LC Tampere is back with another workshop in 2015. We invite you up North to share our most favorite activities with us: sauna, gaming and parties. 

Are you, like us, a big fan of retro games? But all the old consoles are too expensive? No sweat, in this workshop, you will learn how to make your own retro gaming machine on an Intel Galileo Gen 2! During the week, we will revive your favorite little games like Snake, Tetris, Breakout and many more as you will make them come alive on the Galileo, so dust off your programming skills. You will even assemble your own game pad! But this is not all, you will also get to know all the aspects of Finnish student culture: sauna parties, sitsit (academic dinner parties) and Lakinlaskiaiset, the probably biggest party of the whole fall semester, where we’ll lay down our famous caps for winter rest. You’ll get to know our city during city rally and can even test our many lakes, if you dare. Just remember: There’s always a sauna close by. What are you waiting for? Apply now.