IEEE LAN Party!!! Posted by Mike Li | at 11:01 PM

We had some great times at the UCI IEEE LAN party as sponsors! In the above picture, we have Dan (who is our company manager), Derrick (who is the organizer of the event and works for us as well), and Tina (our secretary). This event wouldn't have been possible without these people, so I'd like to take this time to thank them. We had a decent turnout, as around 60 people showed up to play various computer and console games. We had a Starcraft tournament, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Counter-Strike, as well as various other games on consoles. All in all, it was a night to remember for most of us.

Actually, there were some initial problems in procuring a server for players to play their Team Fortress 2, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Counter-Strike, but soon that was taken care of, with the help of Dan and us being able to donate a server for running these games for players. He's currently setting up the server in this picture... by the way, that Macbook Pro is not the server, in case you were wondering (though that would have been cool if it was).

Despite the initial problems, we had alot of fun entertaining the players. We even were able to give away some really great prizes, with the help of other sponsors. Some notable prizes were the 2 Western Digital 320GB external hard drives and the Starcraft 2 Beta Key, the latter being worth hundreds of dollars. Also up for raffling was a Razer Salmosa gaming mouse, a Thermaltake computer fan, and other swag such as pens, cups, and magazines.

To add to the mix, we had a Starcraft commenter for the tournament. Players would compete and an observer would go around the playing area on his computer and the commenter would comment on the screen of the observer on a projector.

How interesting... unfortunately, Dan and I had other plans in mind for the other people not playing Starcraft and so we started playing music softly over the intercom system. At times it was loud enough to drown out the commenter, so I'm sure that he wasn't too pleased about that. But at least we were entertaining the other 50 people who weren't playing Starcraft or were just sitting around the room watching others play... hopefully. Meanwhile, lots of people were putting in their tickets for the raffle. Ironically, more people had put their tickets towards winning the Western Digital external hard drives than winning the Starcraft 2 Beta key, even though the latter was worth more. I suppose people there were more concerned about practicality rather than the experience or the money.

Closer to the end of the party they announced winners for the raffles. Unfortunately, I didn't provide pictures, but this was a spot of the event that could be improved, as some people got multiple things because of their raffle tickets. However, fortunately no two of the higher priced items went to the same person. Still, the event was noteworthy because these raffle events and this LAN party was unprecedented, especially as it was the first ever event done by the IEEE in UCI.