Back in March 2010, we announced the Windows Phone 7 “Rockstar” Award – an award that would be presented to the student team that developed the most compelling Windows Phone 7 application for the Imagine Cup 2010. Over the past few months, several hundred student teams from around the world were building Windows Phone 7 applications using the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the developer tools. These teams were building applications using either the Silverlight or the XNA framework, and developed some really outstanding applications. The teams were asked to submit the XAP file, which we then used to judge the applications. The applications were tested both on an emulator as well as on a Windows Phone 7 device.
Today I’m pleased to announce that off the 131 teams that submitted their applications, a Windows Phone 7 “Rockstar” has been crowned.
Beastware – This team of 2 from the Advanced Technology Academy in the United States have built a game using the XNA framework called “Droid”. This game leveraged the use of the accelerometer on the device unlike any other app we’ve seen. The Beastware team is our “Rockstar”. The team members are invited to Poland where the team will be awarded USD8000 and each team member will receive a Windows Phone. Below, you’ll find a couple of snapshots of the app running on the phone (apologies for the blurriness – these pictures were taken of the app running on an actual device). We hope to get some video and in depth information about how this team went about building their app as they prepare to head to Poland.
And our runner up teams…
1st runner up, Tselina – This team of 4 from Indonesia built a very slick looking comic book reader in Silverlight. The rich graphics and navigation built into this app made this app very appealing. The Tselina team will be awarded USD4000 and each team member will receive a Windows Phone.
2nd runner up, Hypo Team – This team of 4 from TAR college in Malaysia have built an awesome game in XNA. This game has great graphics and a very clean interface. The Hypo Team will be awarded USD3000 and each team member will receive a Windows Phone.
This was a challenging contest for us to judge as there were a lot of apps that blew us away. Here are some other very interesting apps that received very high scores from our judges:
· Scavenger app
· A simple task manager app
· A PriceCheck app
· A travel trails app
· A restaurant/food finder app
· An on-the-go project management app
· A health/fitness monitoring app
· A simple study schedule manager app
· A cool looking weather app
· A Trivia Quiz App
Once again, we’re thrilled by the amount of excitement and innovation these students have exhibited in developing these applications. On behalf of the Windows Phone 7 team, I’d like to congratulate the Rockstar team, Beastware, as well as the runner up teams, Tselina and Hypo Team. We hope to catch up with each of these teams more leading up to the Imagine Cup awards in Poland.