Technology

��Ƶ wood products technology students complete class projects and experiments

valenzfr@morrisville.edu — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 18:56:26 +0000

��Ƶ wood products technology students complete class projects and experiments valenzfr@morri… Fri, 12/09/2022 - 13:56

Wood products technology students are winding down from a productive semester, which included various wood processing and furniture design and construction class projects.

The program is also progressing toward innovative engineered wood products. Led by Mohammadali Azadfar, assistant professor of environmental & renewable resources, and instructor Seth Carsten, students performed a series of technical experiments focused to test the strength of different wood species and glue joints as a part of their class projects during the Fall 2022 semester.

The experiment enabled students to evaluate the strength of glued-jointed sawn white pine, hard maple, and black cherry reinforced with various positioned wood joints such as dowel and biscuit joints. The results will be presented at ��Ƶ’s annual Undergraduate Research Conference in Spring 2023.

“The experiment’s results are used to design better small-scale furniture projects in terms of stability and strength at this point and will then assist us in designing large-scale engineered wood products (like CLT) that can be used, for example, in residential construction,” Azadfar said.

Students involved in the experiment were: Gabriel Teeter, Peter Henry Lacijan and Ryan Saffioti.

Azadfar has years of experience in forest biomaterials science and engineering, resource planning and sustaining extension education and applied research programs, with the goal of increasing the cost-effective utilization of forest biomaterials including wood products and sustainable materials.

��Ƶ’s wood technology program offers two options: finish carpentry, which provides students with woodworking and construction skills and also teaches electrical, plumbing and light framing; and furniture production and business, which focuses on the business aspect of the industry and prepares students to work in furniture manufacturing or start their own business. This option also exposes students to accounting, marketing and human resources management.

Author

Franci Valenzano

Published date

December 9, 2022

Gallery

2 p.m.

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��Ƶ announces new bachelor’s degree in game programming

valenzfr@morrisville.edu — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 16:18:32 +0000

��Ƶ announces new bachelor’s degree in game programming valenzfr@morri… Thu, 11/18/2021 - 11:18

MORRISVILLE, N.Y. — A new Bachelor of Technology degree in game programming is among the latest in ��Ƶ’s academic lineup.

The first of its kind in the SUNY system, the experiential program provides students with a grounding in information technology concepts with an emphasis on game programming.

“Our degree is very specific and focused on game programming,” said Richard Marcoux, professor in the Computer & Information Technology Department. “Students will be exposed to game design and have a good solid foundation in gaming skills, positioning them for careers as game programmers or even software developers outside of the game industry.”

Game programmers plan, architect and write the computer code that runs and controls the game, test the code and fix bugs and also develop customized tools for use by other members of the development team.

The skills taught through the new program, which includes courses covering fundamentals of game design, data structures, 3D modeling, extended reality (XR) game programming, object-oriented systems, game interface design, project management and game engine architecture, also are highly transferable to other types of software development.

The game programming degree is designed to be completed in eight semesters and includes a 12-credit-hour internship requirement.

Career options include game programmer, indie (independent) game developer, software engineer, mobile applications developer, web developer, videogame designer, systems analyst and many others.

College experiences are enhanced for students who may join the ��Ƶ Esports Team, which regularly competes in the SUNY Esports League and now features an on-campus Esports tournament venue, and a Gaming Guild, which features table-top gaming.

��Ƶ also was the first SUNY school to become a host site for Global Game Jam® (GGJ), the world’s largest on-site game creation event which gives teams of artists, hobbyists, programmers and gamers throughout the world a chance to brainstorm, innovate, collaborate and develop new ideas for game design over the course of 48 hours.

In addition to the new game programming degree, ��Ƶ also is offering a new specialty crops and cannabis production certificate and a concentration in arboriculture & urban forestry, which provides natural resources conservation students another area in which they can specialize.

Author

Franci Valenzano

Published date

November 18, 2021

Gallery

11 a.m.

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��Ƶ Automotive Department prepares cruiser of fallen Johnson City police officer for Discovery Center Story Garden exhibit

valenzfr@morrisville.edu — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 19:40:57 +0000

��Ƶ Automotive Department prepares cruiser of fallen Johnson City police officer for Discovery Center Story Garden exhibit valenzfr@morri… Wed, 03/04/2020 - 14:40

MORRISVILLE, N.Y. — The cruiser of a fallen police officer will soon find its permanent home at the Discovery Center Story Garden, in Johnson City, thanks to ��Ƶ’s Automotive Department.

Faculty, staff and students are preparing the car of Johnson City police officer David “DW” Smith, who was killed in the line of duty in March 2014, to be donated to the Discovery Center Story Garden.

There, the vehicle will honor Smith’s memory and become an educational part of helping children understand the everyday dedication of law enforcement officers. It will join various participatory exhibits and displays at the Story Garden, a unique space that features hands-on interactive experiences.

Students from all of ��Ƶ’s automotive programs will be involved in the project, which includes removing the driver’s side door that will become part of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C., and installing a replacement door.

Students in the college's autobody program will be heavily involved with restoring the entire driver's side, as well as painting it.

Auto students are also fabricating the car’s interior so it’s safe for interaction— removing the engine, transmission and all of the parts beneath the hood, which the college will use for instructional purposes.

Work on the 2013 Ford Taurus ties in with much of what’s going on in the college’s automotive technology Ford ASSET (Automotive Student Service Educational Training) program and labs, a large reason why the department took it on as a special project.

“It fits in to everything students are doing in class,” said Associate Professor of automotive technology Ray Grabowski, referring to the college’s Ford ASSET program, a cooperative education partnership among ��Ƶ, Ford and Lincoln Dealers, and Ford Motor Company. The program gives students on-the-job training at a sponsoring Ford or Lincoln dealership while earning an Associate in Applied Science (A.A.S.) degree in automotive technology.

“This is a valuable community and educational opportunity for us,” Grabowski said. “The technical support is here and readily available, and it gets our students involved. It is also a way for us to give back to those who serve.”

“We appreciate the teamwork and support from Morrisville to make this project a reality,” said Nancy Hargrave, supervisor of The Discovery Center Story Garden. “We are so impressed with the facilities and all the support systems ��Ƶ has.”

Spearheading the project are Marc McBride, an automotive business management bachelor’s degree major, from Syracuse, and Nathan Miller, instructional support associate in the college’s Automotive Department.

McBride has taken a special interest in the project as a stepping stone toward his future.

“I’m doing engine repair and a lot of things I have not done before,” he said. “It is helpful for my future career to see and know all of the different things techs go through on a daily basis.” A capstone internship in his senior year will also ready him for the industry.

As work on the cruiser progresses, many more hands will be pitching in, including members of the Automotive Club.

“We want to get as many automotive students involved as possible,” Grabowski said.

Students are doing much of the work in Miller’s engine’s module class. Once completed, the car will be moved to the auto body facility for decal work and paint touch-ups by auto body technology students.

Smith’s former car ultimately will end up in a garage at the Story Garden, along with a mini jail and stations for imaginative play. It will be unveiled and officially open to the public on Saturday, June 6, at the Discovery Center.

The center is just one of the many ways the community remembers Smith, an 18-year department veteran who was shot and killed while responding to a disturbance at the Southern Tier Imaging Center, in Johnson City.

��Ƶ’s curricula are enriched with applied learning and pave the way for opportunity at both the Morrisville and Norwich campuses. An action-oriented, interactive learning lab, the college is a national leader in technology and has been lauded for its exemplary, innovative and effective community service programs.

The college was ranked among the Best Regional Colleges in the North by U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges 2020 issue and was among the top 10 performers for social mobility, and was also recognized in the Top Public Schools, Regional Colleges North in the 2020 Best Colleges rankings. For more information about ��Ƶ, visit www.morrisville.edu.

Author

Franci Valenzano

Published date

March 4, 2020

Gallery

2 p.m.

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Plots, Games and Twists

salibalr — Mon, 13 May 2019 17:35:04 +0000

Plots, Games and Twists salibalr Mon, 05/13/2019 - 13:35

The room went silent as this year’s Global Game Jam® (GGJ) theme, “What Home Means to You,” was unveiled.

And with that, James Cook and his teammates sequestered themselves in a classroom at ��Ƶ, serving as a host site, and spent the next 48 hours in imaginative indulgence and intensive programming, creating a video game from scratch.

Four ��Ƶ teams joined 47,000 other jammers during this year’s 2019 GGJ, a hackathon-style event, in which participants worldwide collaborate to design functional video or board games in a weekend, to the same theme.

Teams from places like Turkey, Argentina, Norway, Germany, Egypt and Pakistan took part in the event, recognized as the largest in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Growth in the area is clear as ��Ƶ celebrated its 10th anniversary as a GGJ host site and recently added a minor in game programming.

The boon in the billion-dollar video gaming industry made way for the college’s new minor, which has increased in popularity since Dr. Richard Marcoux, associate professor in the Computer Information Technology (CIT) Department, seeded four elective courses in his curriculum years ago.

“The gaming industry is larger than the movie industry and it continues to grow,” Marcoux said as participants nodded in support of his plan to add a game programming major by 2020 fall semester.

Cook, an information technology – application software development bachelor’s degree major, was among the first to sign up for the new minor, which is open to students in any bachelor’s degree program who have an interest in creating software for 2D, 3D and virtual reality (VR) video games. Courses cover game design concepts, user interface design, and software development of video games.

“Creating video games is something that allows me to take advantage of my talents and many of the things I like to do,” said the Oneida, New York resident, who traces his lifelong gaming passion to Nintendo cartridge games.

Author

Franci Valenzano

Creating video games is something that allows me to take advantage of my talents and many of the things I like to do.

There have been so many changes since then — the rise in mobile gaming with smartphones, high-speed data and technological complexity — with Cook eagerly embracing all of them.

Game Jam gave him a firsthand look at what goes into creating a game and a chance to sharpen his skills.

Throughout the weekend, participants got a dose of computer coding, animation, design and dubbing background music — all tools needed to create a video game in an industry growing by leaps and bounds.

Jam Time

Infectious energy and creativity filled classrooms at ��Ƶ’s jam site in Charlton Hall, as story boards and strategies unfolded on white boards, programmers took to their keyboards to create the code that makes the game run, and artists and musicians devised compelling aesthetics.

Cook’s team of four classmates masterminded an adventure-based video game, “Randy Has a Bad Day,” in which their main character (Randy) must choose between multiple paths as he tries to get home. Cook focused on coding, while fellow teammate Benjamin Robbins, a computer information systems major, worked on graphics.

They relied on skills from an Introduction to Game Development course, taught by Marcoux, where they learned the core mechanics of making a game as they prime for an industry that is home to diverse job opportunities, creative work environments and high starting salaries.

Through Morrisville’s CIT programs, students are already gaining a breadth of skills that qualify them for careers in programming, network administration, help desk, cybersecurity, web development, application software development and game programming, to name a few.

“Companies are looking for graduates with skills,” Marcoux said. “Their skills are in high demand.”

Events like GGJ are adding to their arsenal, allowing them to take their passion to a greater level and to birth new ideas.

This year was Tyler McDowell’s eighth participating in GGJ. The 2015 information technology – application software development graduate was doing a little bit of everything for his team, including programming and adding music and graphics. McDowell, a program analyst at PAR Technology in New Hartford, New York, attends the jam to network with students and alumni, and to hone his skills.

“It’s a great opportunity to experience working as a team,” he said.

That was a lure for Cook, too. “This (GGJ) experience will definitely help me in the future,” he said. “Every company has to collaborate to write pieces of code to make an effective product.”

For Brendan York, a current information technology – application software development major eyeing a career in creating video games, versatility of the new minor is a draw.

“I learn by experimenting and exploring, and this minor is allowing me to do that,” said York, of Hamilton, New York. “The flexibility enables me to get the creative juices flowing.

“And everything I am doing in class is similar to what is being done in the industry,” he added.

Even for students who do not end up in the gaming world, the skills they learn prepare them for a variety of programming opportunities.

“Regardless of the degree, they will have a job in the end,” Marcoux said.

Kobey Proulx lauds ��Ƶ’s computer programs overall. “They give you a chance to explore so many fields. If you decide you don’t like one, you can fall back on so many other things,” he said. It was the computer information technology student’s first year participating in GGJ.

“You are prepared to do a lot of different things,” said GGJ participant Courtney Mooney, a 2018 information technology – web development graduate who works as a help desk technician at Northeast Regional Information Center in Albany, New York. “It has opened a lot of doors for me.”

Match Game

In celebration of ��Ƶ’s 10th anniversary serving as a Global Game Jam® site, Richard Marcoux set a $1,000 matching gift challenge to CIT alumni, in which he would match dollar-for-dollar any gift made to the CIT program, up to $1,000, during the month of January.

CIT alumni rose to the challenge, surpassing it with gifts of more than $1,700, taking in a total of more than $2,800 for the program.

Published date

May 15, 2019

News Type

Digital Detective

salibalr — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 19:31:19 +0000

Digital Detective salibalr Thu, 12/13/2018 - 14:31

Jeremy Dupuis ’16 has a knack for breaking things.

Dupuis infiltrates sensitive, proprietary and protected information on behalf of Ernst & Young, a multinational professional services company and one of the largest

accounting firms in the United States. He is an offensive security consultant, or, as others describe it, a “professional hacker.” The Albany area native never imagined such an exciting profession and a six-figure salary when he enrolled as an individual studies major at ��Ƶ.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Dupuis, who began his job at Ernst & Young in August, recalled during a telephone interview from his Houston, Texas apartment. “All my friends on campus were IT guys. We worked out a lot at the gym — they weren’t the stereotypical computer nerds. They had this confidence about them.”

In high school, Dupuis really enjoyed an elective that taught him about computer hardware devices like switches and routers, and basic computer functions. During

his second semester at Morrisville, he took a 101-level course that covered the basics — Microsoft Office functions, spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

Professor Richard Marcoux was impressed by Dupuis’s energy and enthusiasm.

“I remember seeing him at his laptop working on problems on his own,” Marcoux said. “He was very serious about this and picked up the material so quickly.”

“He was pulling me into the IT field without me really knowing it,” Dupuis said, adding that he changed majors to information technology: network administration prior to the start of his sophomore year. After that, his dedication to learning the trade flourished. By junior year, Dupuis found himself continuing extra credit projects even though his grades were solid — mainly for the thrill of new challenges and also to separate himself from his peers.

“When it came to finding an internship, I wanted to stand out,” Dupuis said. “Since my peers and I were completing the same projects, the only way to separate myself was to go above and beyond.”

“He worked independently to push beyond his own knowledge and expand his skill set,” said professor Steve Klingaman, who had Dupuis in his Network Administration, Cybersecurity, and IT Project Management courses. “Jeremy very ambitiously sought and earned the coveted Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) certification.”

“Pretty much the whole company is compromised. We can make them go from heroes to zeroes in a matter of minutes.”

Like many credentials in the computing and networking field, the OSCP certification is something that IT professionals or computer scientists pursue on their own time

and at their own expense outside of their college degree curriculums. These programs are extremely rigorous and difficult. Dupuis said his education at ��Ƶ set him on a path to succeed.

Dupuis worked as a student employee at ��Ƶ’s computer help desk and made a few other stops along the way to Ernst & Young. At his previous job, with

Depth Security in Kansas City, Missouri, he worked as an IT security consultant. Before that, during his senior year at ��Ƶ, he served as an information security engineer intern at Secure Network Technologies in Syracuse, New York. In that role, the ��Ƶ graduate-to-be thought about how defenses could be strengthened by a good offense.

“I was always curious about the opposite,” he said. “What would it be like to try to break stuff?”

After obtaining the multiple Offensive Security certifications (OSCE, OSCP, OSWP), Dupuis found the opportunity to prove to Ernst & Young that he could indeed break

stuff.

He and other members of the company’s Attack and Penetration Team are assigned to visit customer sites and infiltrate their facilities and systems. Most if not all of the

workers at those sites are unaware of the team’s presence. The task involves staking out offices — observing the entrances and exits, the security staff and even the

dress codes for employees. Team members have been trained to make fake badges, impersonate themselves as employees or contractors, and even con their way into areas where they should not be allowed.

“If you stutter or freeze, it’s going to raise some alarm,” Dupuis said. “If we get caught, we’re likely going away in handcuffs.”

Once inside, Dupuis and his colleagues make quick work of completing the challenges assigned to them, which can include obtaining trade secrets, accessing payroll

records, or by becoming a high-privileged user on the corporate network.

“Millions of dollars are at risk,” Dupuis said. “Pretty much the whole company is compromised. We can make them go from heroes to zeroes in a matter of minutes.”

The clients are often alarmed but thankful for the team’s findings, and as a result companies improve the security of their facilities and networks, Dupuis explained.

The job involves quite a bit of travel and long hours as team members often log in more than 75 hours some weeks. So far, he has loved the fast-paced, challenging

environment.

His advice to aspiring hackers and ��Ƶ students: If you work hard, you’ll be surprised how “lucky” you can become.

“You are working super hard for three to five years of your life (in college) to become what you want to become,” he said. “It’s not the end of the world!”

Breaking Barriers

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the median annual salary for information security analysts with a bachelor’s degree and less than five years of experience

was $95,510 in 2017. There were an estimated 100,000 security analyst jobs in 2016, and that number is expected to increase by 28,500 in the next eight years.

��Ƶ offers a minor in cybersecurity that is open to all students. “This minor dovetails nicely with our B.Tech IT programs, especially network administration,” according to professor Stephen Klingaman.

The Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) is considered the most recognized penetration testing certification in the industry. This credential is usually sought by professionals in the computer science, software engineering or information technology industries who previously completed college degrees. Candidates must pass a 24-hour performance-based exam in a virtual network where they are challenged to obtain targets of varying configurations and operating systems in auto work.

Author

Aaron Gifford

Published date

December 17, 2018

News Type

Morrisville State College gears up to host Global Game Jam January 26-28

salibalr — Wed, 23 May 2018 15:34:54 +0000

Morrisville State College gears up to host Global Game Jam January 26-28 salibalr Wed, 05/23/2018 - 11:34

MORRISVILLE, NY—Morrisville State College is gearing up to serve as a jam site for the 2018 Global Game Jam® (GGJ), the world’s largest on-site game creation event, taking place Jan. 26-28.

GGJ is a fast-paced, 48-hour digital “jam session” which gives teams of artists, hobbyists, programmers and gamers throughout the world a chance to brainstorm, innovate, collaborate and develop new ideas for game design.

GGJ begins at Morrisville on Friday, Jan. 26, at 5 p.m. in Charlton Hall with the unveiling of this year’s theme.

Teams, some of which are formed on-site, spend the next 48 hours brainstorming and designing a new video game based on said theme from scratch without any outside help. All finished GGJ games are then archived for everyone to play on the Game Jam website here: https://globalgamejam.org/games

Registration for GGJ at Morrisville remains open for students and non-students 18 and older of all skill levels at www.morrisville.edu/gamejam. The $10 registration fee includes a T-shirt, pizza, beverages and breakfast.

This is the ninth year Morrisville is serving as a host site for the international event, which will be celebrating its 10th year. Games that participants at the Morrisville site have created include:

Traps: The Spanish Adventurer (a journey to prove capability as an adventurer, by collecting all of the gold)
Ex-Extinction (Sir Captain Rawrington must save his dinosaur ancestors from the incoming asteroid onslaught)
Flight Team Phoenix (pilot a phoenix spaceship and eliminate alien enemies)
Cardiac Canyon (a hiker tumbles down a cliff and must follow his heart to lead him through the dark and back to his camp)
WaveBummer (control a wave that a hamster rides, using power-ups and surviving as long as you can)
Trumma (help a poor helpless soul who has stumbled upon a cult’s sinister ritual escape)

Morrisville will be streaming live during portions of the event, which will be broadcast on the GGJ Twitch Central Channel.

For more information about GGJ at Morrisville, visit www.morrisville.edu/gamejam or contact Richard Marcoux, Ph.D., at 315.684.6788 or marcourp@morrisville.edu.

More information about Global Game Jam, including a database of downloadable games, photos and video from the events and more, can be found at http://globalgamejam.org.

Global Game Jam history

2009: 53 sites, 23 countries, 1,650 participants, 370 games

2010: 138 sites, 39 countries, 4,300 participants, 900 games

2011: 169 sites, 44 countries, 6,500 participants, 1,500 games

2012: 242 sites, 47 countries, 10,684 participants, 2,209 games

2013: 319 sites, 63 countries, 16,705 participants, 3,248 games

2014: 488 sites, 72 countries, 23,189 participants, 4,292 games

2015: 518 sites, 78 countries, 28,000 participants, 5,438 games

2016: 632 sites, 93 countries, 36,164 participants, 6,866 games

2017: 701 sites, 95 countries, 36,401 participants, 7,263 games

Morrisville State College’s curricula are enriched with applied learning and pave the way for opportunity at both the Morrisville and Norwich campuses. An action-oriented, interactive learning lab, the college is a national leader in technology and has been lauded for its exemplary, innovative and effective community service programs.

The college was ranked among the Best Regional Colleges in the North by U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges 2018 issue and was also recognized in the Top Public Schools, Regional Colleges North in the 2018 Best Colleges rankings.

Author

Eugenio Mercurio

Published date

January 11, 2018

News Type

Technology

Technology

������Ƶ wood products technology students complete class projects and experiments

������Ƶ announces new bachelor’s degree in game programming

������Ƶ Automotive Department prepares cruiser of fallen Johnson City police officer for Discovery Center Story Garden exhibit

Plots, Games and Twists

Jam Time

Match Game

Digital Detective

Breaking Barriers

Morrisville State College gears up to host Global Game Jam January 26-28

��Ƶ wood products technology students complete class projects and experiments

��Ƶ announces new bachelor’s degree in game programming

��Ƶ Automotive Department prepares cruiser of fallen Johnson City police officer for Discovery Center Story Garden exhibit