Darren McKie
| Biography | Darren has been interested in video game development from an early age, having developed his own game engines for early consoles like the Amiga 500. He has been at the University of Hull since 1997 after completing his studies at the University and then becoming a lecturer. Darren is also the Director of Student Experience for the School of Computer Science. Darren has recently completed work to create an enquiry-based learning pedagogy Framework that can be used to tach school children the fundamentals of computer programming using robotics. This has resulted in a paper published in the Springer Proceedings of Ninth International Congress on Information and Communication Technology - ICICT 2024, London, Volume 5. Darren has also completed consultancy to produced Higher Education Teaching Material for Imagination Technologies Limited, Kings Langley, UK. The aim of this project was to design and create an entire module of teaching material on the topic of an 'Introduction to Graphics for Mobile Devices' targeted at Higher Education institutions. These materials were flexible so that most institutions could adapt them for their own needs. These materials have been translated and published and can be used by institutions around the world. |
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| Research Interests | Main research interests are in pedagogy and VR systems. The pedagogy research is in all areas of education from key stage 1 up to and including degree level learning and practices. The VR system research is usually in an industrial/consultancy partnership. |
| Teaching and Learning | Games Architecture (Level 6) Students are introduced to the different software architectures that can be used to design and implement game engines. This starts with comparisons and evaluation of alternative designs that follow onto a discussion of the useful design principles of inheritance-based designs that are then utilised and expanded into component-based game engines like the Entity-Component-System architecture. Considerations of Modularity are explored in detail. Appropriate design patterns and their uses in modern games architectures are discussed, compared and evaluation. Students are also introduced to the different hardware architectures that are currently used in console and PC platforms. Discussions and considerations of current technologies will include CPU architectures and technologies, bottlenecks and their solutions including bandwidth considerations and mobile device architecture considerations, and the asset pipeline. Honours Stage Project (level 6) Students on this module design, implement, test, critique and manage a project throughout their level 6 year. The projects are numerous and different, but all students have a project supervisor who guides the students throughout the ir project. The outcome artifact of the project is a usable software produce and a these report. Communicating and Teaching Computing (Level 6) This module enables students to undertake a placement in a school, college or other educational establishment where they can develop practical teaching and communication skills, as well as extending their knowledge of the education process. These skills are valued by employers, whether students are interested in potentially going on to train or teach others or not. Students will also have the opportunity to develop an educational project to demonstrate their skills in practice. Commercial Development Practice (Level 7) This module has several objectives and benefits, chiefly to allow students to demonstrate their all-round ability as a software professional in tackling a substantial piece of software design and development work within a commercial context using contemporary commercial practices. Students are expected to demonstrate technical, quality control, project management and general customer relationship skills and to bring the task to a successful conclusion. The work undertaken in the project is designed to help students acquire experience in general professional activities and commercial skills which helps improve student employability. |
| PhD Supervision Availability | Yes |
| PhD Topics | Current PhD supervisions Luis Torrao, TIMAEUS: Three-dimensional Illuminated Media Augmented Sculptures |