The purpose of PickupUltimate.com is to help people find and play pickup ultimate frisbee games. I wanted to create a place where people looking for games could find accurate, up-to-date information and game coordinators could easily publish that information. I also wanted to create a way for the communities around a game to stay connected and keep a running dialog about their game.
My main reason for developing this site was to give back to the greater Ultimate community. Ever since I started playing Ultimate I have been amazed and impressed by the community around it. My involvement in the Ultimate community has had a profound impact on my life socially, professionally, and personally. In Ultimate players I have found great friends, roommates, and girlfriends. Through Ultimate players I have found jobs, work, and networking contacts. With encouragement from Ultimate players I have become a much healthier person both physically and emotionally.
My life would not be what it is without the Ultimate community; I am grateful to be a part of it and honored to give something back.
Chris Oakman is a web developer from Houston, TX. He plays competitively in and around Houston and had a blast at Paganello in 2009. He learned how to play at this pickup game. You can reach him at .
The site was designed by Andy Sammons of Tin Can Studios from Los Angeles, CA. Andy played at UC San Diego from 2000-2004, captaining in his final year and then coaching in '05. He played on San Diego's PBR Streetgang from '02-06 and LA Monster in 2007. You can catch Andy at his favorite pickup game.
This site was developed over the course of about a month using a combination of technologies. Most of these tools are open-source and I am indebted to the communities that develop and support these amazing products. I would like to thank these communities: this site would not be possible without your work.
The core of the site is built with Kohana, which is an excellent MVC framework for the PHP language. The data is stored in a MySQL database. The user interface relies on JavaScript from the Yahoo User Interface Library and the Google Maps API. The marker clustering code for the map is thanks to Martin Pearman. The site is hosted at MediaLayer and was developed on a computer running Ubuntu Linux. Finally I would like to thank w3schools.com for many years of providing web education and reference.