In March 2006, the company where Brian works full-time had a C# contest. The contest had three tasks, each of which had to be accomplished by C#:

1. Output the final solution of a given Wonderword^TM puzzle
2. Display the entire puzzle visually as it solves
3. Generate a new Wonderword^TM puzzle

Brian had plenty of C++ experience, but had never done any C# development before this contest. Although it didn't do the third task, Brian's entry "Wand-A-Word" received a lot of attention due to its use of 3D. Using Managed DirectX 9.0, Brian created a 3D model of an Apple video iPod, pulled the Wonderword^TM puzzle from the Wonderword^TM website at runtime, displayed and solved it on the iPod's screen, and allowed the user to rotate the iPod in any direction in 3D.

To run the download, you first need to have two things installed on your system:

• Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework (available here)
• Managed DirectX 9.0 (or later) end-user runtimes (available here)

Screen shots