Weekly Programming Contest

The Programming Team is running a weekly programming competition that all of our students are invited to join!  You can find details at https://sites.google.com/a/cs.ship.edu/progteam/online-contest and it's an opportunity to make some money!  The contest a cumulative through the semester and the department has pledged $100 for first place, $60 for second place, and $40 for third place. The first problem has been posted and is due by 2/6, so get started!

A new semester begins

We are approaching the end of the first week of classes of spring 2010.  Here are some things to watch for:

• Our Testing & XP course will be building applications for a local business and a teacher in Chambersburg
• Our programming team will compete in two competitions.
• Our programming team is starting a weekly running competition with prizes at the end of the semester (check it out)
• Our Game Development Club is going to start development with Flash Professional
• The BROADSIDE Center will continue work with local industries
• We are making proposals to update and improve some of our lab equipment
• We have 26 seniors completing senior research projects covering a wide variety of topics

I'll try to keep you posted, but, if I get busy and forget to post news every week, NAG ME!!!

Conference Trip

I just got back from a trip to Villanova University to the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges - East conference. It's a great place to see what people from campuses similar to ours are doing in their classrooms. There were faculty from other state system schools, liberal arts colleges, and the Penn State branch campuses. You can see what kinds of things we talked about at http://ccsce09.villanova.edu/index.shtml.

I was presenting the work we've done on using video phenomenography to study how student's problem solving strategies mature throughout their education. I was most pleased with two other sessions. One was by an alumnus of ours, Jeff Stone, who is teaching at Penn State Schuylkyl and is exploring what effects student's perceptions of computer science as a discipline and the other was by the Philadelphia Area Computer Science Teacher's Association and how they are working toward certification of high school computer science teachers. I agree!

I was very pleased to see that we continue to have more flexibility in our curriculum and our research as a result of the generosity of our alumni. I spoke with a colleague who was hampered in an interesting project for his CS1 students because his administration didn't have $100 for some equipment. I agree that times are tough, but our alumni continue to help us sustain a strong program that involves our students in lots of interesting project and I am grateful for that.

Our Programming Team Rocks!

In preparation for the ACM regional competition, our programming team competed in an internet contest last night. Our first team (Philip Diffenderfer, Keith Porter, and Casey Boone) solved five problems in 227 minutes coming in first place! Our second team (Logan Kennedy, Robert Koch, and Emily Bruckart) also solved five problems but took a slightly longer 312 minutes coming in second place. Our third team had two members who were competing in their first competition ( Philip Hagar, Brendan Johnston, Steve Jurnach) but still solved two problems.

Our first two teams beat Dickinson, Millersville, University of Delaware, and Washington College. We'll see them all again on November 7th at the regional competition. Here's hoping we beat them there, too!

P =? NP in the NY Times!

Yesterday, one of the classic computer science problems was discussed in the New York Times. They give a reasonable description of the P =? NP problem and why it is fundamental challenge in computer science. However, there are some errors that come from trying to explain the problem in general terms. Can you find them?

The source of this article is an article in the Communications of the ACM which gives a much more clear description of the problem. It's an article every computer science student should read! Let me know what you think!

More lab improvements!

We have recently made a number of improvements to our subnet. After getting single-sign-on to work for our Linux machines, Macs, and servers, we have started to work on improving off-campus access for our students. With that in mind, we have installed OpenVPN to give our student virtual private network access to our machines. This means that, even when they are at home, it can feel like they are on our floor (behind the campus firewall). We've even made that work with our single-sign-on configuration so that credentials are automatically retrieved.

Even on our floor, VPN access can be beneficial. The wireless points on our floor are connected to the campus network - not our subnet. This means that access to our servers isn't direct and you run into firewall issues. Using the VPN access bypasses those problems. Therefore, my Mac laptop always has TunnelBlk (the mac Open VPN client) on. And, as a great side benefit, that makes my wireless connection a secure connection even though we don't have secure wireless access points.

Students can read more about how to take advantage of these features by reading about them on the "Equipment Support" website on the cs.ship.edu accounts.

We are working hard to continue to improve our infrastructure. If you have ideas for other changes we should make, please let us know!

Computer Engineering

We are preparing to propose a new computer engineering degree. As it stands, it includes:

• 39 credits of computer science including much of our embedded concentration
• 19 credits of math (calc 1, calc 2, differential equations, discrete math, and statistics)
• 23 credits of physics (phys I and II, electronics, semi-conductors, and others we are still specifying)

We are hopeful that this will build a bridge between our degree and physics much like computer graphics created a bridge between us and the art programs. In addition, physics is considering revising their applied physics degree to include some of our embedded courses. We think building a stronger relationship with physics will strengthen our programs. What do you all think?