Computer Science | Grinnell College

On Wednesday, September 23, Dr. Ursula Wolz gives a talk on two of her research projects: "Does Learning Computer Science Require a Teacher? Reflections on Automated Tutors and Learning Communities."

On Thursday, September 24, our own Samuel Rebelsky gives a short talk: "Scripting GIMP with Racket."

Both talks are in Science-3821 at 4:15 PM, preceded by refreshment in the CS Commons at 4:00.

Ursula Wolz will be teaching at Grinnell as a Noyce Visiting Professor in Spring 2016. Dr. Wolz is currently involved in two projects, one to create a very robust mechanical tutor using a sophisticated rule base, the other to create face-to-face communities of coders that remove, or at least reduce, the technology divide. She will provide a quick overview of both projects, and then invite stimulating discussion of the major technological and ethical issues involved.

Professor Rebelsky's talk is practice for an upcoming presentation at RacketCon in St. Louis. The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP, is an open-source alternative to Photoshop. In the early days of GIMP, the designers added a scripting language, Script-Fu, based on Scheme. Over the years, Script-Fu has been superseded by Python-Fu, although Script-Fu remains an option, albeit with a primitive IDE. Over the past few years, my students and I have built a library that allows programmers to script GIMP using Racket and the DrRacket IDE. In addition to providing the “glue” between GIMP and Racket, we also added a library of routines more amenable to novice programmers. In this talk, we will discuss the design of both the “glue” and the broader library. We will also discuss a related introductory course in CS that uses multiple models of image making as the motivating problem domain.

On Thursday, February 9, Kate Ingersoll 2013 and Kimberly Spasaro 2014 will present results from their summer 2011 research:

Our goal was to create a scripting console for the open-source vector-graphics program Inkscape. We'll explain the technical process of creating the console, specifically the method of using dbus to create intra-process communication between internal Inkscape commands and Scheme functions. The presentation will also cover the applications of scriptable media programs, both as a tool for graphic design and as an environment for teaching computer science. The talk will conclude with a thrilling demonstration of the working Inkscape console, as we walk though examples of how simple Scheme commands in the InkScript console can create complex and interesting images.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, "Media scripting with Inkscape," will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

At 4:15 on Thursday, April 22, in Noyce 3821, Jordan Shkolnick 2011, Nora Coon 2010, Jillian Goetz 2010, and Cyrus Witthaus 2010 will present the results of their summer 2009 Mentored Advanced Project, Interactive MediaScripting.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!