Computer Science | Grinnell College

On Thursday, May 2, Colin Brooks 2013 will speak on “Generative art and the computer collaborator.” 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!

On Thursday, February 28, Professors Sam Rebelsky, Janet Davis, and Jerod Weinman will discuss the rationale for using media scripting in our introductory computer science course:

Grinnell's CSC 151 draws upon concepts of media computation to motivate students and to provide more visual feedback that helps students better understand the algorithms they write. At the same time, CSC 151 encourages students to think about computing (and image making) in multiple ways. In this talk, a preview of a talk we will give at the SIGCSE Symposium on Computer Science Education, we discuss the inception of the course, what we see as key design points of the course, and the ways in which we have assessed the efficacy of the course. Since the introduction of this new version of 151, we have seen significant increases in enrollment and diversity. Assessments suggest that the course helps students develop deep knowledge that is atypical of an introductory course and also builds confidence.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, “Building knowledge and confidence with mediascripting: a successful interdisciplinary approach to CS1,” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

On Thursday, February 7, Martin Estrada 2014 and June Yolcuepa 2015 will discuss their summer 2012 research work and give their views of the future of our introductory course, CSC 151.

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!

On Thursday, January 31, Professors Janet Davis and Sam Rebelsky will discuss summer student research in computer science, including the student projects that our faculty will direct this year.

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

It's never to soon to think about what you're going to do next summer! While summer may seem far away, taking advantage of some of the better summer opportunities requires advance planning—for example, some programs have deadlines in January or February.

On Thursday, December 6, Professor Sam Rebelsky will discuss typical off-campus summer options available in computer science—research, internships, and more—and suggest strategies for developing your applications. (At a separate session early next semester, the CS faculty will describe summer research opportunities available at Grinnell.)

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

On Thursday, November 29, Tolu Alabi will describe a widely used non-relational database. She writes:

NoSQL is a new database technology used to store large data. Instead of storing lots of data on one machine, data can be distributed across multiple machines, thereby reducing the load on a single machine. NoSQL is also used to replicate data across multiple nodes. If data is replicated across multiple nodes, one is no longer at the mercy of a single node. So if a single node dies, the data is still available and accessible from another node.

Many big companies have switched from the traditional SQL -like database to NoSQL-like database because of these two major reasons. Come to my talk to learn more about the advantages of using NoSQL.

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

On Thursday, November 15, Sarah Henney 2013 and Martha Fletcher 2015 will describe their summer internship work on the MediaScheme project:

Self-Disclosing GIMP(SDGimp) is an ongoing project with the goal of adding self-disclosure functionality tailored to the MediaScheme library into the GIMP. In short, SDGimp will allow a user to perform an action in the GIMP and then view the Scheme expression which can be used to duplicate that action.

In this Extra, we will discuss and demonstrate our work from this summer on SDGimp, including our expansion of the MediaScheme library to include more actions from the GIMP.

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

On Thursday, October 18, Dilan Ustek 2014, Aditi Roy 2013, Tolu Alabi 2013, Maijid Moujaled 2014, and David Cowden 2013 will discuss the technical internships they have done at Microsoft, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Pikuzone, and Iowa Health System. They will talk about their experiences at big technical companies, a start-up, and the IT department of a health organization. Come to learn about these various experiences and what to do in order to get them!

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

On Thursday, October 11, Professor Alberto Maria Segre of the University of Iowa will discuss recent work on modeling and analyzing the incidence and geographical distribution of disease in human populations:

Computational epidemiology lies at the intersection of computer science, engineering, statistics, and health care. Our goal is to inform public and hospital policy decisions on topics such as disease surveillance, disease prevention measures, and outbreak containment.

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

On Thursday, October 4, Jennelle Nystrom 2014 and Svea Drentlaw 2013 will discuss their summer work:

The Grinnell Livescripting Environment for Art and Music (GLEAM) is a Scheme library for the Microsoft Kinect camera that allows for collaboration between musicians and programmers. As a musician gestures, the programmer modifies how their gestures will affect the musical production in real time. In this Extra, we will discuss our work on GLEAM this summer and provide a short demo with the Kinect.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, GLEAM: the Grinnell Livescripting Environment for Art and Music, will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!