San Diego S.M.A.R.T Teams

ONE WEEK REMAINING TO APPLY - UCSD Research Experience for High School Students 2016 Application Deadline March 15, 2016 We are online this year and the change in our application process seems to be a big hit! Many of you have completed your applications and there are many in progress. This is great news for us!... Now, we have great news for you! We just added two new projects focused on cancer, autism, Alzheimer’s and diabetes research. Please visit our website for complete information: http://education.sdsc.edu/studenttech/?page_id=657

UCSD SUMMER OPPORTUNITY FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SDSC Launches Its 7th Annual Research Experience for High School Students (REHS) UCSD REHS Important Dates to Remember February 15 March 15, 2016: REHS Application Period May 10, 2016: Latest Date for Notification... June 20- August 12, 2016: Period of Internship For the seventh year, SDSC launches an exciting volunteer internship program for high school students entitled Research Experience for High School Students (REHS). As part of this program, students will be paired with an SDSC mentor and will work as part of a research team dedicated to a particular area of computational research. Please review the research opportunities listed at the link below. Students may apply for up to two opportunities. All applications must be submitted no later than March 15, 2016. For complete internship details, including a list of research projects, please visit http://education.sdsc.edu/studenttech/?page_id=657. To apply, please visit https://sdsc.slideroom.com/#/Login.

FOR YOUNG LEARNERS - Teach Your Kids to Code: 6 Beginner's Resources for Parents Edutopia Introducing computer programming to your kids can be a challenge, especially for those who aren’t familiar with the nuances of code. Fortunately, in the last few years, a number of apps, software, and guides have been produced that make the often-complex subject of computer coding easy to grasp for young learners. So where to begin? These are a few resources that parents can share with their kids to help them start learning about programming. To view the list of resources, please visit http://www.edutopia.org//teach-kids-coding-resources-paren.

HPC UNIVERSITY BI-WEEKLY CHALLENGE Langton's Ant CSV Solution for the week of January 11, 2016: The "Langton's Ant CSV solution zip file" at the bottom of the challenge contains a solution.... http://hpcuniversity.org/students/weeklyChallenge/115

FRIDAY FUN - Virtually Climb Mount Everest From Your Living Room SMITHSONIAN A new virtual reality experience allows users to delve into the world of Everest and scale the beast firsthand... Last year, no one made the arduous journey up the slopes of the world's highest peak, Mount Everest, thanks to a combination of climate change, closures and a deadly earthquake. But now you can climb the mountain from the safety and warmth of your own home, with virtual reality, reports David Ferry for Outside. Ferry recently experienced a 30-minute demo of the game Everest VR from the design firm Sólfar Studios. Similar to other virtual reality set-ups, this one requires the user to put on a headset and headphones. Meanwhile a console tracks the user's body so that the experience can match their movements. But the studio's co-founder and CEO Kjartan Pierre Emilsson says this is different from other dips into virtual reality. "This is not a game, like the other stuff being developed," Emilsson cautioned Ferry before he began. "This is more of an emotional experience." To read further, please visit http://www.smithsonianmag.com//how-virtually-climb-mount-/.

EDUCATION NEWS - Code School Study Shows How to Spot a Future Programmer A recent Code School survey offers information on traits in youth that may indicate a future in computer science. Most programmers find their interest in computer science before age 16 and carry this passion into their professional life, according to a recent survey. A Code School survey of 2,200 coders and developers reveals some specific traits and tendencies that may predict that a youth has a future career in computer science. The survey polled current coders and software developers and asked them to recount personal traits, tendencies and preferences from their younger years. To read further, please visit http://www.eweek.com//code-school-study-shows-how-to-spot-.

HPC UNIVERSITY BI-WEEKLY CHALLENGE - Langton's Ant CSV RELEASE DATE: January 11, 2016... TITLE: Langton's Ant CSV SUMMARY: You task is to modify an existing C program to output data in comma-separated value (CSV) format. QUESTION: The starter code is provided below in the "Langton's Ant CSV starter zip file". Your task is to modify the code such that it outputs a file in CSV format for each time step of the simulation. Each CSV file should contain the following heading. X,Y,State 74 Following the heading, the file should contain corresponding X, Y, and State data for each cell in the automaton, e.g.: 10,20,1 13,41,0 ... The state of each cell should be written as a 1 if the cell is white and a 0 if the cell is black. The name of each file should be langtonX.csv, where X is the timestep. Your program can use the C functions fopen(), fclose(), and fprintf() to handle file I/O; these are all available as part of the stdio.h header file. The starter code is based on code from previous challenge problems found at the links below. http://hpcuniversity.org/students/weeklyChallenge/112/ http://hpcuniversity.org/students/weeklyChallenge/113/ http://hpcuniversity.org/students/weeklyChallenge/114/ SOLUTION: Will be posted January 18, 2016 LINK: http://hpcuniversity.org/students/weeklyChallenge/115/

EDUCATION NEWS - SDSC, Sweetwater Schools Catch Eye of NSF, White House Computer Courses Garner Invitation to Prestigious National Science Summit Five years ago, there were no computer science classes offered by schools within San Diego’s Sweetwater Union High School District, and Arthur Lopez, a teacher at Sweetwater High School in National City, decided to do something about it. Through a joint effort between the school district, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), and UC San Diego CREATE (Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excellence), the school today has a number of courses on computer science principles, several of which are Advanced Placement classes that encourage students to continue their education. To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR20151210_sweetwater.html.

HPCU BI-WEEKLY CHALLENGE Langton's Ant in MPI Solution for the week of December 14: The "Langton's Ant in MPI solution zip file" at the bottom of the challenge contains a solution.... http://hpcuniversity.org/students/weeklyChallenge/114

SUNDAY’S EDUCATION GRAB BAG Minecraft Education Edition Having recently acquired MinecraftEdu, Microsoft has announced its own Minecraft Educational Edition which will be available as a free trial this summer. As most readers will already know Minecraft was created by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson and then developed and published by Mojang. Microsoft bought Mojang in 2014 and early in 2016 it bought MinecraftEdu, a version of the game built especially for the cl...assroom developed in Finland by TeachGaming LLC. The announcement of Minecraft Education Edition states: At its core, Minecraft is an open world that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem solving. It’s enjoyed by a worldwide community of over 100 million players who constantly inspire us with their creations. Many of the skills required to enjoy Minecraft to its fullest are important to educators who might be searching for inventive ways to engage their students. By bringing Minecraft into the classroom, we are empowering educators and students to teach and learn through building and exploring within a fun, familiar environment. To learn more, please visit http://www.i-programmer.info//9376-minecraft-education-edi.

FRIDAY FUN - Battleship: Periodic Table Edition Karyn Tripp of the homeschooling education site Teach Beside Me decided to repurpose the classic Battleship game to teach the kids the elements. The new version was created using four copies of the Periodic Table which were labeled alphabetically by row and inserted into two file folders with jumbo paper clips. Game play is as follows: The kids can then mark where they want to place their ships by circling rows of 2, 3, 4, and ...5 elements on the lower table. They play by calling out coordinates. If they miss, they put an X on the spot they chose on the upper table. If they get a hit, they circle it. They can continue playing until one person sinks all of another person’s ships. The game has received an enthusiastic response, although it has been suggested that the rows be labeled with each row’s corresponding number rather than letters, and that players eliminate groups rather than sink ships floating on the science sea. For more information, please visit http://makezine.com//you-just-sunk-my-copernicium-playing/.

WHAT’S NEW FOR THURSDAY? - Learn to Code by Making Games - The Complete Unity Developer Online Course The course is continually updated, and the entire first section was re-worked mid October 2015. This is the online game development school that was a runaway success on Kickstarter.... Learn how to create video games using Unity 3D, the free-to-use game development tool. We start super simple so you need no prior experience or Unity of coding! With our online tutorials, you'll be amazed what you can achieve. Benefit from our world-class support from both other students, and Ben is on the forums regularly. Go on to build several games including a full 3D version of Pong with an online multiplayer scoreboard, and more. You will have access to a course forum where you can discuss topics on a course-wide basis, or down to the individual video. Our thriving discussion forum will help you learn and share ideas with other students. To learn more, please visit https://www.udemy.com/unitycourse/#/.

HPC UNIVERSITY BI-WEEKLY CHALLENGE - Langton's Ant NetCDF RELEASE DATE: January 25, 2016...Continue reading

SUNDAY’S HOW CAN IT BE GRAB BAG - The Mystery of the Continuously Functioning Battery From 1840 SMITHSONIAN A battery at the University of Oxford has been incessantly ringing two bells for 175 yearsbut no one knows exactly why it’s lasted so long.... Jason Koebler over at Motherboard recently highlighted a scientific mystery that may not be solved any time soon. In the mid-1800s, Robert Walker, a physics professor at the University of Oxford, acquired an interesting device. It was a battery designed to propel a hanging metal ball quickly back and forth, between two small bells. Today, 175 years after it was manufactured, the Oxford Electric Bell, as it is often referred to, is still ringingin fact, it is said to have rung over 10 billion times. Built by Watkins and Hill, a London instrument-manufacturing firm and with a note attached in Walker’s own hand reading Set up in 1840, the battery would eventually come to be displayed at the University’s Clarendon Laboratory. To read further, please visit http://www.smithsonianmag.com//mystery-continuously-func/.