Cluster 1 has got talent!

Some of our Cluster 1 students performed in the COSMOS Talent Show on Friday.  Below are their performances!

Christian sings!

Ari and friend sing!

Sheena plays the uke and sings!

David and his suite sing and dance!

Arduino Adventure

Students worked with Arduinos for the first time this past week.  Very few had any experience with building circuits.  They got LEDs to blink and fade over a few seconds.  They also used a force sensor to cause the LED to light and actuator to work.  Below are a few pictures of their Arduino adventures.

Force sensor (far left with the circle), green LED and actuator (held between the fingers) connected to an Arduino (green board on the right).

It's fun and exciting connecting the actuator to the Arduino.

Until the wire breaks!  Not to worry, nothing serious.  They got  it to  work!

AppInventor Presentations

During the first week, our cluster worked with AppInventor.  Students worked in pairs to write Android apps.  The final AppInventor project was to create their own original app.  Many wrote games.

During this first week, our cluster learned AppInventor.  None of the students had worked on it before.  It is a scripting language with a graphical interface which allowed them to put together a simple app in a matter of hours.  AppInventor allows them to develop applications for Android based devices, like cell phones.  Their first applications for the Android phone include: PaintPot (drawing and painting application), A Mole Mash game (similar to Whack-a-Mole), and Quiz Me (allowing users to type in their answers and check if it is correct).  Next they worked on their own unique app.  They were paired up in teams and made a group app which was presented on the following Monday to the cluster and COSMOS Open House guests.  You can find the presentations as well as the video demos at our Google docs folder for Applnventor.  Some of the apps created include: “Shoot the Meme”, “Space Break”, and “aMAZEing” game.  Two awards were given out: “Faculty Standout” and “The People’s Choice”.  The latter was picked by the cluster students and awarded to Cesar and Vineeth for their “Piano” app.  The “Faculty Standout” Award winner was Ari and Bradley for their “Snake” game.  All four received UCSD t-shirts.

Scribbler Art Show

Yesterday we presented our Scribbler robot's art!  In teams of two, we programmed our Scribblers to draw something.  We got to decide what to draw.  Ultimately we learned that programming robots are very literal and that lots and lots of testing is needed to ensure that its programming works as intended.  Below are our presentations!

Nicholas and Ben - "Aperture Science"

Ari and Bradley - "Pac-Man"

Casey and Christian - "Christmas Tree"

Nathaniel and Vineeth - "Peace and Love"

Sheena and Cesar - "MiTunes"

Rayyan and Dennis - "Snowman"

Yvette and David - "Failure to Launch" 

Amy and Gustavo - "Perfect Houses"

Find out more!

The COSMOS newsletter for Week 2 will be out today.  So much happened last week that we couldn't put all the details into our summary.  Later today you will be able to get details about the our guest speakers and see some photos.  This weekend, you'll be able to see our Android App and Scribbler Robot Art presentations.  So, even if your son/daughter wasn't able to see you for Parent's Weekend, you can see them.

Meet our TAs

We have the best and tallest cluster teaching assistants at COSMOS.

Matthew, Magnus and Riley 

Magnus, a graduate student in electrical engineering, was a TA for Cluster 1 last year.  Riley will be entering his third year as an undergraduate electrical engineering student.  He was a Cluster 1 TA last year and is a Cluster 1 alumni!  Matthew will be entering his second year as a computer engineering undergraduate and was a Cluster 1 student in 2010.  They provide great assistance and mentoring.  We also found out that they have a sense of humor.  If we leave things in lab, they put it up for sale on ebay.  After all, they are starving college students.

Earlier this week they found a cell phone.

Then they found a flash drive.

Welcome!

Welcome to UCSD COSMOS's Cluster 1 "Computers in Everyday Life" blog site.  Here you'll be able to see photos, find out what we're learning and doing, and find links to our presentations and videos!

Opening Day - Our parents finding out what lies ahead for their students!

"Scavenger Hunt" activity - Learning more about our clustermates.

The following are our first pictures in the lab.  It's the first day and we're already working on projects!