In this section, we all met and got to know each other and went over a broad overview of what we want the discussion to look like this quarter. We discussed the high level goals of this course:

• To explore the impact of technology and computer science concepts on society
• To explore computer science and its applications as an academic field
• To preview what a career as a professional computer programmer or researcher is like
• To look more indepth at how we apply computational thinking to our daily lives

We emphasized that 142 is about how to program computers while computer science (and computational/algorithmic thinking) is a much large scope than just programming. As a group, we discussed primarily: What is computer science?

Assignment Due Today:

• None! Just show up and it will count for attendance!

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (1/19) @ 4:30 pm:

For this class, we will use Google Forms that require UW authentication to access. If you are having trouble accessing these forms, try to follow the instructions here.

• Fill out the intro survey
• Read chapters 1 (Introduction), 2 (Search Engine Indexing), and 3 (PageRank) from 9 Algorithms That Changed the Future
• Recommended, but not strictly required:
• Read Google is finally admitting it has a filter-bubble problem
• Read The Trouble With the Echo Chamber Online

We discussed searching algorithms (indexing, word location) and ranking algorithms (hyperlink, authority, random surfer); search history, targeted advertising; personalized search results; autocomplete

Interesting Links

• Notes from our breakout discussions

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (1/26) @ 4:30 pm:

For this class, we will use Google Forms that require UW authentication to access. If you are having trouble accessing these forms, try to follow the instructions here.

• Read chapter 4 (Public Key Cryptography) from 9 Algorithms That Changed the Future
• Watch this 20-minute video from UW professor Yoshi Kohno describing the internet of things (IoT) and adversarial security.

Students worked on decrypting some short messages that were encrypted using a Caesar cipher (monoalphabetic shift cipher) and a Permutation cipher (monoalphabetic substitution cipher); we also discussed the IoT presentation from the assigned pre-work and how it affects us in our everyday lives, as well as privacy concerns;

Interesting Links

• Notes from our discussion in this session.

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (2/2) at 4:30pm:

For this class, we will use Google Forms that require UW authentication to access. If you are having trouble accessing these forms, try to follow the instructions here.

• Read chapter 10 (What is Computable?) from 9 Algorithms That Changed The Future
• Read A Beginner's Simple Intro to Graphs in Computer Science.

We reviewed the practice of a "proof by contradiction", and revisited the "Halting Problem" in different forms. Then, students worked on graph coloring problems before we reconvened as a group to talk about P vs. NP problems.

Interesting Links

• Slides from the graph coloring activity
• We didn't get a chance to talk about them, but check out this wikipedia article on quines! (By the end of CSE 142, you'll be able to understand all of the code written in the Java snippet)

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (2/9) at 4:30 pm:

For this class, we will use Google Forms that require UW authentication to access. If you are having trouble accessing these forms, try to follow the instructions here.

• Read Introduction to Entity Component System
(Note that you don't need to fully understand everything in this article; focus on the high level)

With a few guests (Tyler Bonnell and Andrew Murray), we discussed a variety of things related to game development including the ECS model, different game engines, languages, game design, etc.

Interesting Links

• Slides from the presentation

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (2/16) at 4:30 pm:

For this class, we will use Google Forms that require UW authentication to access. If you are having trouble accessing these forms, try to follow the instructions here.

• Watch this short video about the Xbox Adaptive Controller.
• Read This is What Disabled Gamers Are Saying About the Xbox Adaptive Controller
• Watch this short video about the social model of disability
• Optional: Read this short tutorial on usability testing.

We discussed many different topics related to accessible design and other accessibility issues.

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (2/23) at 4:30 pm:

• Read chapter 6 (Pattern Recognition) from 9 Algorithms That Changed the Future
• Read Cognitive Bias in Machine Learning
• Watch this 17 minute video on Google DeepMind

We discussed many different topics related to pattern recognition, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, specifically relating to the social and ethical implications of such techniques and how they may be used in the future.

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (3/1) at 4:30 pm:

• Watch this 10 minute video about the future of data visualization by UW's Jeff Heer.
• Watch this 15 minute video demonstrating how data and its interpretability is important for global planning and reasoning about the current state of the world.

We talked about some general principles of data visualization and looked at several different examples of data visualizations that allowed viewers to extrapolate more information from the data than another data visualization may have allowed.

Assignment Due Next Wednesday (3/9) at 4:30 pm:

• Nothing! The class will be an AMA with Miya, so think about whether you have anything you'd like to ask about UW, UW CSE, Microsoft, or her corgi Gumball (bonus points for those)