Considering that the program theme this year is fireflies, it would be pretty thematic to do some firefly logic puzzles!

What do you do if you're stuck in a car underwater? What if you find yourself in quicksand? Learn what to do if you ever find yourself in a sticky situation!

What is a blockchain? You've probably heard of Bitcoin or Ethereum or even Dogecoin, but what is the technology behind the hype? This class will cover the fundamentals of blockchain technology, such as different forms of consensus, the basics of smart contracts, and whatever else we have time to cover. This class will not contain any investment advice or how to get rich quick or anything like that. It will be about the technology.

so there's this island, and it's getting invaded, and we're the (supernatural) spirits that need to stop the invaders before the island gets destroyed (it's a cooperative board game)

I give you all the cards of a standard deck except one. You can do whatever you want with the remaining cards. How quickly can you find the missing card? It sounds more fun than you think! Our record is 18 seconds. Can you go faster? What techniques are the fastest? How does this relate to computer science?

We'll go over every reference made in The Klein Four's "Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)", and hopefully learn something about math along the way.

Puzzle hunts are a fun way to solve puzzles together with friends! The goal is to solve several puzzles that culminate in a final challenge, called a 'metapuzzle'. After a presentation teaching common solving strategies, you'll have the opportunity to work on a small puzzle hunt with others. You don't need any specialized puzzle-solving knowledge to participate.

You may have heard about mathematical proofs on paper, but have you heard about interactive theorem provers? These tools allow users to *code* mathematical models and proofs about them, using powerful language constructs and proof tactics. The Coq Theorem Prover is one such tool, but there are many more! In this course, you will learn some background (what is verification?), hear about a variety of verification tools and what they can do, and practice your very own theorem proving with Coq. Hope to see you there! :)

Let's say you're teaching an alien, over the phone, which directions are which. The first few are easy. The direction things fall in is "down", and the opposite direction is "up". The direction an object moves in is "forward", and the opposite direction is "backward". But what about "left" and "right"? You could say "think of a clock", but they might not have seen a clock. You could say "the sun rises on the right", well, they might not have a sun. You could try "look at the Milky Way and see which direction it spins in", but they might not be looking at the Milky Way the same way. Okay, well. We defined the other directions with physics, so why not left and right? What about "run a current through a wire forward, and see which part of the magnetic field goes down"? They'll ask you, "how do you tell the direction of the current?", you say "look at the positive charge carriers", they'll ask "which one is positive?" and you're back to square one. It turns out that there *is* a way to do this, and again, physics gives us the answer. Come learn about a Nobel Prize winning experiment and why physics isn't entirely symmetric.

Here's three puzzles: 1. I want to find the average age of everyone in a room. But no one wants to tell anyone else their age. Can we still find the average? 2. There's a magic door that opens when you say the password. I want to show you that I know the password, but I don't want to tell you what the password is. Can I still prove to you that I know the password? 3. We're talking over the phone and want to flip a coin. But if I flip the coin and tell you the result, you might not believe me. And if you flip the coin, I might not believe you. Can we still do a fair coin flip? Come learn about cryptography, the amazing science that helps us do seemingly impossible tasks.

Learn how computer programs and mathematical proofs are actually the same thing!* Learn how to write programs that are guaranteed not to contain bugs!** * kinda ** kinda

How are the Pokémon Trading Card Game and Rupaul's Drag Race alike? What are reveals and how did they start? And why is a two-second reveal so much more entertaining than a two-minute dance routine? Come watch some thrilling Drag Race clips with us, as we talk about what separates good reveals from bad ones. Content note: Rupaul's Drag Race is rated TV-14. There will be spoilers, as we'll be watching episode endings and season finales.

What can be posted? Who decides? The recent months have showed us how much social media can influence elections, incite violence, and increase misinformation. The solution should be moderation. But this often stands at odds with promoting free speech, making moderation unbiased, and commitment to consistency. We'll discuss case studies of how Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit dealing with controversial content, and analyze whether they made the right calls or not.

From Python and C and Haskell, to Java and Rust and Pascal, to Fortran and Perl and APL, …from declarative and functional, to imperative and intentional, to object-oriented and procedural, …from analyzing and parsing, to syntax and compiling, to semantics and typing, we'll talk about it all. This class is a whirlwind tour of programming languages, their history, how they work, and how they differ from each other.

Imagine that you are the speaker of a presentation, but you don't know what you are presenting on or what slides you are expecting. You have to wing this presentation somehow, but how would you do so? Welcome to powerpoint karaoke, where even nonsense makes sense. Come learn a bit more about how powerpoint karaoke works, including some tips and tricks, and try it out for yourself!

What's Esperanto? It's the most widely spoken invented language, actively spoken by around 200,000 people all over the world. It's really easy to learn! You'll learn more Esperanto in this hour than you'd learn German in ten hours. By the end of the class you'll be able to form basic sentences in Esperanto.

We will be exploring a chess variant: atomic chess! In this variant, whenever a capture happens, all pieces (other than maybe pawns) within a one-square radius gets blown up. In this class, we'll go over the rules in more depth, along with a few pointers to get started (as games can be very volatile, and it's very easily to lose instantly), and then play some games!

Ever wanted to learn how to assemble circuits? Come to this class and learn basic through-hole soldering! Circuit boards and electronic components will be provided.

Here's three puzzles: 1. I want to find the average age of everyone in a room. But no one wants to tell anyone else their age. Can we still find the average? 2. There's a magic door that opens when you say the password. I want to show you that I know the password, but I don't want to tell you what the password is. Can I still prove to you that I know the password? 3. We're talking over the phone and want to flip a coin. But if I flip the coin and tell you the result, you might not believe me. And if you flip the coin, I might not believe you. Can we still do a fair coin flip? Come learn about cryptography, the amazing science that helps us do seemingly impossible tasks.

A brief guide to some famous paradoxes, and why they might actually become relevant in our real world soon.

Come learn a few things about every Pokémon up to Generation 8! You may learn about some that you never knew before, or about some funny descriptions of the more well-known ones.

Come learn about pi while eating pi(e).

What's Esperanto? It's the most widely spoken invented language, actively spoken by around 200,000 people all over the world. It's really easy to learn! You'll learn more Esperanto in this hour than you'd learn German in ten hours. By the end of the class you'll be able to form basic sentences in Esperanto.

If we gave you a four-function calculator, how long would it take you to check that 694201 is a prime? In fact, we can do it in five minutes, and we'll show you how. We’ll use this to talk about how computers figure out whether numbers are prime in general, and what makes one method faster than another.

How does a person, unskilled in the profession of law, reasonably imbibe the impenetrable textual information pertaining to our legal system, notwithstanding the construction of complex or compound sentences, when justice so requires? In this class, we'll read statutes, bills, and parts of the constitution, and go over some techniques to make understanding legislation easier.

Let's play improv games together! Don't know how to improv at all? Want to learn what yes, and means? Want to have more confidence in speaking in front of crowds, or to your local coffee shop owner, without planning twenty different scenarios in your head beforehand? Then come to class and learn the basics of improv! This will be a high-energy, participatory class focusing on the basics of performance and improvisation, and lots of fun.

we have icebreakers that aren't corny and team-building exercises that don't suck. authentic relating games is the fancy phrase, but we just like to think of it as games. stare into each others eyes! talk about your feelings! experience deeper connections! play some games with us and get to know your classmates.

Learn to flirt! We'll talk about tips and tricks to smoothly express interest in the person of your dreams. Channel your inner playfulness and have some fun with live demos, audience participation, and social psychology :)

Learn about financial markets while practicing your Fermi estimation skills in this classic game! Open to anyone with interest in math, science, or finance. Quick thinking and awareness of other players are of utmost importance.

I give you all the cards of a standard deck except one. You can do whatever you want with the remaining cards. How quickly can you find the missing card? It sounds more fun than you think! Our record is 18 seconds. Can you go faster? What techniques are the fastest? How does this relate to computer science?