A remarkable amount of stuff happens "behind the scenes" when you press Alt+Tab on your computer to switch between your web browser playing a YouTube video and your word processor displaying that English assignment you're procrastinating on. Come to this class to learn about (a small fraction of) them!

Algorithms rock But sometimes they don’t make sense Segmentation fault Topics: Big-O (runtime analysis), sorting, searching, data structures (heaps, trees), graph theory (flood-fill, disjoint set, Dijkstra’s algorithm).

Ever wanted to learn Scheme? Have you heard of functional programming, but never learned any functional languages? Come to our class, and we’ll teach you the basics of Scheme, and how to learn more.

You are Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate of the Caribbean. Well, actually you’re not all that mighty, and you’re not really a pirate yet… but you really want to be! And you can hold your breath for 10 minutes. That’s got to count for something. Join us as we play through this LucasArts adventure game with its notoriously complicated puzzles and witty humor. Face devious enemies including the evil ghost pirate LeChuck! Featuring vegetarian cannibals, odd uses of rubber chickens, insult swordfighting. “You fight like a dairy farmer!” “How appropriate, you fight like a cow!”

Algorithms rock But sometimes they don’t make sense Segmentation fault Topics: Big-O (runtime analysis), sorting, searching, data structures (heaps, trees, lists), hashing, graph theory (Dijkstra’s algorithm, minimal spanning tree).

After the Secret of Monkey Island, we will be playing parts of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Having played the first game is not required.

Ever wanted to learn to Scheme? Want to take over the world? We recommend a class in the social studies category. Ever wanted to learn Scheme? Have you heard of functional programming, but never learned any functional languages? Come to our class, and we’ll teach you the basics of Scheme, and how to learn more.

So you load up your newest video game, and a giant mango-eating purple alien with fifteen eyes pops up on your screen. You marvel for a few minutes at the 3d rendering and how realistic it looks, during which time the alien has already stolen all your mangoes and run away. You are left only with a profound desire to find out how the creature got here anyway. While you play your video games, a chip inside the computer works hard to render 3d scenes as fast as 60 times a second. Starting from only coloring individual pixels, it is possible to build up the ability to render something as complex as an alien (or a teapot). This class will explore how this is done. Note: This is neither an art nor a video game class.

Ever tried to type up math, and found that Microsoft Word really is not up to the task? Want to learn a Turing-complete markup language? Liked the look of some of the textbooks you've read, and want to know how they typeset it? The tool most mathematicians use for typesetting math is $$\LaTeX$$, and we'll try to teach you the basics. We'll look at * Writing a basic document without any math * Basic math * Defining simple commands * Finding out more $$ \begin{align} \langle a, b \rangle &= \sum_{i=1}^n a_i\cdot b_i\\ (a+b)^n&=\sum_{k=0}^{n}{n \choose k}a^k b^{n-k} \end{align} $$

Your spaceship has been boarded. You have no means of communication with the rest of the crew. It has been ages since the last save point. After a glance at the odd green bar in the corner and a bite of mango, you turn into the corridor and go. While you are having fun running around saving the universe from evil brain-eating alien pirate zombie ninjas from Cleveland, a chip in your computer is drawing pictures over and over again just so everything looks pretty. This class will explore how computers render real-time 3d scenes, like what you see in video games, and how they are able to do so very quickly 60 times a second. We will see how one builds up a basic software renderer from only knowing how to draw individual pixels and discuss some things graphics cards do to make this efficient.

Algorithms rock But sometimes they don't make sense Segmentation fault Topics: Big-O (runtime analysis), sorting, searching, data structures (heaps, trees, lists), hashing, graph theory (Dijkstra's algorithm, minimal spanning tree).

We often hear scare stories about kids who download songs from the Internet and then gets sued for millions. Downloading music and other media is considered by many to be equivalent to stealing. But what is it that the kid steals when he downloads a song, and from whom does he steal it? We would like to think that it is the music itself, but the downloaded file just contains a bunch of numbers that the computer uses to make sound. And why is the fine so high? Surely, the song doesn't cost thousands of dollars, especially when a CD with a dozen of them costs just a few bucks. In this class, we will discuss the theory behind copyright laws, and what the court cases and battles that go into them are. We will also discuss some of the interesting implications of these laws (such as the fact that 80-year-old Mickey Mouse cartoons are still under copyright).

You are Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate of the Caribbean. Well, actually you're not all that mighty, and you're not really a pirate yet... but you really want to be! And you can hold your breath for 10 minutes. That's got to count for something. Join us as we play through this LucasArts adventure game with its notoriously complicated puzzles and witty humor. Face devious enemies including the evil ghost pirate LeChuck! Featuring vegetarian cannibals, odd uses of rubber chickens, insult swordfighting. "You fight like a dairy farmer!" "How appropriate, you fight like a cow!" (We will play Monkey Island I and Monkey Island II in the two sections, so feel free to come to only one or both of them.)

I like to make monkeys. Do you like monkeys?