Do you vaguely know what a typewriter is? Do you know that it makes a dinging sound sometimes? Do you have any idea what that means? Hint: It has something to do with manual-carriage-return. Come see for yourself how the thing works.

This class will explore a few concepts that are fundamental to the way computers work. We will be beginning with logic gates (extremely fundamental) which will likely have a hands-on component. Depending on time, interest and skill-level, we may also look briefly at other ideas like paging, Turing machines, threads, and assembly code. (We are not likely to get to all of these ideas, but we will likely get to some of them; suggestions welcome!)

We will be discussing the basics of writing newspaper articles. We will discuss lede-writing, the upside-down pyramid, and the major differences between writing a newspaper article and writing a novel.

Do you vaguely know what a typewriter is? Do you know that it makes a dinging sound sometimes? Do you have any idea what that means? Hint: It has something to do with manual-carriage-return. Come see for yourself how the thing works.

Logic gates are electronic components that abstract the zero's and one's of computing into the ideas of "True" and "False" and allow you to do boolean operations on them. (In their not, "NOT AND", "NOT OR", "NOT", and "XOR"). We will be designing some simple logic-gate circuits that will do things you probably didn't know could be done with just the three operations above. We will also play with some real-life logic gates to see how they really work. Goals of the class will be to play with some logic (something you already know how to do but probably don't do very often) and to get a feel for circuits (which is less scary than you think).

A simple, introductory course in python programming. The course will focus on performing simple mathematical in the language, such as listing the factors of numbers, implementing the quadratic formula, and implementing the combinations and permutations functions.

Learn how to prove mathematical statements by mathematical induction. Our main goal will be to prove that the combinations function is equivalent to Pascal's triangle. We will look at how to apply these ideas to computer programming, but that will NOT be the focus. (I will display code on a projector, but you will not be required to write code yourself).

We will teach a short lesson on parliamentary procedure. We will watch some (mostly humorous) videos of congressmen and legislators going through the motions. We will eventually ask you to elect your own Speaker of the House who will run the show, and you will get to act like a real-world legislature, passing laws, resolutions, etc. You are permitted to make wacky laws and are encouraged to write up bills in advance. You are all STRONGLY encouraged to make fun of the congressmen in the videos.