Photos Galore!

Lots of photos were taken during the four weeks of COSMOS.  You can find the photo gallery of pictures at https://ucsdcosmos2014cluster1.shutterfly.com/pictures.  You should not need a Shutterfly account to view the pictures.

Week 4 photos will be posted at the conclusion of COSMOS.

MiP

Last week we had a guest lecturer, Professor Bewley.  Details about the lecture were stated in our newsletter.  Here's a little video about MiP.  Maybe we'll find him in a wrapped present for us for our birthday or holiday!

Our "Walking" Robots

The goal for our last Arduino lab - create a walking robot.  We learned a lot during our trial and error and the difference between theory and practice.  We would get our servos to work and do what we wanted, or so we thought.  Once we got everything glued together, it didn't exactly work the way we thought.  It was a challenge and we walked away with varying levels of success.  Here are some of our videos.

Yannan and Kevin

Yannan and Kevin

Sam V. and Colby

Colby and Sam V.

Tiffany and Casey

Megan and Sam C.

Megan and Sam C.

Kelvin, Angela and Aaron

Kelvin, Angela and Aaron

Anjali and Emma - with an obstacle

Anjali and Emma

Rachel and Bill

Week 3 Demos

We've had a busy third week!  Between the COSMOS Advisory Board visiting UCSD and touring our cluster (they only visited three) and our Arduino projects, it's been fun!  Our first Arduino project was to build a musical instrument.  Below are links to our demos!

Colby and Kelvin

Michelle and Sam C.

Bill and Yannan

Megan, Anjali and Kevin

Kent and Elaine

Casey and Angela

Sam V. and Rachel (1 of 2)

Sam V. and Rachel (Part 2 of 2)

The other videos will be up soon (if we can take care of technical issues with them)!

Qualcomm Visit and the Thinkabit Lab

On Tuesday, we had our field trip to Qualcomm.  One of the highlights was getting the chance to do some hands-on activities with parts that Qualcomm engineers get to play with.  We had just over an hour to make something with one servo.  Below are a gallery of videos of what we came up with!

 Colby and Nick - Work in progress

Colby and Nick - Final

Aaron and Sam - Work in progress

Aaron and Sam - Final

Bill and Kent -Work in progress

Bill and Kent - Final

Casey and Sam V. - Final

Angela and Rachel - Final

Yannan and Michelle - Final

Emma and Tiffany - Final

Megan, Anjali and Elaine - Final

Kelvin and Kevin

Scribbler Dance Off

This past Friday we had our first chance to work with Scribblers.  After learning some Python and Myro commands for our Scribblers we were challenged to make our Scribblers dance - by the end of lab.  In just a few hours, we learned a lot of Scribblers and got them to dance.  Bill and Aaron won the "People's Choice Award" for their dance!  Below are our videos.

Kelvin and Elaine

Sam V. and Yannan

Angela, Megan and Nicholas

Rachel and Colby

Emma and Kent

Michelle and Tiffany

Aaron and Bill

Anjali and Casey

Kevin and Sam C.

The big "Dance Off" - everyone's Scribbler dancing at once!

COSMOlympics!

The first Friday of COSMOS is COSMOlympics.  COSMOlympics is comprised of several events: skit and cheer, hula hoop challenge, relay race, and trivia challenge.  It was a lot of fun to watch everyone's skit since we work hard all week on it.  We are especially proud of our skit (we came up with our own "rap battles" for it) and that we placed FIRST in the trivia challenge!  Below you'll find some clips from our participation in events.

Our skit!

Our cheer/chant!

The Hula Hoop Challenge - 18 of us pass a hula hoop from the front of the chain to the end without letting go of each other's hands.

Relay Race - Bat spin, "blind fold" run, wheelbarrow race and pop the balloon.

Student Showcase - AppInventor Presentations

Below are the links for some of the first official presentations that the students gave in our cluster.  Students created their own mobile apps for Android devices using AppInventor. 

"Selfied" by Angela and Tiffany

"Soccer Tilt" by Anjali and Rachel

"Tomb Escape" by Nicholas and Sam V.

"Minesweeper" by Megan and Yannan

"The Button Game" by Colby and Elaine

"Coke and Mentos" by Casey, Sam C. and Aaron

"Krusty Krabs Diner Dash" by Emma and Bill

"Skyfall" by Michelle and Kelvin

"Square" by Kevin and Kent

The "People's Choice" (voted on by the students in the cluster) and "Faculty's Choice" for top 2 apps were the same!  The top 2 apps were "Soccer Tilt" and "Tomb Escape".

First Day of COSMOS

We began to get to know each other and learn about how computers are in everyday life and how they are enriching our lives by telling us about our past and creatures around us.

Some moments from our first day in class.

The view from our classroom.

Our classroom.

We got our Cluster 1 shirts (exclusive to just us!) this morning and took our first group picture in front of the Bear.  The Bear is located just in front of our CSE building.

Just got back from lunch and on our way to lab for the first time!

Our new home away from home away from residence halls.

We began to work with AppInventor today by creating apps called "I have a dream" and "PaintPot".  It's been fun and exciting and we can't wait to do more.

Here's the link to our cluster page - http://kastner.ucsd.edu/ryan/cosmos-computers-in-everyday-life/.

Welcome to Cluster 1!

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 are learning and doing as well as links to our presentations and videos!  Our UCSD faculty (Professor Kastner and Curt) and I (Shirley Miranda, Teacher Fellow) are excited to spend the next four weeks sharing innovative, challenging and exciting work with our students.

Check back soon to find our pictures from our first adventures together!