Computer Science for the Magic School
Join our group to help develop Computer Science content for
the Science & Theatre Magic
Program. Here is a random collection of topics and some
links to get you started.
Interested? Questions? Contact map@villanova.edu
- AI: The creation of the "magic school oracle" -- we
have begun working on this, but there is still plenty to be done. Tom Way's
ACTlab website (http://actlab.csc.villanova.edu/)
has some information on this project (under "Entertainment" / "Intelligent
chatbot"). The idea is to set things up so that the scholars can develop a
chatbot that answers questions about the magic school. that they are
creating. This can be taken in several directions: you can concentrate on
the language aspects and consider different types of systems and the
principles on which they are based, or to go toward combining it with
avatars or robotics.
- Social networks and game theory. Some ideas in Mike
Kearn's Networked Life course:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~mkearns/teaching/NetworkedLife/
- Augmented reality simulations: Obviously, there is a lot
of potential for creating magical illusions. Here are some links to the
education slant on this from MIT
- Media Labs can be a great source of inspiration. Be sure
to check out MIT: http://www.media.mit.edu/
- A related topic is the use of RFID tags or GPS in
creative ways. There are some seriously crazy people that are doing fun
things on the artistic side. Some info on RFID and many other avant-garde
media art at:
- Robotics: clearly, there are many possibilities there and
we have lots of equipment and local expertise at Villanova that you can draw
on. Moreover, one of the partners in the project, the Science Resources
non-profit organization
http://www.science-resources.org/ has a lot of experience working with
kids on robotics.
- General ideas for fun activities geared toward teaching
CS to kids can be found in a lot of websites, check out:
- Your favourite CS topic or example could form the basis
of your study. Any topic whatsoever, and I mean that, would be appropriate
here. Eg, did you love learning about hamming distance and error-correcting
codes? Or maybe about semaphores? Dijkstra's algorithm anybody? Something
else that you don't know much about but would be interested in learning? It
does not matter if it is a narrow topic, that can be an advantage.
Contact: Mary-Angela
Papalaskari map@villanova.edu