Robot Week

So apparently it is Robot Week. I read it somewhere and have no actual confirmation that it is official. I figure if we can have a shark week Robot Week seems feasible. Even if it is a hoax here are a few robot themed news items:

• Social Robots - Inventor hangs out with her robot. I also love this because her personal website is called Marilyn Monrobot.
• Smartphone Robot Solves Rubik's Cube super fast

UPDATE: According to this website Robot week is sometime in April. Plan ahead!

Top 20 Programming Languages

This is pretty interesting, this site lists the top 20 programming languages, and tracks their popularity over time.

Pascal is up 0.991% in the past year. Who knew?


This could be a fun way to look at the idea of "Big Data" as a part of the CS Principles course.

Local Mall Tracking Cell Phones

Short Pump Town Center Tracking Cell Phones
The mall is using sensors to track where in the mall shoppers are going. We'll be doing a discussion board entry after break about this. It touches on the ideas of big data, privacy and encryption that are central to the CS Principles Site.

CS Principles in a Nutshell

NCWIT site @ CS Principles
Don't know why I had never spotted this...it is the best quick summary of the CS Principles pilot I have seen so far.

Freshness Algorithm

OK, so I never figured I'd be teaching algorithms and current events. Today the New York Times ran an article about Google's new search algorithm: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/google-changes-search-algorithm-trying-to-make-results-more-timely/?hp

This should make a great start for a discussion board posting for the CS Principles class.

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Mrs. Dovi