I have to give a presentation to a group of high school students who are considering careers (or at least interested) in computer science. It’ll be about ten minutes long, and intended to introduce them to some computer science or computer engineering topic.
I’d like to pick something interesting that will make them think “Oh, that’s cool!” - but I’m having trouble coming up with a topic that would achieve that.
Ideas so far:
How sorting algorithms work.
How RAID works.
How the Playstation 3 works (or doesn’t).
How SSL encryption works.
How computers can add numbers.
How the VGA protocol works (how pictures get displayed on a monitor).
How security vulnerabilities work (buffer overflows).
How Google Maps works (finding the shortest path between two points in a network).
Well, I’m a CS PhD (not really your target audience), of all those topics you’d get my attention for PlayStation and Google Maps (and I don’t even play video games). For 10 minutes with high school kids, I’d say pick something with a hook into popular culture. HS is still young, a 15 year-old with little interest in computers now still has the potential to become a clever little hacker.
As for other ideas, of all the ‘intro to my field’ lectures I’ve sat thru, I’d have to say that the two most interesting for me were ‘how Google works (ie, the PageRank algorithm’) and ‘handwritten character recognition’. But if you couldn’t guess, I’m in AI. I would say, talk about what made you decide on CS, whatever topic that is.
Well, I’d think you’d want something they haven’t seen before, something they don’t usually see a computer doing.
If you can get the gear to demonstrate it, explain some kind of biometric stuff like fingerprint reading or hand geometry. Another one might be the old Eliza program or an updated version of it. Explain what the thing is actually doing any why it looks intelligent.
I’d say go with the Google maps one. They’re all familiar with it, it’s highly visual, and you can at least hint that there’s more to computer science than programming.
I think most of your target audience is already taking (or taken) a computer science course. I wouldn’t do very basic “how it works” stuff like sorting algorithms.
I think you need to focus on something cutting edge, to show that “computer science” is actually a science and not just mundane programming tasks. Difference between a VGA card from 10 years ago and the latest gaming graphics card, for example. Google Maps may be a good topic, but don’t just use it as an example of basic algorithm development. Talk about what recent research & development made the service possible.
Whatever you decide, go to this website: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/
Someone posted it on a recent thread and it is chock full of wild-ass predictions of grand scientific inventions just around the corner (from magazines back in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s).
I am sure you could pick a few and get a laugh from the students, and then go on to show how some of those ideas are actually being worked on today.
Nothing to do with the OP but thank you for that reference. I read a lot of those magazines from the '50s and I’m still pissed that I don’t have a reaactor in my basement or the flying car I was told to expect.
That’s odd - we’re told here that there are weapons of mass destruction in every basement in Arab countries…
(And yes, I too used to read those magazines, chomping the bit, and awaiting my flying car and wristwatch that could make phone calls and show pictures and…hmm [DMark looks at his Razor cell phone]…well, I am STILL waiting for that flying car!)
See, Absolute, science fiction does indeed become science fact every once in awhile!
Alas, at least in KSA we lack reactors. I think I’d like my own WMD though, definite bragging rights. Yeah, the electronics and data processing stuff is going ahead great guns. Now if we could just get some form of Moore’s Law to work with physical/mechanical things.
You should teach them the workings of finite element analysis and in particular, the partial-differential calculus that goes into making the damn thing work. I can lend you the course notes from my prof. It should scare the shit out of them.
I’m not sure how easy it would be to encapsulate the topic, but I think it would be good to explain how something ‘smart’ like a CPU can be created from ‘dumb’ building blocks such as logic gates. Not just in the sense of mechanical math processes, but in the sense of interpreting coded instructions.
