CSC 199 Creative Computing Seminar: Assignments
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The assignments will be posted here after the day's class,
along with the due date.
Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date.
In general, no credit will be allowed for for late assignments.
Turn what you have in in for partial credit.
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For any written assignment, I expect a well organized
report-style writeup that describes in detail what you did, why you did it,
and what the results were. This includes negative results.
Scratch work and computer code, if requested should be appended to the main
writeup with appropriate pointers.
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Attribute ANY work that is not your own, including software off the
web, text cribbed from other sources, etc.
You are encouraged to look for resources, but not to the extent that
it negates the point of the assignment.
This is sometimes a fine line, especially in programming assignments.
I will try to be specific as to what I expect you to write
as a minimum. If in doubt, ask.
In any case, use of UN-attributed material is plagiarism, and a violation
of the University's academic honesty policy.
Plagiarism is taken VERY seriously in this department. DON'T DO IT.
If in doubt, reference.
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Specifically, text taken from web pages, even a single sentence,
is plagiarism. Text paraphrased from web pages is plagiarism.
Sentences from web pages cut up into phrases and re-arranged are
plagiarism.
If you want to avoid possible problems, my suggestion is
never write while looking at text. Generate everything from your
own understanding of the subject.
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Use of unattributed text in any written assignment will result in
zero credit for that assignment.
Text that comes from an outside source should appear in quotes.
Too much use of quoted material will tend to reduce your credit
for an assignment, as the point of written assignments is to
convey your understanding of a subject.
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In general, you should consider written assignments for this course
to be public documents - just as published research papers are public
documents. As such I may place them in a forum where they may be
scrutinized by your colleagues for accuracy, clarity, and for
unattributed material.
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You are encouraged to discuss general techniques and specific approaches
to general problems with your fellow students, or anyone else.
Unless specifically directed in an assignment, however, you are not to
share code you have written, or your written solutions to specific
problems.
Thursday, Aug 30, 2012
- Class activity: Introductory material:
- Class activity: Counting.
- Class activity: Initial questions for discussion:
- 1. What is your share of the next trillion dollars in
national debt? How many trillion is the current debt?
- 2. The BP oil spill of 2010 dumped roughly 200 million gallons of
petroleum into the gulf of Mexico.
A BP spokesman commented that this was a very
small fraction of the amount of water in the Gulf, and therefore the
environmental impact should be minimal. Discuss the veracity of this
statement.
- 3. Murders in Rochester
decreased from 41 in 2010 to
30 in 2011.
Should someone be commended for making the city safer?
- 4. Future News Flash!! In the 2012 election for
the NYS 28th congressional district,
Louise Slaughter and Maggie Brooks are separated by 50 votes
with a pool of 1000 disallowed ballots in dispute.
Estimate the probability that counting these would shift the outcome
- 5. 30 Women a day in the US are diagnosed with cervical cancer.
The UR-developed vaccine Gardasil will (probably) prevent most cases
if given adolescence. It is being marketed at between $300-$500 for the
course of three injections.
The cost of treating a diagnosis of cervical cancer averages between
$20,000 (early) and $40,000 (late).
Evaluate roughly whether it is to the direct financial advantage of
an insurance company to pay for the vaccine for all young women.
Consider initially only the steady state, ignoring the fact that reduced
payouts for cancer treatment will not show up for several years.
- Assignment:
Bring as close to 1,000,000 as you can of something visible to the
naked eye, and be prepared to prove to the class that you do have
(approximately) 1,000,000 items.
Due: Tuesday, September 6, 2011.
- Assignment:
Bring your answer to question 5 (Gardasil) above to class and be prepared
to defend it.
Due: Tuesday, September 6, 2011.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
- Class activity: Presentation of Millions.
Discussion of Insurance question.
- Class activity: Numbers testing.
- Assignment:
Estimate the total amount (mass) of matter that is part of an average human
body during their lifetime. Don't count air briefly contained in the lungs,
but not incorporated into the body.
How many atoms in a glass of California chardonnay were once part of
Julius Caesar?
Hand in a writeup as usual. Pay special attention to the assumptions
you made in order to arrive at a reasonable answer.
Due: Thursday, September 6, 2012.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of Caesar's atoms.
- Assignment:
Estimate the total amount of gold dissolved in the world's oceans.
Estimate the cost of recovery (per unit mass, e.g. gram or ounce)
with best existing technology.
(This will require a bit of research on methods)
Compare with current price of gold.
Write up your solution to hand in as usual.
Come to class prepared to present your solution .
Due: Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of sea gold.
- Assignment: Estimate the total distance traveled by a red blood
cell in the human body, relative to its local environment, over
its lifetime.
Due: Thursday, September 13, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of construction cost estimates.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of construction cost estimates, cont.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
- Class activity: Presentation of Sodium research.
- Assignment:
History of Units
Due: Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
- Class activity: Presentations on units.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
- Class activity: Presentations on units cont.
- Class activity: Mosquitoes.
- Assignment:
The distribution of size
Due: Thursday, October 11, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
- Class activity: FALL BREAK!
Thursday, October 11, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of distributions in unbounded natural sets.
- Assignment:
If methods of oxygen replacement (e.g. photosynthesis) were eliminated,
estimate the time it would take for all human activity (respiration, animal
husbandry, industry etc.) to render the atmosphere unbreathable due to
oxygen depletion.
If CO2 sinks were also eliminated, how long would it take
to render the atmosphere unbreathable due to CO2 accumulation?
How long would it take the world's stored food supply to
to run out if photosynthesis were shut down? (Assume no drastic
action such as premptively killing 99.9% of the population before
they ate much.)
Due: Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of atmospheric breathability.
- Assignment: One of four
energy problems.
Write up and be prepared to discuss the one you are assigned.
Due: Tuesday Oct. 23, 2012 (In a week)
- Assignment: And just for fun, for next class,
Estimate the total number of ants in the world.
Estimate their total mass. Compare to the total human mass.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of world population of ants.
- Class activity: Preliminary discussion of making fire from nothing.
- Assignment: Work on energy resources assignment for next Tuesday
- Assignment: Also bring in a stone-tipped spear you made using nothing
but naturally occuring materials and objects you find in the immediate
Rochester area. No tools except what you make from natural objects.
Old beer bottles don't count as natural.
Roadkill on the other hand... well, we killed all the wolves, so
maybe we should count cars as predator equivalents...
Note that if you bang rocks together, you should wear glasses.
And banging rocks is not the only way to shape stone.
Also, if you don't know what poison ivy is, don't go tearing
random vines off of trees - a lot of the vines attached to tree
trunks in this area are, in fact, poison ivy.
Vines are not the only way to attach a spear point to a shaft - or
even a particularly good one.
Due: Tuesday, October 23, 2012.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
- Class activity: Initial display of paleolithic technology.
- Class activity: Discussion of fossil fuel resources and usage.
- Class activity: Discussion of uranium resources and usage.
- Assignment: Improve your spear for Halloween
stabbing contest next Tuesday.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of biomass resources and usage.
- Class activity: Discussion of solar energy computations.
- Assignment: Continue to improve your lithic artifact.
- Assignment: How many trips by individual honeybees are required to
produce a kilogram of honey?
How many flowers are visited?
For typical distances between hive and flower patches (justify), how many
kilometers are collectively flown?
Due: Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
- Class activity: Stone-age pumpkin-stabbing contest.
- Assignment: Estimate the amount of water needed
to grow wheat in the Sahara desert (per unit area, per crop; not total
cover the entire desert).
If this water came from the ocean via desalinization plants,
what would be its cost using the most efficient available technology?
How does this cost compare to the wholesale value of the wheat that
could be grown?
Due: Thursday, November 1, 2012.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
- Class activity: Honeybee labor discussion.
- Class activity: Brainstorm on methods to measure the speed of light
and Avogadro's number using pre-20th century technology.
- Assignment:
Measures of heaven and earth.
Write up and be prepared to discuss the measurement you are assigned.
Due: Thursday, November 8. 2011.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
- Class activity: Discussion of wheat in the Sahara.
- Class activity: Discuss how to measure the distance to the moon with
items on hand.
- Assignment: Continue work on
Measures of heaven and earth.
Write up and be prepared to discuss the measurement you are assigned.
Due: Thursday, November 8. 2011.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
- Class activity:
Presentation of "measures" research.
- Assignment: Figure out a practical, low-effort method for selecting a
random recipe from a (paper) cookbook, that is as close to unbiased
as possible. No electronic computers allowed. Write it up.
Due: Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
- Class activity:
Presentation of physical constant determination research, cont.
- Class activity: Discussion. Why (apparently) is the earth is not
part of a galactic civilization?
Thursday, November 15, 2012
- Class activity: Presentation and discussion of random recipes
Thuesday, November 20, 2012
- Class activity:
More Randomizing, and sorting too.
- Assignment: Thankgiving.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
- Class activity: Elementary counting and probability for poker.
- Assignment: Compute the number of 5-card deals and the probability of
a hand containing (1) Exactly two aces, and (2) All black cards.
Look up the probabilities of obtaining the standard poker hands in 5-card
deals from a standard deck (i.e. no jokers).
For this assignment, carry out probabilities to at least 4 decimal places
(More than is usual for this course).
Due: Thursday, November 29, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
- Class activity: Applied statistics / cost-benefit analysis.
Straight, draw and stud poker.
- Assignment: Read up on the game Texas hold-em
Due: (nothing to hand in)
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
- Class activity: Applied statistics / cost-benefit analysis cont.
Texas hold-em.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
- Class activity: Space -- the final frontier.
Space elevators and cannons.
- Assignment:
Take a look at the ingredient list on the snack (handed out in class).
For your assigned ingredient(s), research why it is in the snack.
Then investigate the source of each ingredient.
First, find the manufacturer nearest to Rochester NY.
Then track the ingredient all the way back to "ground". For example,
wheat flour is made from wheat, which is grown e.g. in Montana.
Salt is mined out of the ground (or extracted from seawater).
Sorbic acid, on the other hand...
For each mined, extracted, or farmed component that goes into your
snack ingredient,
provide a source as close as possible to Rochester NY
(e.g. wheat, Ontario CA; salt, Azco Nobel salt mine in Retsof NY; ...)
Be prepared to present your results (5 minutes),
and hand in the usual writeup.
(Inspired by a book by Steve Ettlinger
http://www.twinkiedeconstructed.com/Twinkiewebsite/Welcome.html)
Due: Tuesday December 11, 2012
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