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News & Events

Preregistration Advising Hours for Fall 2013

Albrecht
Thompson Chemistry 304
Monday, April 22, 2:00-2:30 pm
Thursday, April 25, 2:00-2:30 pm

Danyluk
Thompson Chemistry 305
Monday, April 22, 2:00-3:00 pm
Tuesday, April 23, 10:00-11:00 am
Wednesday, April 24, 2:30-3:30 pm

Freund
Thompson Physics 302
Monday, April 22, 2:30-4:00 pm
Thursday, April 25, 2:30-4:00 pm

Heeringa
Thompson Chemistry 306
Wednesday, April 24, 2:00-4:00 pm and 8:00-10:00 pm

McGuire
Monday, April 22, 2:30-4:15 pm

Murtagh
Thompson Chemistry 309
Tuesday, April 23, 10:30 am-12:00 pm
Wednesday, April 24, 1:00-2:30 pm
Thursday, April 25, 10:30 am-12:00 pm

New Graphics Research at I3D’13

Williams faculty and alumni gave three presentations at the 2013 ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games in Orlando, FL in March.

Michael Mara ’12 presented his paper on “Toward Practical Real-Time Photon Mapping: Efficient GPU Density Estimation”, coauthored with David Luebke (NVIDIA) and professor Morgan McGuire. This is a new technique for cinematic quality lighting in real-time interactive systems. http://graphics.cs.williams.edu/papers/PhotonI3D13

Kefei Lei ’10 presented his paper on “A Physically Plausible Algorithm for Rendering Depth of Field Using Few Samples per Pixel”, coauthored with John Hughes (Brown), a new method for rendering realistically in and out of focus regions in images of virtual scenes.

Professor Morgan McGuire delivered the invited banquet keynote, “The Augmented Artist: Computation & Content Creation.” He described the entertainment industry crisis of exponential growth in the complexity of the 3D models and details in video games and proposed solutions of cloud computation and crowdsourcing. http://graphics.cs.williams.edu/papers/ArtistI3D13

Teaching Assistant/Tutor Applications due April 22!

The Computer Science Department is now accepting applications for teaching assistants and tutors for the Fall semester. We are interested in finding TAs for classes ranging from our introductory classes to our upper-level core classes and electives. You may be a TA for any class you have completed (or CS 134), and we encourage even those early in the major or who have taken only one or two CS courses to apply. Being a TA is a great opportunity to teach other students and to work closely with faculty as part of your life at Williams, and it can be a very rewarding experience. I encourage you all to consider applying. Please apply before April 22 by filling out the online form available.

Contact Morgan McGuire if you have general questions about being a TA or specific questions about individual classes.

TA Application Flyer

Peter Norvig (Director of Research at Google) will be speaking on Thursday, April 4.

Peter Norvig (Director of Research at Google) will be speaking at 12:40 pm in the CS Common Room on Thursday, April 4.

Hot Tomatoes pizza will be served prior to the talk at 12:15!

The Science and Engineering of Online Learning
For decades, we have known that learning works best with a one-on-one tutor who encourages the student to keep working until mastery is achieved. We can’t afford, or find, enough excellent human tutors, so the question is whether there are technologies that are ready to handle the job, and whether anything is different now than in decades past. We will review the state of the art in online teaching, and where the practice may be heading.

3D Printer Demonstration on Friday, February 1 at 3:30 pm in TCL 202.

A 3D printer is a machine that can be used to create real 3 dimensional objects from digital files. The REPRAP is a low-cost 3D printer design that has created a surge of interest open source 3D printer technology. The goal of the REPRAP project is to create a 3D printer that can reproduce itself (almost). During Winter Study, a group of students from diverse backgrounds built and operated a REPRAP printer. The design and build process will be described followed by an actual demonstration of the printer. Documentation of the project, procedures and a complete bill of materials will be posted on-line to aid others who may want to construct a printer of their own.

3D Printer