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GUTS

Kickoff Materials

• The Computational Science Process
• The Abstract Sessions
• Advanced Class
• Mode: Unix, Programming, Web Pages, and Email

This class is one hour long. No hands-on work. Get the students to talk with you as much as possible during the class.

• One-page student handout: Word File
• One-page student handout: Web Page
• Instructor Lesson Plan/Lecture Notes Word File
• Instructor Lesson Plan/Lecture Notes Web Page

The content for these documents was taken mostly from Dick Allen's STI PowerPoint presentation on the subject.

• PowerPoint Presentation

Feel free to use whatever materials you like.

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The purpose of the session is to make sure the teams have chosen a problem that is suitable for science, has measurable components so that a mathematical model can be developed, and from that a computing solution can be written. The session is secondarily about mentoring teams who have good abstracts and are ready to get started on their project.

We are planning to have an Express Line with tables set up and several facilitators arranged so that three or four teams can check in at one time to get their abstracts reviewed and approved.

There will be other tables to help teams get their abstracts completed. Some of these teams will have come from the Express Line and need to refine their abstracts or even rethink their projects so that they reflect the computational science focus of the Challenge. When these teams have a good/reasonable abstract, it will be approved either by returning to the Express Line or by any of the facilitators working with teams. They can upload their improved abstracts at one of the computers in the room.

Some students will come to these tables and need help from scratch. When the abstracts are ready, they, too, can upload their files.

Students whose abstracts are complete can move to computers to begin research or work at tables to plan their timeline, assign tasks to different members of the team, etc. If there are facilitators who are not working with teams to get their abstracts completed it would be great if they could do some mentoring of teams who are ready.

It may be helpful to look at the abstract guidelines and the abstracts that are already up on the Challenge web page - http://www.challenge.nm.org/abstracts. There is also a link on the web page for questions to ask to direct the students: http://www.challenge.nm.org/glorieta/tpd.html. Additionally, http://www.challenge.nm.org/about/areas.shtml links to areas of science and may be helpful for teams still looking for an idea. This guidelines link can be useful, too. http://www.challenge.nm.org/about/guidelines.shtml. We urge the students to step through the flow chart at http://www.challenge.nm.org/ctg/overview/project.shtml.

We will have a scheme for keeping track of which teams' abstracts have been given a green light.

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This class is three hours long. No hands-on work.

The goal of this class is to provide an overview of advanced programming topics. Some of the topics to be covered include:

• Recursion
• Data Structures
• Program Design

• Artificial Life
• Genetic Algorithms
• Neural Networks
• Self-Organizing Maps

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This class is one hour long. Mostly hands-on, with a bit of discussion at the beginning.

• One-page student handout: Word File
• One-page student handout: Web Page
• Online Tutorial

Five minutes or so should be spent discussing the one-page handout with the students. Then, they will do the online tutorial (hardcopy handouts of the tutorial will also be available).
NOTE: students will be encouraged to do this online tutorial BEFORE coming to the kickoff conference.

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Questions? Contact Consult