Computer Science Education Week: Day 3!
Welcome to Day 3 of Computer Science Education Week! We’re here to share some exciting innovations have come from computer science. Share these stories and inspire your students with the world of programming.
A Smartphone That can Fix Itself?!?!
How many times have you dropped your phone face down and been terrified to pick it up and find that it’s now scarred with a massive crack across the screen? Lucky for you, scientists are coming up with a new polymer material that can replace glass in phone screens and be able to automatically fix scratches and cracks on your phone! Using this sort of flexible material also means that your technology may be able to bend and fold. Some say that these “flexible sensors” are going to be the next big thing in electronics, allowing for an entirely new interface that can be programmed to respond to light touch and squeezing to navigate your phone. Watch this video to learn more: https://youtu.be/scZXknjS-PY
The Raspberry Pi is a small, cheap computer that packs a whole lot of power. With a Raspberry Pi, you can write programs to do almost anything without having to buy an expensive computer or host programs online, which can be complicated. Learn more about the new Raspberry Pi here: https://player.vimeo.com/video/146893658
AI Passes College Entrance Exam
Researchers at The National Institute of Informatics have been working on artificial intelligence to take Japan’s national college entrance exams and achieve an above average scores. The AI is a set of algorithms written with code that analyze the questions and answer choices and try to figure out the correct answer. Can you imagine if a robot could take the SATs for you? Don’t worry though — the robot had to spend a lot of time studying as well. It’s been cramming since 2011 and was only just able to get an above average score.
Can you think of ways that technology might change with flexible sensors? What project would you want to build using a Raspberry Pi? How long do you think it will take for the AI test taker to get a score that will let it into every Japanese university?
Let us know in the comments or by reaching out to us on twitter @CodeHS! And tune back in tomorrow to learn about more cool applications of computer science.
