Two weeks after I landed in Australia I joined a voluntary program called Scientists in Schools, in which a Scientist (ha, that would be me), and a Teacher team up to make lessons interesting for kids. After a police check and stuff, and two months down the line, I am now partnered up with a good secondary school here in Adelaide.
Yesterday I had my first visit to the school, and I talked about cool examples of math in real life and computer science. In particular, I talked about roller coasters (ha!), GPS triangulation (cool!) and trajectory of a projectile in games (major cool!).
For the last one, I used a simple three little piggies game and a very complex equation (eventually simplified) to get them to apply some maths. Of course, I didn't implement the game, not fully at least, and had Marian deal with the shitty animation part (Objective C, I now heart you! XCode, I still hate you!) I got two of the school's iPads and two of my own and loaded them with the game. We also made a desktop application for them to play with. (Behold my office!)
I spend a lot of time on this (2 nights), especially since I worked only after hours. One time, I left the office at 12 midnight (and spent the next hour in the parking lot texting friends - but more about this later). The fact that I left so late allowed me to see who's living in the tree right opposite the university! A Brush-tailed Possum!
Witness the brush!
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