They’ve been a while coming but I’m thrilled to finally have them online for anyone to see. The atmosphere and attitude captured in these videos is probably unique to, and more importantly absolutely ubiquitous within, CS15.

Opening Day Skit

The skit showed/acted on the first day of class. Star Trek themed (as was the course and website) in 2009. Written by the 2009 Humor TAs.

Collaboration Policy Skit

3 short filmed skits animating the course’s collaboration policy. Written by the 2009 Humor TAs.

Star-crossed References

An in class skit personifying some of the aspects of programming and the Java environment. Includes variable scope, garbage collection, references and constants. Presumably written by TAs who’ve long since graduated.

Slush Gray

In class, Snow White themed skit. Has a linked list. The skit is a long-standing CS15 feature. Presumably written by TAs who’ve long since graduated.

Othello

The skit written and preformed on film by the group of TAs responsible for the final project ‘Othello’ in which students make the board game Othello and implement a minimax based AI.

Adventure

The skit written and preformed on film by the group of TAs responsible for the final project ‘Adventure’ in which students make a 3d randomly generating objective based maze game.

Sketchy

The skit preformed on film by the group of TAs responsible for the final project ‘Sketchy’ in which students make a basic graphics editing program. Written by previous years’ TAs.

Credits

The credits reel for all of the videos included on the DVD from which they were ripped.

Bloopers

Bloopers reel from lots of the above videos.

Cast List:

• Andy van Dam – Professor
• Alex Unger – Head TA
• Josh Kaplan – Head TA
• Kelly Newton – Head TA in charge of skit rehearsals and organization.
• Alex Feldman – Humor TA
• Alex Schultz – Humor TA
• Jason Gorelick (Video editing and filming)
• Will Cheung (Video editing and filming)
• Elinor Fung
• Gene Nelson
• Greg Young
• Lu Zeng
• Nabeel Gillani
• Jason Freeman
• Jonathan Eldridge
• Paul Sastrasinh
• Stephen Poletto
• Vazheh Moussavi
• Adam Zethraeus

Personal Notes:

I’m in the opening day skit (yes, in a corset), in ‘Star-Crossed References’, and in the Adventure project’s video (which all of the actors in had a large role in Co-writing).

TAing this course was an awesome experience during which I met and worked with some of the best people I know. Props to Andy, the HTAs and all my fellow UTAs. Crediting everyone for everything they did in the course would be impossible. You all rock. <3

The skit is about pointers and is set in the Mushroom kingdom… It’s nowhere near as hardcore as the stuff that we did for CS15 but it’s my baby, so here it is.

Script after the break.

C Pointers skit. By Adam Zethraeus, (azethrae)

Cast:
Mario: Neal
Peach: Miranda
Bowser: Kelsey
Toad-Priest-Narrator: Adam

Props:
Mario: hat, generally red clothes, mustache
Peach: pink clothes, pref. dress, tiara, veil
Bowser: horns, vicious demeanor
Toad: pillow taped to head

Signs:
(Sign 1) Bowser assigns a pointer to peach in memory with this:
_
int *deviousPointer;
deviousPointer = &peach;
_

(Sign 2) Bowser inserts himself into Peach’s memory space with this:
_
*deviousPointer = BOWSER;
_

Script:
<As the scene starts, Bowser lies vanquished on the floor between Mario and Peach>

Toad<aside>: The battle was long and hard fought, but inevitably in the end, after restarting from his most recent save point enough times, the Mushroom Kingdom’s force for good, Mario, triumphed over the evil Bowser – freeing Princess Peach whom Bowser had been holding captive.

Peach<thoroughly overenthusiastically>: Mario! Thank god, you’ve saved me! And you fought so valiantly! You’re my hero!

Mario<wipes brow and appears exhausted>: Of course, it was <takes time to pant> nothing at all.

Peach: But how can I reward you for such noble and selfless service to our kingdom? <pause for audience thought> I know, I’ll bake you a cake! It’ll be huge and pink and I’ll make it sparkle and it’ll be delicious and…

Mario<interrupting>: No!… <awkward pause> I mean, it’s fine. I wouldn’t want to put you through the trouble!

Peach: I have to do something! You must have died hundreds of times saving me!

Mario: Well… umm… why don’t we just go watch a movie at my place? I’ll kick Luigi out and it’ll be just the two of us and… <more awkward pause> y’know…

<pleading voice>

Peach<aghast>: But… you mean… you want to…

Mario<incredulous>: Yes! I crossed the whole Mushroom Kingdom and squashed like a thousand goombas for you! What did you think I wanted..!

Peach<ecstatic>: Oh Mario <hugs and strokes Mario>… I’m so happy you feel that way! I do too! But we have to get married first! I’m so excited!

Mario<hesitantly>: Yeah… uh, me too!

<All characters exit but Toad>

Toad<aside>: The next few months passed very slowly for Mario as he and Peach prepared for their marriage. Finally the big day arrived. The whole Mushroom kingdom was invited to see their Princess married to the humble but very well loved plumber. Everyone but Bowser was present for the ceremony.

<Mario stands center stage next to Toad. Peach walks towards them as though up the isle. She is wearing a veil><church music>

Toad<to Mario>: Mario, do you take Princess peach for your lawfully wedded wife for as long as you both shall live?

Mario: I D…

<Everyone Freezes. Enter Bowser!>

Bowser<menacing>: MUAHAHAHAHAHAAA

Bowser: That fool Mario thought that after he defeated me, he could just have Princess Peach. <voice grows frantic> But he cant! <v-frantic> She’s mine! And only ever mine. My sweet Princess Peach <dreamy…>

Bowser<snapping to>: Little did they know that when I captured peach, the first thing I did was declare a pointer and assign it to Peach’s address in memory! That way she’ll always be mine, and I will always have access to her!

<Bowser shows Sign 1>

Bowser: Now I can ruin their infantile little festivities with ease…

Bowser: Muahahahaha

Bowser: I’ll use my pointer to Peach’s space in memory to overwrite it… <pause for very dramatic effect> <practically shouted> WITH MYSELF!

<shows Sign 2>

<as whole case is frozen, Bowser walks over to peach, picks her up, moves her to the side>

Bowser<to Peach. Creepy.>: You’ll be mine forever Princessss.<optional creepy kiss>

<bowser takes Peach’s place in the frozen scene>

Bowser<sarcastic>: Don’t I look pretty?

<marriage scene continues, all cast but Peach is unfrozen>

Mario<obliviously to the audience>: I do!

Toad: And do you, Peach, take Mario to be your lawfully wed… <exclamation> Peach? Oh no! It’s Bowser!

Bowser<Booming>: I DO!

<Bowser kisses Mario>

Mario<incredulous and startled>: But..! What?!

Bowser<gloating and vindictive>: Come on baby! <Sarcastic and menacing> I’ve got a great night planned ahead of us!

<Bowser spanks Mario, grabs him by the collar and drags him offstage>

Mario<In true Vader style(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1npdZnzP9yo)>: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Toad<Higher Pitch>: Noooooo!

My job, aside from the universal holding office hours and grading papers was to create and maintain the website, as well as to do a couple of odd jobs such as the pictured poster (which really should have had more actual information on it). That said, holding office hours and actually teaching was by far the most fun part.

Anyway, I guess this post is most directed to people considering to apply to TA the course, so I’ll try to include some useful info. For one, it’s a lot of work, a lot of time (a fair number of people end up taking only three courses while TAing this class) and you’ll be terribly underpaid. Do it because you enjoy teaching or because you want too be more involved with the Brown CS department – whatever other reason you want. It’s also a really good way to become really familiar with the course material. Aside from academic stuff, you’ll be working really closely with 15 people or so and you’ll probably get to know at least some of them really well. You’ll have ample opportunity to get to know some of the students as well.

In short, apply! It’s worth it.

My brief was to make a website that would fit with the course’s theme (Yes the course has a theme. Read the aforementioned blog post), Star Trek. I decided to base the website off the Star Trek universe’s LCARS computer systems. This was by no means an original take on making a Star Trek tribute layout – lots of fan sites have done similar things – but it is certainly recognizable.

I cherry picked other layout aspects quite liberally from different time points in the Star Trek series. The header text uses the typeface from The Original Series. LCARS itself only features in episodes and movies placed chronologically after TNG. The ship shown is the Enterprise of the 2009 Star Trek relaunch.

I ran into the CSS column issue when making the layout. The dashed line under the navigation buttons was always intended to stretch to the bottom of the layout no matter how long the content was. I originally made this work with positioniseverything’s CSS columns hack but later realized that there would be anchored links in the content presented in the layout. The anchored links caused the layout to break in Firefox, so I was forced to revert to javascripting the same effect. However the javascript I (found via google and) used to do it doesn’t work in some versions of IE. I obviously need to become proficient with a JQuery or another good javascript library.

The layout also uses conditional comments and the ie7-js script to mitigate issues with IE6, in particular the use of a png image with an alpha layer for the Enterprise in the top left.

In closing… if you are reading this and are an undergraduate at Brown, take the course this year! If you tell me you’ve read this post, I’ll give you extra special help*.
*This statement is probably a lie.

The lecturer for the course is Andy Van Dam who holds a highly esteemed position within both the Brown and the US Computer Science communities. More information about Andy is scattered across the net, but suffice to say he is a good lecturer.

For anyone who has googled their way to this post and is in the position of considering the course, I wholeheartedly encourage you to take it. This goes both for those who only have a cursory interest in CS and for those looking to major in it. It is a great self standing introduction to a programming language. It might also be worth noting that it is entirely possible to be a (perfectly good) Teaching Assistant for the course, having taken no other CS course. I do however suggest that you pass on buying the associated text book as the lecture notes are very well developed, and provide all the information necessary for each of the assignments.

The course’s timeload (for me) was pretty intense. I spent over 15 hours on the second last assignment (tetris), and probably closer to 20 on my final project. The average time was far lower though. Something else which one might consider a downside to the course is the  collaboration policy. Do take a look at it.

The two main projects were Tetris (as mentioned) and a Final which could be one of four choices, ‘Adventure’, ‘Othello’, ‘Sketchy’ or an independent project of any sort which matched a set of difficulty and size criteria. I chose Adventure as a Final.

Tetris involved coding the classic game pretty much from the ground up, but using some basic shape creating code worked on earlier in the year. The basic requirements for the project were to make the falling, rotating blocks and deleting lines. Possible extensions included game levels, scores, preview, blocks, 2 player mode and player vs. computer mode.

Adventure involved generating a 3d maze environment using a recursive algorithm named drunken walk and support code at least partially from as far back as 1996. The basic requirements were to make a navigable maze with enemies in it and giving the game a completable goal. It needed to have a first person and an overhead view pane. Extension options were pretty much ‘be creative’. The aspects of my game which probably counted towards extension points were introducing rotating items to the game and having the lighting flash red when my character touched a monster and lost health.

Some other things that should be noted about the course are as follows. The grades are not curved. Apparently the majority of the people who complete the course get As. However some drop out as late as the final project. The lectures also have a very unique atmosphere. Skits are often put on and fully thematic lecture was held for Halloween.

Anyway, in conclusion, all in all it was an enjoyable course and I would recommend it to any Brown student with an interest in computer science. I would also love to know how it compares with introductory computer science courses at other Universities, if you happen to be in a position to share your experience.