Ask HN: What group activity can I do to get students interested in CS?

Hi HN,

I'm giving a talk at a college with a NSF funded program to keep students pursuing STEM (science, math, computer science) majors. There are very few CS majors in the group, and I get the opportunity to lead an activity for an hour. Does anyone have any ideas for activities I can lead a group of 8-15 people that will get them more interested in CS? Or maybe a presentation or video I can show them?

Thanks guys.

4 comments

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arturoogroo 14y ago ↗

Well i think at that age kids are more interested in playing games and things like that..You could show them how cool games are made, show them some of the programming that involves, the design of the characters, all that stuff...Put them some examples of video games like Angry birds, Plants Vs zombies, Fruit ninja and so on..kids of this age are more interested in smartphone games than console, so this could be good examples, they just don't know the magic behind those games...Maybe they could get motivated and start their own game someday... Good luck!

pron 14y ago ↗

Umm, you can go over Facebook's IPO and Zuckerberg's take, perhaps?

jrubinovitz 14y ago ↗

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I think I'm looking for something more scientifically demanding. I'm basically trying to convert a bunch of kids pursuing medical school, most of which probably do not have the chops to get in. I would love to teach them some basic data mining that has to do with health science, or dig up some data startups to talk about. I'll keep researching.

kellros 14y ago ↗

I'd suggest you perhaps review the impact systems make by reviewing google search engine, facebook app platform, adroid/ios/windows8 apps and their intricacies.

After all, these are the stuff people use daily. You'd have a better chance if you go into high and low details of implementations ex. algorithms, math and relevant areas related per system.