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Mary Ann Horton and the invention of email attachments
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Mary Ann Horton and the invention of email attachments

Edie Schlain Windsor was a senior systems programmer at IBM. There is more to life than computing though. She led the landmark US Supreme Court Case that was a...

From Egyptian Survey puzzles to computational thinking
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

From Egyptian Survey puzzles to computational thinking

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London One way to use logical thinking is to deduce new facts but then turn them into IF-THEN rules. They tell us an action...

Pac-Man and Games for Girls
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Pac-Man and Games for Girls

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London In the beginning video games were for boys…and then came Pac-Man. Before mobile games, game consoles and PC based...

The invisible dice mystery – a magic trick underpinned by computing and maths
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

The invisible dice mystery – a magic trick underpinned by computing and maths

Maths and magic, algebra and abracadabra - impress your friends with this magic trick (no props required) and learn a little bit about computer science.

T. V. Raman and his virtual guide dogs
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

T. V. Raman and his virtual guide dogs

by Daniel Gill, Queen Mary University of London It’s 1989, a year with lots of milestones in Computer Science. In March, Tim Berners-Lee puts down in writing the...

Designing for autistic people
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Designing for autistic people

by Daniel Gill and Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London What should you be thinking about when designing for a specific group with specific needs, suchContinue...

Can you trust a smile?
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Can you trust a smile?

You're probably pretty good at spotting a fake smile, but how might we teach robots to do the same...

Testing AIs in Minecraft
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Testing AIs in Minecraft

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London What makes a good environment for child AI learning development? Possibly the same as for human child learning development...

Computers that read emotions
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Computers that read emotions

We can add emotion to our text communication using symbols but will computers be able to work out what we're saying?

Neurodiversity and what it takes to be a good programmer
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Neurodiversity and what it takes to be a good programmer

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London People often suggest neurodiverse people make good computer scientists. For example, one of the most famous autistic...

The top 10 bugs
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

The top 10 bugs

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London (updated from the archive) Bugs are everywhere, but why not learn from the mistakes of others. Here are some common...

Do something computationally funny for money
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Do something computationally funny for money

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London It is Red nose day in the UK  the day of raising money for the comic relief charity by buying and wearing red noses...

Calculating Pi for Pi Day
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Calculating Pi for Pi Day

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London Today is Pi Day (14 March: 3.14) so we should look at how on earth you compute a number like Pi (3.1.4159….). It...

Could AI end science?
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Could AI end science?

by Nick Ballou, Oxford Internet Institute Scientific fraud is worryingly common, though rarely talked about. It has been happening for years, but now Artificial...

Find your own time zone – #BSW24
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Find your own time zone – #BSW24

Time is the theme for this year's British Science Week. Here's how to calculate your own personal time zone. We also have a new time portal with some other 'timely'...

The Social Machine of Maths
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

The Social Machine of Maths

by Ursula Martin, University of Oxfordand Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London In school we learn about the maths that others have invented: results that...

Software for Justice
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Software for Justice

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London (originally published in 2011) A jury is given misleading information in court by an expert witness. An innocent...

Designing robots that care (plus links to related careers)
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Designing robots that care (plus links to related careers)

An article from Nicola Plant about ways of making social robots more sociable which links to a related EPSRC project about a tablet-based AI tool for people with...

A visit to the Turing Machine: a short story
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

A visit to the Turing Machine: a short story

by Greg Michaelson Greg Michaelson is an Emeritus professor of computer science at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. He is also a novelist and a short storyContinue...

Lego Computer Science: Turing Machines Part 3: the program
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Lego Computer Science: Turing Machines Part 3: the program

by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London We have so far built the hardware of a Lego Turing Machine. Next we need the crucial part: software. It needs aContinue...
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