Synthetic Biology For Programmers (PPT Presentation)

Here is Josh Bruning’s presentation from his very interesting talk at ACM on Friday about Synthetic biology:

An Introduction to Synthetic Biology – the intersection of computer science and genetics, including refactoring DNA and engineering and synthesizing new organisms.

Introduction to Synthetic Biology – Last Regular ACM Meeting this Semester

Hi Everyone!

Our last regular ACM meeting will be held tomorrow, Friday, April 24, at 4:30pm in LH 133 as usual.

Josh Bruning will be presenting on: An Introduction to Synthetic Biology – the intersection of computer science and genetics, including refactoring DNA and engineering and synthesizing new organisms.

Earlier this semester Josh spoke on Game engineering pipeline.

Free drinks will be provided!

I hope to see you there!

Elijah Lofgren
LETU ACM President

Special ACM Meeting over Supper on Monday 27th with Don Christensen (CASE, IBM, CA-TELON, Quinsoft)

Hi Everyone!

The following special meeting announcement just came in from Dr. Baas:

Don Christensen is visiting campus next week and has agreed to meet with CS majors during supper on Monday, 27th, in one of the Corner Cafe’s dining rooms. We’re also invited to attend the day-long meetings, Monday-Wednesday in MSC3, 9am-5pm.

Here’s a short bio on the man.

Don Christensen introduced in 1981 one of the first CASE tools on the commercial market. Don worked as an IBM Systems Engineer in the 70s, and created a system called Application Development System (ADS). In 1981, New England Life Insurance, Raytheon, John Hancock Life Insurance and Liberty Mutual became users of this new software. ADS today is sold and maintained by Computer Associates (CA) and referred to as CA-TELON and sold in its height $34 million in one year. Don lives in Quincy, Massachusetts and has two children, a daughter who works with her dad as a web programmer and a son who is a programmer as well. Don with his current software company, Quinsoft, is releasing to the Open Community under GPLv3 called OpenCUAS (Open Community University Administrative System).

Be sure to try and join us if you can!

New 2009-2010 Officers Elected!

Congratulations to our new 2009-2010 Officers:
James Denton (President)
Kimberly White (Vice President)
Joshua Hillmann (Treasurer)
Joseph Wallace (Secretary)

This is a great team of people!

ACM Officer Elections and POV-Ray animation on Friday

Hi Everyone!

I hope you had a good Easter break!

This Friday, April 17th), Joseph Wallace will present on “Animating With POV-Ray”. This meeting will be at 4:30pm in LH 133.

POV-Ray is a free program for creating three-dimensional images.

This presentation will cover simple clock-based animation and the use of macros to construct easily-controlled objects. As POV-Ray is preinstalled on the lab computers, feel free to experiment during the talk!

We will also have ACM Officer Elections, so be sure to come and nominate yourself or your friends at the meeting!

Here’s a quick description of the positions (contact us if you would like more details):

ACM President (Chair):

• Finds and schedules speakers for meetings.
• Sends meeting announcement meetings.
• Sets up and holds ACM officer meetings

As ACM president, I’d guess that I spend on average about 1 hour per week on ACM related emails and 1 hour preparing for and attending ACM officer meetings (not held every week if meetings are already scheduled)

The Vice President presides over any meetings that the President misses and in general helps with anything that is needed.

ACM Secretary

-makes powerpoint slides for chapel and flyer announcements

-assists with meetings: planning, setup

-(in the future) keeps minutes?

-creates funding request bills for Senate

Treasurer:

Being treasurer does not take much time.  Basically, all you need to do is make sure to fill out the forms to reimburse people who buy stuff for the ACM.

There are official descriptions in the LETU ACM Constitution ftp://ftp.letu.edu/classes/COSC/ACM/Archive/ACMConstitution.pdf

I look forward to seeing who becomes our new officers!

Elijah Lofgren

No ACM Meeting on Friday. Officer Elections at Next Meeting!

Hi Everyone!

We won’t have a meeting this Good Friday because some people will be gone for Easter break.

At our next meeting, on Friday, April 17th we will have ACM Officer Elections, so be sure to come!

Here’s a quick description of the positions (contact us if you would like more details):

ACM President (Chair):

• Finds and schedules speakers for meetings.
• Sends meeting announcement meetings.
• Sets up and hold ACM officer meetings

As ACM president, I’d guess that I spend on average about 1 hour per week on ACM related emails and 1 hour preparing for and attending ACM officer meetings (not held every week if meetings are already scheduled)

ACM Secretary

-makes powerpoint slides for chapel and flyer announcements

-assists with meetings: planning, setup

-(in the future) keeps minutes?

-creates funding request bills for Senate

There are official descriptions in the LETU ACM Constitution which describe the Vice President and Treasurer position ftp://ftp.letu.edu/classes/COSC/ACM/Archive/ACMConstitution.pdf

At or next meeting (On Friday, April 17th), Joseph Wallace will present: “Animating With POV-Ray”

POV-Ray is a free program for creating three-dimensional images.

This presentation will cover simple clock-based animation

and the use of macros to construct easily-controlled objects.

As POV-Ray is preinstalled on the lab computers, feel free to

experiment yourself during the talk!

Have a blessed Resurrection Day weekend!

Elijah Lofgren

LETU ACM President

ACM Meeting: “Critical Thinking Puzzles” and DRM C++Senior Design Project

Hi Everyone!

The next ACM meeting will be held April 3, at 4:30pm in LH 133.

Like critical thinking?  This Friday, the guys who brought you bitloot will show you how to code critical thinking puzzles that scale to thousands of users on the web.  Your puzzles will run live on our social news site and will help us filter good news from bad.  All levels of programming experience welcome.

Free drinks will be provided!

Special Announcement: Get CS Credit for DRM Senior Design Team Project:

Interested in helping reach other for Christ using cutting-edge software radio?

The 2009-2010 DRM team needs you!

Roles will include:

• C++/Matlab programming for diversity requirements (this will likely include some parallel programming)
• VHDL programming on the Xilinx FGPA

You will get class credit for your work and can likely replace some CS courses such as Program Translation. For more information about replacing CS classes, talk to Dr. Baas.

For more information and to see some videos of the software you would be working with see the LETU DRM Project Website: http://www.letu.edu/opencms/opencms/_Academics/Engineering/engineering/student-projects/drm/index.html

Interested? Then be sure to attend the DRM Recruitment Meeting this Thursday. You’ll be able to talk to the team and learn more.

When: 1:30pm this Thursday, April 2^nd.

Where: Berry Auditorium in Glaske

I plan to replace Program Translation with working with the DRM team this Fall.

I’ll bring some brochures to the meeting Friday.

I hope you can make it!

Elijah Lofgren
LETU ACM President

LETU ACM Meeting: Friday @ 4:30 – Game engineering pipeline

Hi Everyone!

The next ACM meeting will be held this Friday, March 27, at 4:30pm in *LH 130B* (small advanced PC lab).

Come hear Josh Bruning present on “Game engineering pipeline (game design, content creation, development, publishing/selling)”

Josh will take use through the general process of creating and publishing a game so that we’ll have access to a complete set of tools to make a game and get it licensed.

Last Spring, Josh Bruning presented an exciting series on XNA Game Development in addition to serving as the ACM President.

Free drinks will be provided!

ACM Officer Elections announcement:
We plan to have ACM Officer elections on Friday, April 17th (our second to last meeting) so if you are interested in serving or know someone who is, please be sure to come, nominate, and vote. The ACM President, Vice-President, and Treasurer positions will need to be filled by new people so will be many opportunities to get involved.

I hope to see you on Friday,

Elijah Lofgren
LETU ACM President

No ACM Meeting Tomorrow or Next Week

Enjoy Spring Break! We’ll have our next meeting on March 27th. Josh Bruning will be speaking on Game Engineering Pipeline. More details later!

ACM Meeting – Friday @ 4:30 – Mac Application Development

Hi Everyone!

The next ACM meeting will be held Friday, March 6, at 4:30pm in *LH 130B* (small advanced PC lab).

Come hear Peter Kendall present on Macintosh application development.

Peter will be going over Cocoa with Objective-C for Macintosh application development along with Xcode, the IDE.

This will obviously require a Macintosh computer.  So because of the specificity of the topic, if you want to be involved, come with your own Mac.  Specifically, Peter requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher with the Developer tools installed already because he will not go over this in the meeting.  Even if you don’t have the above, come anyway and listen in.

Free drinks will be provided!

Elijah Lofgren
LETU ACM President