Cluster 1: Computers in Everyday Life
Week 1 (AKA Opening Week!)
Cluster Life!
Day 1 (Monday 07/10/23):
We first did an icebreaker bingo game where we walked around the class and asked each other questions for our bingo card. Then, we were introduced to the history of computers and how computers are impacting us everywhere in our everyday life. After a short break, we jumped straight into learning our first coding language - python! We learned how to create variables, make print statements, write comments, use operators, and implement functions.
After lunch we started on our first lab where our goal was to send an email without using gmail. To do this we used python and coding to send customized emails.
Day 2 (Tuesday 07/11/2023):
Today we first joined a zoom meeting with all the other clusters where a professor introduced us to the ethics essay that is due next week. After the zoom meeting, our cluster decided to brainstorm what topic we should choose for the rest of the morning. We still haven’t decided yet and we are going to pitch ideas on Thursday morning. So far the most popular topics are AI and gun control.
In the afternoon we started off with a short lecture from Professor Soo. We learned about more complex built in data-types in python such as lists, loops, and dictionaries. Then, we used this knowledge in a lab to send multiple customized emails at the same time.
Day 3 (Wednesday 07/12/2023):
In today’s lecture, we learned about the basics of web scraping. We were introduced to html tags and attributes first. Then, we learned how to scrape text and images from html code using python commands. After the lecture, we enjoyed a presentation from a guest speaker that just completed his phd.
After lunch we completed a lab that required us to use our new web scraping skills to scrape text and images off websites.
Our Guest Speaker: Sam Lau
He showed us a lot of cool features of pandas in Python! We got to see how many people had a certain name, and how popular they were across the country. Who knew Liam was such a popular name.
Cluster 1 Working on Web
Scraping!
Scraping!
During lab time, we got to practice what we learned in the morning about web scraping by gathering data on the UCSD COSMOS website!
A Little Sneak Peek of our Lab!
Here's a little snippet of what goes down during lab time. The bottom half of the right tab shows a mere fraction of the data we're gathering.
Day 4 (Thursday 07/13/2023):
In sci-com class time today, we came up with our ethics essay idea using ranked voting, our topic ended up being whether or not AI should replace all the jobs it can do. After, we went to the library to research our topic for the ethics essay.
We had our first mini project in the afternoon, which we will present on Friday. The project is to use all the skills we learned throughout the week to scrape text and images from wikipedia and send it to our classmates.
Residential Life!
The first weekday, after a long lecture and sending emails to our friends with code, we all gathered around our cluster RA Ernest within the field. As the time slowly crept towards the day of COSMOlympics, our cluster needed a plan to create the best skit to win. We began to brainstorm ideas at first, coming up with ideas such as Pitch Perfect, High School Musical, Mortal Kombat and even something ridiculous being going to Target. The activities that day were about COSMOS University, having multiple stations throughout to take fun polaroids of friends, creating our own monster, playing bingo and more.
The day after, once we finished sending multiple emails at once, our cluster finally decided what we should do, pitching the idea of “The Grinch steals COSMOS” towards our other cluster RA, Lidia. Making a poll on GroupMe, the idea was overflooded votes, and we later created a doc to organize our plans. Once we finally worked our brains off we all took separate ways and did activities like going to Lo-fi Café or meditating.
But this was just one step out of many to creating a perfect skit; on day three, all of us devised a script and gave ourselves roles. We forced Ernest to be the mean old grinch fighting against our Santa Claus Andres, while Lidia was Cindy Lou and a bunch of people forming a human tree. Cedric, Connor and Noah took one for the team by being the dogs of the skit, having to bark like animals. Once our script was tweaked and finalized, our cluster had to think of props to make and rehearse the day before COSMOlympics. For Wednesday, we got to do activities like crocheting, bracelets (though that got replaced with designing lanyards), dodgeball, and even playing Just Dance with RAs with a TV near the amphitheater.
Meet Your Cluster 1 Newsletter Team!
Cluster Life Writer: Mimi Zhao
Cluster Life Photographer: Yunah Chung
Residential Life Writer: Cedric Mallari
Residential Life Photographer: Izy Chan