Computer Simulations and Interactive Media

Computer Simulations and Interactive Media is a course on design and prototyping. This course will introduce students to the concepts of web app development, game design, and artificial intelligence through basic programming and mathematics. The course will provide a general overview of simulations, interactivity, and prototyping, with emphasis on culture, history, real world practices, and applications. Students will journal their explorations, develop and build a final team project, and present their projects via live demo. After the course, each student will have their own online design and programming portfolio.

Instructor: Sherol Chen

E-Mail: sherolchen@gmail.com
Course Website: spcs.sherolchen.com
Meeting Time: 9 am - 11:30 am MTWRF
Class Room: 200-205 Main Quad

Teaching Assistants

Peter Farejowicz
- Wordpress: http://pfarejowicz.wordpress.com/
- Github: https://github.com/PFarejowicz
Julie Ni
- Wordpress: http://nijulie.wordpress.com/
- Github: https://github.com/njulie

Texts and Materials

Course Topics

Topics and Schedule are subject to change

Weekend
	Lecture	Assignment	Reading
Mon	Introduction and Setup	Wordpress and Github signup, JS Math Quiz	Cookbook ch 1
Tue	History and Foundations of Computing	JS Interactive Fiction	Cookbook ch 2
Wed	Datatypes and Data Structures	Twine IF, JS Mole Game	Cookbook ch 3
Thr	Algorithms and AI	Processing.js, JS Tile Game	Turing Paper, Cookbook ch 4
Fri	Guest Speaker, OOP, and Graphics	Processing Sorting, JS Platformer	Design Book, Cookbook ch 5
Mon	Web Design	Processing Sorting, JS Fighter	Gates Letter, Cookbook ch 6
Tue	Graphs and TSP	Processing TSP, JS Shooter	Cookbook ch 7
Wed	Field Trip: Exploratorium	Field Trip: Exploratorium
Thr	Logic and Game Theory	Processing A*, JS FPS	Cookbook ch 8
Fri	Arduino and Circuits	Arduino
Weekend
Mon	Game Design and Game Studies	Processing Tic Tac Toe, JS RPG	Cookbook ch 9
Tue	Cellular Automata	Guest Speaker, Final Projects
Wed	Field Trip: Computer History Museum	Final Project
Thr	Final Project Presentations	Final Project Presentations

Assignments

Week 1

Day 1 - Prime Numbers, Permutations, Combinations, Internet, Networks, Github, Wordpress, Command-Line Arguments, Domain Name, DNS, Hosting, Sieve of Eratosthenes, Top Level Domain, Client Side, Server Side
Day 2 - History, Bit Manipulation, Base Conversion, Parameters, Functions, Assembler, Microprocessor, Microcontroller, IDE, Variables, For-Loop, Game-Loop/Draw-Loop, Machine Language, Boolean, Hexadecimal, Octal
Day 3 - Data Structures, Datatypes, Finite State Machines, Logic Error, Syntax Error, Interactive Fiction, Twine, Arrays, Linked Lists, Stacks, Queues, Binary Trees, Bits/Bytes, Typed Language, Dynamically Typed Language, Selection Sort, Bubble Sort, Insertion Sort, Truth Tables
Day 4 - Turing, AI, Algorithms, Believability, Big O, Processing.js, Networking, Servers, Turing Test, Eliza Effect, Binary Search, Animations, Binary Search Trees, Loebner, Computer Graphics, Web Apps, Canvas
Day 5 - Object Oriented Programming, Game Design, Design Docs, Classes, Constructor, Methods, Swap Function, Nested For-Loops, if-else

Week 2

Day 6 - OOP, Constructor, Data Members, Methods, Classes, Objects, FSM, Nested For-Loops, Prototyping, Cascading Style Sheets, HTML, NLG/NLP
Day 7 - Graph Theory, Edges, Vertices, States, Adjacency Matrix, Path Finding, Shortest Path, Traveling Sales Person, Depth First Search, Breadth First Search, Directed/Undirected Graph, Weighted/Unweighted Graph
Day 8 - Field Trip
Day 9 - A*, Abstraction, Polymorphism, Inheritance, Encapsulation, (Imperative/Functional/Declarative), Fully Connected Graph, Heuristic, Prisoners Dilemma, Bayes Rule, Abstraction, Polymorphism, Inheritance, Encapsulation, Nash Equilibrium
Day 10 - Arduino, Circuits, and Logic, DeMorgans Law, Implication, And Gates, Or Gates, Analog, Digital, Monty Hall, Probabilities, Information Conformity

Week 3

Day 11 - Cellular Automata, Game Design, Ludus, Paida, Narrative, Narratology vs Ludology debate, Math Genealogy Project, Instantial, Procedural, Affordances, Agency, GDC, Game AI, Unity, Alternate Reality Game, Procedural Content Generation
Day 12 - Guest Speaker
Day 13 - Field Trip
Day 14 - Final Projects