Along with my friend and colleague Lucy Simko, I have been working on a an activity/interactive presentation themed around secret messages that is suited for a wide age range of students.
Secret message puzzle
Secret Messages Outreach Activity
Author: Camille Cobb
Knitting Journal (4)
I’ve made two new tops since the last post, from the yarn that was meant for the Denali Sweater (see here).
Knitting Journal (3)
Now I really am done with We Are Knitters patterns. I was going on vacation and wanted something to do while watching TV with my parents. I also wanted to give knitting sleeves a try. So I picked out the Denali sweater.
Image from We Are Knitters
Knitting Journal (2)
The next thing I knit was the Slushies Top from We Are Knitters (WAK). They claim this one is advanced, presumably because there’s actual shaping around the neck and shoulders. But I also thought this was fairly easy, except for the things they left unspecified in the pattern 😡 and, honestly, those parts were fairly straightforward, too, once I found decent instructions online.
Knitting Journal (1)
I’ve recently gotten back into knitting. In particular, I’m trying my hand(s) at knitting clothes. So far I’ve produced 3 tops that I’m excited to keep wearing (one of which I’m planning a minor adjustment to) and a baby sweater from the end of two skeins of yarn.
Making Paper
I made paper last weekend! This is a project I did several times as a kid but wanted to try again now. I’m pretty excited about the results and hoping to find a way to hang one of the sheets of paper.
PoCSci 2017
I am honored that two pieces of my recent work were accepted to the 2017 PoCSci Conference and to have received Best Paper in the standard track and Best VC Pitch in the new-this-year Tech Transfer Track!
Asking for a Friend
Self-Deprecating Code
LipiTOR
Self-Deprecating Winners
Playing with Makey Makey
Last week I finally got around to putting the Makey Makey my mom got me for Christmas to good use. Well, “good use” might be a bit of an overstatement. Eric (featured in the videos below), other students in the Security and Privacy Research Lab, and I created an internet-connected touch light, then turned it into an internet-connected basketball hoop light switch.
Off-by-one Error on Scorpion
Scorpion is a show about a group of geniuses that repeatedly prevent catastrophes with science and math knowledge. Exaggerating the science to advance the plot seems standard for TV, but I was amused by an off-by-one error in a recent episode.
Progress on My Pintograph
Did I mention I’ve been working on making my own pintograph? Here’s the first (decent) image it produced!!
It’s still a work in progress, but it draws reasonably well for now. Want to know more about how I made it?
Bad Password Practices in Southwest Airlines Commercial
ihatemyjob1 might not be a great password … and there’s probably something wrong with the bigger picture if you have to spell out your password to a room full of people and have it displayed in plaintext on a giant screen 😂
µHandy Review
I recently got (and quickly sent back) a µHandy/uHandy. It’s a microscope for your smartphone, which sounds really cool! Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage to take clear photos with it (e.g., I had a lot of trouble getting it to focus across the whole image). Given that my ultimate goal was to produce nice-looking, print-quality photos, it wasn’t right for my purposes, but I can imagine it being a lot of fun if your goal is simply to observe things.
Camille Cobb 