teaching machines

Madeup Status Report #1

May 26, 2015 by . Filed under madeup, public.

The reason I became a teacher is so that I can do 1000 things in a day. I design homeworks; write grading unit tests; plan and deliver lectures; read up on relevant news and research; review academic papers; read books on things I don’t know enough about; compose haiku; serve on various university committees; oversee independent studies; meet with advisees as they plan their future; write recommendation letters; sift through endless email messages; meet with industry partners who wish to hire our students; conduct outreach for local schools; meet with prospective students; write grants; manage teaching assistants; file paperwork for travel, overrides to degree requirements, and even just showing up to work; field requests from other faculty and the community about technology projects; talk to the bookstore about books for my courses; keep an eye on the state of the lab machines and servers to make sure they have required software and are running properly; generate ideas for research projects; consult with students working on research projects; partner with local K-12 schools to provide a pathway for students to the university; survive budget cuts; interview faculty candidates; give students timely feedback on their work; and avoid the dunk tank at the annual CS picnic.

This morning I posted grades. Summer is now here and 995 of these tasks will go away for a few months. Whew. I’m looking forward to a summer of focus on Madeup—thanks to the support I received through Kickstarter!

I’ve been around the Internet long enough to understand that transparency on crowd-funded projects is important, so I plan on posting a weekly status report to document the things I’ve been working on. I’ll also share a special treat: a model of the week.

Fixlog

Short descriptions of the fixes I made recently are shared below. Many of them require working knowledge of the Madeup code base, but I offer them as documentation of our progress and as a record of Madeup’s development.

2015/05/26

2015/05/25

2015/05/21

2015/05/20

2015/05/19

2015/05/18

2015/05/17

2015/05/16

2015/05/15

2015/05/14

Model of the Week

In my graphics course, I asked students to make some models for me using Madeup. Here are two of their creations:

David S.'s Klein bottle generated using the surface command.

David S.’s Klein bottle generated using the surface command.

Joel G.'s pagoda model generated from dowels and  a surface of revolution.

Joel G.’s pagoda model generated from dowels and a surface of revolution.