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Weird Science Offered As University Class

Posted by kdawson on Mon Dec 10, 2007 07:45 PM
from the matter-of-degree dept.
Education Hardware Hacking Science
ludwigvan968 writes "The ACTLab at the University of Texas at Austin is making waves with its Weird Science class. The link is to the TA's blog with documentation of some of the projects: a laser harp, a 3D environment constructed with fog and an LCD projector, and a 'water bridge' using a 50,000-volt transformer. Next semester, they're introducing a new class called 'Disruptive Technologies.'"
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Submission: Weird Science offered as University Class by ludwigvan968 (857019)
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  • What about the girl (Score:5, Funny)

    by CaptainPatent (1087643) on Monday December 10 2007, @07:47PM (#21650135) Journal
    This is not a complete class... I read nothing about animating an uber-hot girlfriend!
    • This is a science class, not a dark arts class. There is nothing rational about women. Women and creationism are on the same grounds as far as being taught in a science classroom. :)
      • No wonder everyone who seems to know anything about "Defense Against the Dark Arts" are all uber-geeks!

        Solomon

        • Re:Baseless assertion? (Score:5, Funny)

          by gomiam (587421) on Monday December 10 2007, @09:54PM (#21651009)
          Missing Objects office here. A humour sense unit has been found. Please come and check whether it is yours.
          • Just so long as you're forced to laugh at my black joke. After all, if you won't join in making fun of black people, you're just a stick-in-the-mud, right?
        • You've been well trained! :)
        • Care to respond or are we all going to just let these anachronistic and misogynistic myths perpetuate ad infinitum?

          Can we all join the fun?

          My wife is smarter than me, more fit, better educated and a better programmer. I'm just barely more qualified with networks and architecture, and I'm definitely less of a cook. I have an extraordinary amount of respect for her.

          But if I ever accused her of being a rational being, she'd break my cranium, and then subtly change something to keep me off balance.

          See? Geeks do know about women. Just not very much.

    • Henry Frankenstein: The brain you stole, Fritz. Think of it. The brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands!

      Garry: That's not a bad idea.
      Wyatt: What?
      Garry: Making a girl. Actually making a girl. Like Frankenstein... except cuter.
      Wyatt: You're serious?
      Garry: Look me in the eye. Do I look serious?

      Victor Moritz: You're crazy!
      Henry Frankenstein: Crazy, am I? We'll see whether I'm crazy or not.

      Wyatt: Gary Wallace, that's-that's gross! That's sick! I am not digging up dead girls!
      • Garry: Making a girl. Actually making a girl. Like Frankenstein... except cuter.

        Wait, didn't they do that movie already? I could have sworn... of course!

        Fredrick: Would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in?
        Igor: And you won't be angry?
        Fredrick: I will *not* be angry!
        Igor: Abby Someone.
        Fredrick: Abby Someone. Abby Who?
        Igor: Abby Normal.
        Fredrick: Abby Normal.
        Igor: I'm almost sure that was the name.

        There you go. I'm sure Frankenstein and Abby would be quite the couple.
    • They really wanted to, but the prerequisite was that everyone in the class had to wear sunglasses, slicked hair and a polyester suit. So that killed the idea :(

    • I read nothing about animating an uber-hot girlfriend!


      You dumb - any decent slashdotter would know that there are NO SUCH THINGS as girlfriends. Face it, IT'S A MYTH!

  • I want a mythbusters class as well (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joe The Dragon (967727) on Monday December 10 2007, @07:48PM (#21650141)
    I want a mythbusters class as well

  • Disruptive? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Colin Smith (2679) on Monday December 10 2007, @07:48PM (#21650143)

    Next semester, they're introducing a new class called 'Disruptive Technologies.'"
    Would that be like a Tazer/Stun Gun?
     

  • The next logical step... (Score:5, Funny)

    by billius (1188143) on Monday December 10 2007, @07:48PM (#21650149) Homepage
    Mad Science. Seriously, I'm dying for some funding on my research dealing with the re-animation of human flesh.

  • Great (Score:3, Funny)

    by LostInTransportation (1012423) on Monday December 10 2007, @07:49PM (#21650155)
    Now we're all stuck with thoughts of gym class taught by Kelly Brock.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You were thinking of a sex ed taught by a 47 year old mother of 3?

  • Cool Stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

    by j_kenpo (571930) on Monday December 10 2007, @07:57PM (#21650217)
    I remember when I was working for a production company, a buddy of mine would always do stuff like this. We made a smoke cannon similar to the one shown there using an old PA speaker, some plastic cones, and a fog machine. The PA speaker pushed the fog through the cones making the smoke rings. We were going to build a large one, but never did. We also talked about doing something similar to the LCD/smoke projector with a large DLP projector when they first came out to experiment on replacing the aging atmospheric effect laser projectors. Of course, it still wasn't as impressive as a 10 watt white light laser with a color changing crystal. But its cool to see people out there playing with some of this kind of stuff. The water bridge was friggin cool.

  • Heard in class (Score:5, Funny)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves (236787) on Monday December 10 2007, @07:57PM (#21650227)
    "We'll be having a lab session today, so get a bra from the cabinet by the door and make sure it is securely fastened over your head before going to your lab station"
    • And don't forget to hook up the doll!

      We are sick and tired of having to replace the floor every time one of you little fools creates an ICBM instead of a woman!
  • I welcome our new Kelly LeBrock Overlords!
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090305/ [imdb.com]

    Truly one of Canada's great contributions to the rest of the world. Kelly ROCKS!!!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by g1zmo (315166)

      Huh?

      FTFIMDB:

      Mini Biography: Kelly LeBrock was born in New York and reared in London. She is the daughter...
  • But for god's sake, I hope they don't forget the doll!

  • former actlabbie here (Score:3, Informative)

    by CharlesV (22919) on Monday December 10 2007, @08:10PM (#21650293)
    You end up making so much awesome stuff you never knew you had in you in these programs. definitely made my college experience worthwhile. some of mine:

    http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/~charlesv/ [utexas.edu]

  • Laser harp? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by davidsyes (765062) on Monday December 10 2007, @08:20PM (#21650347) Homepage Journal
    Talk about cutting edge music. Hopefully it's not "ear-splitting" music...

    Truly disruptive technology might be an "intestinal auger" with rheostat. Somehow, I suppose the FDA won't allow that piece of equipment to be added to the body...
  • You might want to stay away from the dining hall on the day this class meets. Greasy pork sandwiches served in dirty ashtrays get tired after a while.

  • Anthony Michael Hall (Score:3, Insightful)

    by techstar25 (556988) <techstar25&cfl,rr,com> on Monday December 10 2007, @08:28PM (#21650409) Homepage Journal
    Unless it's taught by Anthony Michael Hall, you can forget about it.

  • 3D Fog Environments (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bones3D_mac (324952) on Monday December 10 2007, @08:31PM (#21650435)
    This is something I've found kind of interesting ever since I first heard of it a couple years ago. However, we may not be limited to simply looking much longer. For example, a newer application of the Wii Remote that allows users to convert any display into a digital white board [cmu.edu] could allow fog display users to directly manipulate both the fog and the image being projected over the affected area simultaneously, making it possible to do things like carve directly into the display itself. (Though, much of it may initially come off as a gimmick similar to some of Apple's interactive quicktime movie demos, such as realtime water ripples created on mouseclicks.)

    Eventually, I'd love to see a way to do this that doesn't require the fog, like maybe using lasers to intersect at a single point in 3D space in such a way that the polarization reflects the light back to the viewer at that point, while remaining invisible elsewhere.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by CryoPenguin (242131)

      Eventually, I'd love to see a way to do this that doesn't require the fog, like maybe using lasers to intersect at a single point in 3D space in such a way that the polarization reflects the light back to the viewer at that point, while remaining invisible elsewhere.

      Photons don't interact with photons. It doesn't matter whether it's lased, polarized, or whatever; two or more beams of light will just pass through each other.
      (This is also, btw, why photons aren't regularly used as qubits in a quantum computer

      • Re:3D Fog Environments (Score:4, Interesting)

        by JohnFluxx (413620) on Tuesday December 11 2007, @06:41AM (#21653753)
        Actually that's not quite true - photons can bounce off each other. It's just rare.

        On a different note, what you can do is have the beams have enough energy density to be close to breaking down the air. Then where they intersect there will be enough energy to break down the air and create a plasma. This will be a reflective point. It's kinda loud though.
  • Will this revolution be televised? Maybe youtubed?

    I'd like to see projects like this trickle into the anemic science materials at the highschool level and make learning science fun. Hopefully they contribute their materials to one/some of the several open coursework sites.

  • Disruptive techonogies is a real area of study (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Raul654 (453029) on Monday December 10 2007, @09:08PM (#21650683) Homepage
    Disruptive technologies is a very real area of study. Supercomputing 2006 and 2007 even had a panel on it [supercomp.org]. (My phd adviser is one of the people listed there) Although somewhat buzz-wordy, the idea is to signify technologies that have the potential to bring about great change within an industry.

    Just to name one kind of such technology for computing, if someone could get automatic parallelization to work reliably, that would be a very disruptive technology. (20 years of research has yet to achieve this, but people keep trying)
  • I thought this was about "Intelligent Design".

  • Laser Harp (Score:3, Funny)

    by evilviper (135110) on Tuesday December 11 2007, @07:16AM (#21653961) Journal
    Do not look into laser harp with remaining eye.

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