[Fwd: joint events for LUG, ACM, csgrad, and WiCS next semester]

[sdvormwa@xxxxxxx]

Should probably decide on this as a group.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: joint events for LUG, ACM, csgrad, and WiCS next semester From:  
 "Janae N. Foss" <jnfoss@xxxxxxx>
Date:    Wed, November 30, 2005 12:50 pm
To:      amoliver@xxxxxxx
         sdvormwa@xxxxxxx
         kyle.schneider@xxxxxxxxx
         cathelem@xxxxxxx
         "Jason R. Lewis" <jrlewis@xxxxxxx>
         "Warren P. Powers" <wppowers@xxxxxxx>
         dhvandyk@xxxxxxx
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Hello all,

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a PhD student in the CS department
 and involved with both WiCS (women in computing sciences) and the new 
organization we are forming for CS graduate students.  I am attempting to 
send this message to the leadership of LUG, ACM, csgrad group, and WiCS. 
I got most of your names from the website of your respective organization,
 so if that information is out-dated, please pass this along to whomever
is  in leadership now.

All of our organizations are related to computing and some of our 
organizations have held seminars/events with differing degrees of success.
 In our WiCS meetings, we have discussed events that all of our
organizations could contribute to.  For example, WiCS held a lab night at 
the beginning of the semester to help introduce students to some of the 
Linux tips and tricks that don't get taught in class.  I believe that LUG 
does something like this during the installathon.  One of our ideas is  to
have several of these nights throughout the semester.  We have had 
suggestions for topics like introducing students to CVS, Gimp, Emacs vs. 
Vi, and so on.  It would be a strain for one group to take full
responsibility for this, but between our groups we have a lot of people 
with a lot of knowledge and that could really lighten the load.

Another project that WiCS has in the works is an AI game programming 
contest.  In the fall, 5 students (members of the csgrad group, WiCS, and 
ACM) attended the MechMania AI game programming contest at UIUC -- google 
MechMania for more info.  This motivated us to try holding a similar 
contest for students at MTU.  The basic idea is that we write a network 
game server and observer and then teams of 3 write clients for the game 
based on an API that is released only a short time (1 day to 1 week) 
before the competition is held.  We are in the preliminary stages of 
planning, but could use collaboration and help with coding, graphics, 
logistics, etc..

At WiCS meetings, we have discussed other ideas and I'm sure that the rest
 of you have thought of projects that could benefit from participation 
outside of your group as well.  So, for any of you who are interested in 
talking about joint activities, I'd like to try to set up a short meeting 
sometime next week.  I know that we are all very busy right now, but if we
 start talking next week, we should be able to get some things started 
right away when we come back from break.  My schedule is very open, so if 
you are interested (or would like to send a delegate from your
organization instead), please reply to me and I will try to accomodate 
everyone.

Thanks so much for your time.  If you have any questions, please feel 
free to e-mail me or stop by my office in Rekhi 104.  I hope to see you 
all next week!

Janae

-- 
Steven Vormwald
sdvormwa@xxxxxxx