News

The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship 2013 – Europe, the Middle East and Africa

As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to furthering Anita’s vision, we are pleased to announce the 2013 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Doctor Anita Borg (1949 – 2003) devoted her life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling the barriers that keep minorities and women from entering the computing and technology fields.

Who Should Apply?

*Be a female student enrolled in a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD program in 2013/2014.

*Be enrolled at a University in Europe, the Middle East or Africa.

*Study Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Informatics, or a closely related technical field.

*Maintain an excellent academic record.

The scholarship recipients will each receive a 7,000 EUR scholarship. All recipients will be invited to visit a Google office in Europe for a networking retreat.

For full details, please visit us at:

www.google.com/anitaborg/emea

Deadline to apply: February 1, 2013

Bake Sale for Children in Need

It’s Children In Need this Friday.

Well done to Sophie Gent, who raised £133 for children in need in October. The delicious cakes were the result of 3 days hard baking in the Gent household. They proved to be very popular and were certainly a welcome addition during coffee time in the school.



Find out more about fundraising for Children in Need at the BBC website

Adobe Prize Bursaries

The School of Computer Science is delighted to announce two Adobe prize bursaries available this year.

The bursaries are open to students currently in their first year at St Andrews with a degree intention of Computer Science or any joint honours combination involving Computer Science who are eligible for the full means-tested loan or grant from SAAS or the English, Welsh or Northern Irish equivalents. The value of the bursaries is £1000 per year for up to four years, subject to the students remaining eligible and maintaining an annual grade point average of at least 13.0.

If you wish to apply for one of these bursaries, please submit 500 words on the subject of “What excites me about Computer Science?” and email it to admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk. The deadline for submission is 1st November 2012.

These bursaries are the first in a number of new initiatives between Adobe systems and the School of Computer Science, including both teaching and research. We will be announcing several more over the next few months.

Virtual Worlds Research: NuiLib & Armadilo

Exciting update on two pieces of software from the Open Virtual Worlds research group.

The first is NuiLib
(available at NuiLib.org), a utility library for facilitating
development with NUI (Natural User Input) devices (such as the Microsoft
Kinect).

It puts an abstraction layer over the top of the NUI device to
hide the gory details of the original API and allows the developer to
focus on what they are trying to use the device for. It aims to ease
cross platform support, support for different devices, development and
experimentation with new NUI input parsing algorithms, integration of
new algirithms and code clarity.

The second is Armadillo.

This is a Virtual World client modified to support Kinect input. Users
can perform gestures to move their avatar through the world without having to interact with the computer itself. Helpful in museum or school installation
projects.

A video of Armadillo in action is available on the Open Virtual Worlds’ facebook timeline.
Kinect integration in Armadillo was achieved solely using NuiLib.

NuiLib has been featured on Microsoft’s Channel9 Coding for Fun blog
and by the DevelopKinect
community.

Talks are underway to include Armadillo in an
educational pilot program across 38 schools in Ireland and as part of a
Virtual World performance art project.

Both projects were developed by John McCaffery. You can find him in Room 0.09 (Jack Cole Building).

If you are starting on a Kinect project and want
to look at NuiLib or would like to superman your way through the Open
Virtual Worlds group’s reconstruction
of St Andrews Cathedral send him an email or pop in for a chat.

Postgraduate Computer Science BBQ

After a busy week of welcome talks and induction, orientation week drew to a close with the postgraduate BBQ.

MSc and PhD students had an opportunity to meet each other, discuss their diverse backgrounds, previous studies, eat burgers, twiglets and consume the local delicacy Irn Bru.

Images Courtesy of Anne Campbell

Orientation Week BBQ

It was great to see so many undergraduate computer science students at the Orientation Barbecue yesterday. New and returning students had the opportunity to discuss the merits of studying computer science, eat burgers and consume the traditional Irn Bru in a friendly setting.

The Gaming/Programming Competition winners also received their prize in the form of Amazon vouchers. Congratulations to Maclej, Simon and Daniel.

PhD Reading Party 2012

The PhD Reading Party was held at the Burn House, just outside Edzell in the
North East of Scotland.

It was an opportunity for the research students to
give a talk in a relaxed atmosphere, about their research interests.
It also allowed for some socialising while wandering through the nearby
woods and rivers.

Each student gave a 20 minute talk including time for questions and discussions.

In the free time some went off to explore the nearby forest and salmon
rich river while others decided to take a trip to Montrose and test the
North Sea.

Text and Images Courtesy of Ruth Hoffmann


MSc Poster Demo Session 2012

After a summer of hard work the MSc student poster presentations and project demos took place earlier today. Dissertations were submitted on Monday. We wish them every success as they approach graduation and look forward to seeing them again in November!