Good morning! It's Monday 12 May and it’s the first of the 3 exam weeks. I hope all goes well. I know it sounds obvious, but make sure you know your exam schedule and locations precisely – it's your responsibility to be in the right place at the right time! In case of emergencies contact SSO immediately → compsci-sso@listserv.manchester.ac.uk or 0161 306 6625.  On with today’s news...

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

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MAY BALL.

  Last Friday 9 May was the annual May Ball at the Midland Hotel run with the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. A great evening by all accounts!

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REVISION HELP.

  The Library is running study sessions to help students work out their best strategies for revision. Find out more and book a place → http://goo.gl/pqbyI3

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LF31 CLOSED THIS WEEK.

  LF31 will be closed for essential system maintenance from tomorrow Tues 13 May to Friday 16 May inclusive. Please use Tootill, Collab or the 3rd Year lab (Room 1.8) instead.

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IE MEETING TOMORROW.

  There’s an important meeting, with pizza, in IT407 at 13:00 tomorrow Tues 13 May for all students going out on Industrial Experience this summer. The meeting will cover what you need to do before, during and after your placement. If you can't make it, please let Duncan know asap → Duncan.Hull@manchester.ac.uk

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SUPPORT A SCHOOL.

  Manchester Grammar School is running a ‘Computing for Beginners’ week. They’re looking for students with  Linux and RPi skills to help for 1 or 2 days, between 24-27 June. A great opportunity to enthuse kids about Computer Science, get some experience, and enhance your CV. For full details contact Simon Duffy → s.j.duffy@mgs.org

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IMPROVING STUDENT LIFE.

  Have you got an idea that could improve student life using digital tech? You could get £5,000 to develop it this summer → http://jisc.ac.uk/student-innovation

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SMART CITIZEN.

  Future Everything is running a free workshop on Weds 28 May and giving away 25 Arduino and Intel powered Ambient Sensors to be deployed around Manchester. Get tickets (deadline this Weds 14 May) → http://futureeverything.org/events/smart-citizen-workshop/

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BEST ELEARNING AWARDS.

  Have you done a course this year which makes innovative and effective use of eLearning? Vote for the best and win an iPod or iPad (deadline 16 May) → http://is.gd/epsbest

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CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Good morning! It's Monday 5 May and it’s Week 12, a B week, and the final teaching week of the year. It's the Early May Bank Holiday today too – so no timetabled activities in the School today, back to normal tomorrow. Have a nice day whatever you’re doing. On with today’s news...

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

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FIRST YEAR PROJECT SHOWCASE.

  The showcase last week was a great success and the work on show was as fantastic, original and imaginative as ever. Well done to all First Year students!

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DUCK NEWS.

  We may well be the only School of Computer Science in the country (the world?) with our own family of ducks. For the last 4 years Mrs Duck has visited us every Spring to lay her eggs in the courtyard. She must like it here! Thanks to local charity Animals In Distress, the family were collected last week and taken to more comfortable accommodation in Cheshire.

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PIZZA AND CHAT.

  We’re reviewing the way we teach, and we need your input. What do you like/dislike about our teaching methods? If you have views, make them heard – come to our informal chat session 12:30–14:00 next Monday 12 May. Pizza will be served. Pre-registration required, sign-up deadline 17:00 this Friday 9 May → http://goo.gl/mF6cPP

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COURSE UNIT FEEDBACK.

  Another way to make your views known is the online Unit Survey, so please give us your feedback on each of your Semester 2 course units – deadline this Friday 9 May. We take your feedback seriously, and we act on it → http://www.studentnet.manchester.ac.uk/enhancing-my-experience/tellus

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SUMMER VACATION WORK.

  Deadline 17:00 today Monday 5 May for applying for work in the School during the summer vac → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/employment/vacationjobs

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PASS NEXT YEAR.

  We’re still recruiting PASS leaders for next year, and holding another PASS Expectations session for potential leaders tomorrow Tues 6 May at 13:00-14:00 in Collab1. Sign up → http://goo.gl/7D6MwS

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ATHENA SWAN SUCCESS.

  We’re delighted to announce that the School has received an Athena SWAN Bronze Award, which recognises good practice in recruiting, retaining and promoting women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine in academia → www.manchester.ac.uk/athenaswan

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EXAM RESULTS.

  Exams begin on Thursday 15 May. For details of when results will be published → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/assessment/results/index.php?view=ug

---

REVISION SUPPORT.

  Speaking of exams, the Library is running study sessions to help students work out their best strategies for revision. Find out more and book a place → http://goo.gl/pqbyI3

---

MENTORING YOUNG CODERS.

  The Festival of Code are looking for mentors as part of Young Rewired State (YRS) over the summer of 2014. If you have expertise and enthusiasm for software development, robotics or data crunching you'd like to pass onto young people, why not get involved? → http://festivalofco.de/mentors

---

SMART CITIZEN.

  Future Everything is running a free workshop on Weds 28 May and giving away 25 Arduino and Intel powered Ambient Sensors to be deployed around Manchester. Get tickets (deadline 14 May) → http://futureeverything.org/events/smart-citizen-workshop/

---

IMPROVING STUDENT LIFE.

  Have you got an idea that could improve student life using digital technology? You could get £5,000 to develop it this summer → http://jisc.ac.uk/student-innovation

---

BEST ELEARNING AWARDS.

  Have you done a course this year which makes innovative and effective use of eLearning? Vote for the best and win an iPod or iPad (deadline 16 May) → http://is.gd/epsbest

---

JOIN A LONDON STARTUP.

  Silicon Milk Roundabout is a huge London jobs fair for startups. If you’re a final year student looking for a job, their next event is this coming weekend 10-11 May → http://www.siliconmilkroundabout.com/

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CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Good morning! It's Monday 28 April and it’s Week 11, an A week. I hope you had a good Easter break, and you're back refreshed for the last two weeks of scheduled teaching, then the exams! On with today’s news...

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

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PASS AWARDS SUCCESS.

  The Students as Partners Celebration Evening was held at the Palace Hotel on Thurs 3 April, and the School won second place in the PASS Scheme of the Year awards. There are 23 PASS schemes across the University, so this is a fantastic achievement! Congratulations to our Student Coordinators Matt Akerman (Y3, CSE4) and Dalwinder Bagdi (Y3, CSwIE), Year2 PASS Coordinators Danielle Grayston (Y3, AIwIE) and Jack Evans (Y3, CS), all of our 33 PASS Leaders, and Staff Coordinators Andrea Schalk and Gavin Donald. Well done all!

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PASS NEXT YEAR.

  We’re still recruiting PASS leaders for next year, so please sign up and help the scheme to get even better in 2014! We’re holding another PASS Expectations session for potential leaders next Tues 6 May at 13:00-14:00 in Collab1. Sign up → http://goo.gl/7D6MwS

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FIRST YEAR PROJECT SHOWCASE.

  The 1st Year Project Showcase takes place today Monday 28 April at 11:00 on LF. Everyone is welcome to come and see the great project work from 1st year students → https://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/mod/wiki/view.php?id=1140&page=Phase4+Step11

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COURSE UNIT FEEDBACK.

  Please give us your feedback on each of your Semester 2 course units – deadline 9 May. We take your feedback seriously. Use  a handy app or on-line  → http://www.studentnet.manchester.ac.uk/enhancing-my-experience/tellus

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SUMMER VACATION WORK.

  We’re offering paid work opportunities in the School during the summer vac. Enhance your CV with new skills and tech, and do important work for the School. Application deadline 17:00 next Mon 5 May → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/employment/vacationjobs

---

TEACHING FORUM.

  We’re reviewing the way we teach, and we want your input. What do you like/dislike about our teaching methods? Do you like/dislike lectures Do you prefer workshops? Or something else? Why? We're running an informal Forum session at 12:30 – 14:00 on Mon 12 May (note the change of date) to hear your views on teaching methods. Pizza will be served! Pre-registration required, sign-up deadline this Friday 2 May → http://goo.gl/mF6cPP

---

ARM TALK.

  Dr Anton Lokhmotov of ARM will be giving a guest lecture for COMP35112 Chip Multiprocessors today Monday 28 April at 15:00 in LT1.3. The main topic is ARM's high performance SIMD attached processor ‘Mali’ system, and Anton is promising to tell some interesting stories accompanied by demos, so it should be entertaining. All welcome.

---

CALIFORNIAN PYTHON.

  Fernando Perez from the University of California, Berkeley will be giving a seminar today Monday 28 Apr at 14:00 (Lecture Theatre G20, Mansfield Cooper building) on Python and IPython as alternatives to MATLAB, Mathematica and SPSS → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/full-article/?articleid=883

---

REVISION SUPPORT.

  The Library is running study sessions to help students work out their best strategies for revision. To find out more and book a place → http://goo.gl/pqbyI3

---

GREAT PRENEURS.

  Great Preneurs is hosting its first Conference about Manchester Startups this coming Saturday 3 May at Techhub Manchester. People from the Manchester Startup Scene will talk about raising capital, growing In Manchester, getting into an accelerator and investing in Manchester tech startups. Register → http://greatpreneurs.com/conference/

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WAR OF NATURE.

  Andrea Schalk and Colin Caine (PhD) have contributed to Manchester Museum’s From the War of Nature exhibition. Colin features in the exhibition discussing his computer simulations of conflict and co-operation and how life evolves. Why not have a look? (it’s the building opposite University Place) → http://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/whatson/exhibitions/fromthewar

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MUSIC TALK.

  This Weds 30 April, at 14:00 in LT1.4, David De Roure from the University of Oxford e-Research Centre will talk about  Digital Music Research: from Music Objects to Social Machines. “The music business from studio to sofa (and studio on sofa) is well on the way to being digital end-to-end” → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/our-research/seminars

---

BEST ELEARNING AWARDS.

  Have you done a course this year which makes innovative and effective use of eLearning? Vote for the best and win an iPod or iPad (deadline 16 May) → http://is.gd/epsbest

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Good morning! It's Monday 7 April and it’s the first week of the 3-week Easter vac. I hope you’re having a rest and maybe the opportunity for a catch-up. Year 3 students, good luck with writing your project reports. The Monday Mail is having an Easter break, but will be back again on Monday 28 April (Week 11, an A week). Meanwhile, on with today’s news...

Best wishes, Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

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EASTER OPENING HOURS.

  Kilburn is open as usual 08:00-23.30 throughout the Easter vacation, but you’ll need your out-of-hours pass for access from 18:00 to 23:30, and for weekends and Good Friday/Easter Monday.

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HACKATHON WIN.

  Congratulations to Team Goat, aka Izz Abudaka (Y1, CS), Grzegorz Jacenków (Y1, CSBMwIE), Victor Lampreia  (Y1, CSwIE)  and Bartłomiej Siemieniuk (Y1, SE4), who won 4 prizes out of 7 at the Greater Manchester Open Data  Coding Challenge last week ( → http://opendatamanchester.org.uk ) – an extraordinary achievement! The Goats developed “Invest Locator”, which maps how a user's surroundings will change in the future ( → http://lab.jacenkow.com/~TeamGoat/goatchange ) and “Lightchester”, a map of Manchester using street light data, with an option to show crime scene data, to see if the most illuminated places are the safest → http://lab.jacenkow.com/~TeamGoat/goatlight

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STAFF VS STUDENTS.

  Also congratulations to everyone at the Staff vs Students programming competition last Weds 2 April. It was fantastic to see so many people involved: 6 staff teams and 17 student teams. The vibe was amazing and Head of School Prof Jim MIles awarded the prizes. In 1st place were Will Brown (Y1, CSwIE) and Adrian Mircea Nenu (Y1, CSwIE); in 2nd place Stefan Katov (Y3, CSBMwIE) and Tomo Simeonov (Y3, CSwIE); and in 3rd place Dr David Lester and James Knight (PhD). Check the Staff vs Students official page for more pix, the problem set, solutions, and a detailed leaderboard → http://www.uomdojo.com/svs

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VOTE POETRY.

  Voting is now open in the EPS Faculty Poetry comp – and we have 10 entries in from the School! Check out our entries and vote (deadline 18 April). Note: entries from other Schools are also available :-) → http://www.epspoetry.com/poems.php?sid=2

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SUMMER VACATION WORK.

  A reminder that we have some paid work opportunities in the School during the summer vacation. It’s a great opportunity to enhance your CV by learning new skills and tech, and do important development and support work for the School too. Apply (deadline 17:00 Mon 5 May) → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/employment/vacationjobs

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COURSE UNIT FEEDBACK.

  Please give us your feedback on each of your Semester 2 course units – deadline 9 May. We take your feedback seriously, and act on it → http://www.studentnet.manchester.ac.uk/enhancing-my-experience/tellus

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TIMETABLES.

  You should have received your Semester 2 exams timetable direct from the University. If not, please see SSO. A reminder that you can access your timetables online → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/timetables and you can use Pez Cuckow’s (Y3, CSBMwIE) app to get an iCal feed → http://labs.pezcuckow.com/cstimetable – and don't forget the UG Events cal that we're trialling. There’s an ics feed → http://goo.gl/FDIXGA and an HTML view → http://goo.gl/2P7UFs

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BBC INTERNSHIPS.

  The deadline for applying for internships at the BBC in MediaCityUK Manchester has changed – it’s now 17:00 on 23 April  → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/industry/news/full-article/?articleid=878

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TEACHING FORUM.

  The School is reviewing the way it teaches, and we need your input. What do you like/dislike about our teaching methods? Do you like/dislike lectures or some lecturing styles? Do you prefer workshops? Or something else? Why? We're running an informal Forum session at 12:30 – 14:00 on Mon 12 May (note the change of date) to hear student views on teaching methods. Students from all years welcome. Pizza will be served. Register by Friday 2 May → http://goo.gl/mF6cPP

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GOOGLE TRAVEL GRANTS.

  Google is offering travel grants for students to attend the following conferences: HITB Haxpo ( → http://haxpo.nl ) May 27-30, Amsterdam; Craft ( → http://craft-conf.com/2014) April 23-25, Budapest; Berlin Buzzwords (→ http://berlinbuzzwords.de ) May 25-28, Berlin; and  Europython 2014 ( → https://ep2014.europython.eu/en ) July 21-27, Berlin. Apply → https://services.google.com/fb/forms/studentgrants2014

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CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a great Easter vacation and see you again on Monday 28 April.

Good morning! It's Monday 31 March, and it’s Week 10, a B week. And it’s the last week before the Easter vac – but you probably knew that! It’s been a long semester, and I hope it's been a good one for you so far.

Best wishes, Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

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STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  Last  week the SSC met for the second time this semester, and included a very interesting (and frank!) discussion about lectures. Read SSC secretary Dan Tzabar’s (Y2, CS4) report of the meeting → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

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MEET THE PRESIDENT.

  The President of the University, Nancy Rothwell, is visiting the School today Monday 31 March, and she's holding an informal open meeting for all students at 10:30 – 11:00 in Kilburn 2.15 (second floor). If you have a gap in your timetable, do go along and meet her.

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SUMMER VACATION WORK.

  Interested in some paid work here in the School during the summer vacation? It’s a great opportunity to learn new skills and tech, and do important development and support work for the School. Details of the positions available, and how to apply (deadline 17:00 Mon 5 May) → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/employment/vacationjobs

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CODE FIRST GIRLS.

  Last weekend the School hosted Code First Girls, organised by Entrepreneur First ( → http://www.entrepreneurfirst.org.uk ) and Ciprian Tomoiaga (Y2, CSwIE).  22 attendees spent two days learning HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Bootstrap. This fabulous event was possible thanks to the hard work and commitment of students Neha Agrawal (Y3, CSE), David Buckley (PhD), Marios Katsakioris (Y1, CSwIE), Alexandru Mihailescu (Y1, CS), Francesca Popescu (Y1, SEwIE), Teo Taylor (Y1, CS) and PGT students Moss Abdelkhalik, Soldier Dey, Hamizah Badrul Hisham, Mamatha, and Vivek Vijayan.  Well done all, and thanks to Duncan Hull, Mabel Yau, Tony McDonald and David Rydeheard for their support. 

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RASPBERRY JAM.

  Also last weekend the School hosted the monthly North-West Raspberry Jam meeting. Lots of people – young and not-so-young! – had great fun with their Pis in LF31.

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ALT CAREERS.

  Network Rail are here today Monday 31 March to guest lecture in COMP101 about alternative careers in IT, including business analysis and project management. All welcome, LT1.1 at 11:00.

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NSS PRIZEWINNER.

  The latest NSS prize draw winner is Nikki Schofield (Y3, CSwIE), whose name was picked by previous winner Ludwig Knoepfel (Y3, IC). Nikki receives a £100 Amazon voucher. Final year students: to enter the final draw on Fri  2 May, just complete the NSS and take your ack email to SSO.

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COURSE UNIT FEEDBACK.

  For the next 3 weeks, you’ll have an opportunity to give us your feedback on each of your Semester 2 course units – please do this! We need and value your feedback – we read it all, and we publish your lecturers' responses to you (see, for example, the Semester 1 responses → https://wiki.cs.manchester.ac.uk/index.php/US_Response_AY1314_Semester_1 ). To give us your feedback, log into My Manchester and click My Blackboard, or use an app → http://www.studentnet.manchester.ac.uk/enhancing-my-experience/tellus

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APPSENSE LECTURE.

  Today’s COMP26120 guest lecturer at 15:00 in LT1.1 is Travis Walton from virtualisation tools company Appsense ( → http://www.appsense.com ). Travis will talk about the role of efficient algorithms and data structures in computer games, and will relate this to the course material. You can talk to Travis afterwards about job opportunities at Appsense. All welcome, not just COMP26120 students.

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STAFF VS STUDENTS.

  The second annual Staff vs Students competition takes place this Weds 2 April at 15:00 in the Collab. Places are almost full, so register ASAP if you want to take part. We have Amazon vouchers worth £200, free pizza during the comp, and free beer/non-beer in Kro Bar afterwards → http://www.uomdojo.com/svs/register

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CSSOC.

  Interested in being part of the CSSoc committee next year and running the society? All positions are open! For more information come to AGM this Weds 2 April at 13:00 ( → url.cssoc.co.uk/agm ) .... and this Friday 4 April, it's the Easter pub crawl → url.cssoc.co.uk/easter

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SSO EARLY CLOSING.

  To allow staff to attend School meetings, SSO will be closing early today Monday 31 March at 15:30.

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PASS2.

  Today Monday 31 March in Collab 1 at 17:00. All Y2 students welcome.

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AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  Tomorrow Tuesday 1 April at 13:00 in G33, we’ll be trying out some retrospective techniques to help bring out ideas for your project reports → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

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GREAT PRENEURS.

  Great Preneurs is organising the first ever conference about Manchester Startups. Speakers include the editor in chief of The Next Web, Martin Bryant, and Ben Taylor, co-founder of Fatsoma. It’s at Techhub on 3 May 10:30 –18:00 → http://greatpreneurs.com/conference/

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CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a super week!

Good morning! It's Monday 24 March, and it’s Week 9, an A week. A huge amount to tell you about this week… so on with the news!

Best wishes, Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

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DESIGN YOUR FUTURE.

  Last week the School played a big part in the “iTech: design your future” event for schoolchildren at the Museum of Science and Industry ( → http://www.mosi.org.uk ) as part of National Science and Engineering Week. Steve Pettifer and Gavin Brown gave keynote talks; David Rydeheard, Vartul Agrawal (Y1, CS4), Lizzy Hamer (Y3, CS), Sarah Thomas (Y3, CBA), Alex Webb (Y3, CSwIE) and Jonny Heathcote (PhD) all did fantastic jobs enthusing schoolkids about Computer Science. Below, clockwise from the top left: Alex, Jonny, Gavin and Sarah.

Good morning! It's Monday 17 March, and it’s Week 8, a B week. I hope you’re doing well. Lots of news today!

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

* FACEBOOK SUCCESS. This past weekend Team Goat, one of the 4 teams from the School entering, won the Facebook London Hackathon!  Mark Larah (Y2, CS4), Bartlomiej Siemieniuk (Y1, SE4), Antonio Marino (Y2, SEwIE), and Jessie Abramson (Y3, AI), battled against 21 other UK teams to emerge triumphant with their powerful yet simple to understand programming language ZuckerScript ( → http://fbfiddle.com ). They'll be flying to California representing the UK later this year in the world finals. Well done Team Goat, and the other 3 teams, a fantastic achievement by you all!

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KNEEBONE BURSARY.

  Congratulations to Mantas Mikaitis (Y2, CSwIE) this year’s recipient of the Kneebone Bursary, founded by the Kneebone family in memory of their daughter Kate, who was an undergraduate here in the School. The bursary comprises a cash award and an opportunity for an internship with ARM in Cambridge.

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ATRIUM ON TOUR.

  The University’s Atrium student advice and guidance team will be visiting the Byte Cafe today Monday 17 March from 11:00-15:00.

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ON THE TELLY.

  Our very own Professor Steve Furber and Dr Gavin Brown were on BBC Newsround last Friday, talking about modelling the human brain and AI.

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NSS PRIZEWINNER.

  The latest NSS prize draw winner is James Rowland (Y3, CSwIE), whose name was picked out of Tim Morris’s special hat by previous winner Sarah Thomas (Y3, CBA). James receives a £100 Amazon voucher. Final year students: to enter the next draw on Fri 28 March, just take your NSS acknowledgment email to SSO. At the moment, the odds of winning are very good!

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PASS2.

  Today Monday 17 Mar in Collab 1 at 17:00. All Y2 students welcome.

---

EXAM FEEDBACK SESSION.

  A reminder for those who’ve registered, the session is this Weds 19 March, 14:00-16:00 (Years 1, 2 and 3 in IT407, Year 4 in G102).

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3RD YEAR PROJECT SHOWCASE.

  Last week’s Project Showcase was an impressive event and we saw some fantastic and inspiring work from 3rd Year Project students.Thanks to everyone who took part and congratulations on your excellent project work.

---

SUPERBOWL.

  Neha Agrawal (Y3, CSE) writes: our next CSSoc event is 10-pin bowling tomorrow Tues 18 March, 20:00 at the Great Northern. You’re welcome to bring people outside of CS to join in the fun → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/bowling

---

STAFF VS STUDENTS.

  The second annual Staff vs Student Coding Contest is on Weds 2 April at 14:00. Join us in teams of two for some challenging problems, exciting prizes (over £200 in Amazon vouchers), free food, and a free drink with the lecturers after the contest. Make sure you attend the practice session this Weds 19 March to get familiar with the contest system → http://uomdojo.com/svs

---

TECH FOR CHANGE.

  Philip Ndikum (Y1, CM) writes: The African Computing Engineering and Mathematics Society are hosting an event this Friday 21 March from 16:20-18:00 in Atlas. The guest speaker will be Paul Skidmore, former Deputy CEO of the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative. Additionally Sam Butterfield of Teach First will be there to provide information on Graduate Opportunities → philip.ndikum@student.manchester.ac.uk

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  Tomorrow Tues 18 Mar at 13:00 in G33  → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

MAY BALL.

  Tickets are on sale 13:00-14:00 this Weds in LF15, or grab the closest committee member → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/mayball

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RENTAL CARS AND PIZZA.

  Drop-in and meet rentalcars.com, tomorrow Tues 18 March at 12:00-14:00 on LF, with pizza. Learn about their tech stack: Hibernate, Spring, Struts, Linux, Apache, Java, PHP, Tomcat, MySQL, Zend, RabbitMQ, Vmware, Windows7, Windows server 2012 and SQL Server 2012.

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NEURO MASTERS.

  The School of Psychological Sciences offers the Neuroimaging for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience MSc, an exciting opportunity for graduates with a Computer Science background to do a Master’s in a cutting edge area of science and tech.  There’s a £1000 loyalty discount for UoM 2014 graduates with a 2.1 or above. Visit the SPS Open Day, this Weds 19 March at 13:30 in Lecture theatre D, Zochonis Building → robert.white@manchester.ac.uk

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CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a great week!

Good morning. It's Monday 10 March, and it’s Week 7, an A week. I hope things are all going well. On with today’s news!

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

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GREAT UNI HACKATHON SUCCESS.

  Pez Cuckow (Y3, CSBMwIE) writes: The GreatUniHack sponsored by Intel, held last Saturday here in the School was a huge success with over 80 attendees and lots of winners – Best Overall: Joe Forshaw with Convinced of the Hex territory game; Best Game: Audrey Leow, Sarah Kelso, Daniel Underwood and Ryszard Rowinski with Kinect Flappy Nerds; Most Useful: Paul Pistea, Nenu Adrian, Eduard Bunduc and Horia-Danut Stanciu with a text-based wiki and timetable API; Most Quirky: Ignas Bolsakovas, Struan McDonough, Arjun Mistry, Hugh Williams with a cat fact SMS service; Best use of ClockWork API: Fran Popescu, Adrian Culea, Vlad Berianu; and Radu Ghitescu with a dating service for CS students. Full details → http://greatunihack.co.uk

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GOOD LUCK FACEBOOK HACKERS.

  Good luck to all our students entering the Facebook hackathon in London this coming weekend! We look forward to hearing how you get on.

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3RD YEAR PROJECT SHOWCASE.

  This Weds 12 March in Collab 13:00-15:00, come and see some of the projects Y3 students have been working on since last September → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013/COMP30040/show.php?id=285

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NEW STUDY ROOMS.

  Rooms LF5 and LF6, just opposite the Byte Cafe, have been refurbished and fitted with wall-mounted TVs, and we’re going to trial them as study rooms for undergraduates (except during exam periods, when the rooms are used for exams), so feel free to start using them right away. We hope you’ll find them useful, and as always I’d appreciate any feedback you have.

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PHP IS AWESOME!

  This week’s COMP101 guest lecture is by Magma Digital and School of Computer Science alumni Steph Cook and Damien Walsh, today Mon 10 March at 11:00 in LT1.1. They’ll argue that PHP's less-than-perfect reputation is a thing of the past and look at how PHP is used in the wild → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/industry/news/full-article/?articleid=734

---

CODING DOJO.

  Coding Dojo is excited to announce the second edition of the Annual Staff vs Student Competition that will take place on Weds 2 April at 14:00.  Join us in teams of two for some challenging problems, free food and a free drink with the lecturers after the contest. Register → http://uomdojo.com/svs

---

MAY BALL.

  Tickets are on sale 13:00-14:00 this Weds in LF15, or grab the closest CSSoc committee member →  http://url.cssoc.co.uk/mayball

---

PASS2.

  Today Mon 3 Mar in Collab 1 at 17:00. All Y2 students welcome.

---

RUBY WORKSHOP.

  This Weds 12 March from 16:00-18:00 in the MSc Lab, Mark van Harmelen and David Workman help you create a fully working web app that does something interesting, probably by utilising an API elsewhere on the Web. Everyone welcome, especially Y1 students.

---

GOOGLE SUMMER OF CODE.

  Student applications for the annual Google Summer of Code, now in its 10th year, open today Mon 10 March – get paid to work on open source software. Over 190 organisations are involved this year, including Apache, CERN, Debian, Twitter, WordPress and Wikimedia → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/our-research/news/full-article/?articleid=708

---

MEET AUTODESK.

  Autodesk is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Its customers – including the last 19 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects – use Autodesk software like Maya and Max to design, visualize and simulate their ideas.  Meet Autodesk at their drop-in session, tomorrow Tues 11 Mar at lunchtime on LF.

---

MEET ACCENTURE.

  Interested in working with Accenture? Or simply want a few tips for your CV? Accenture is holding a skills session this Weds 12 March in LF15 at 14:00.

---

GIGAPIXEL IMAGING.

  Ian Shipsey from Oxford University talks about the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, this Weds 12 March at 14.30 in the Rutherford Lecture Theatre, Schuster Building → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~hulld/schuster.pdf

---

FUTURE EVERYTHING.

  Following on from the success of Routes to the Future Innovation Challenge where 80 creative coders came together for 48 hours to build applications from Transport from Greater Manchester’s data, FutureEverything brings you another weekend of code, with a prize fund of £3,500. The 24-hour event kicks off at 16:00 on Sat 29 March at TechHub Manchester → http://goo.gl/285KLi

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

Good morning. It's Monday 3 March, and it’s Week 6, a B week. There's daffodils around the campus so Spring is finally here! I hope things are going well. Here’s today’s news.

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

PERSONALISED RECOMMENDATIONS.

  Today Mon 3 March at 11:00, the COMP101 guest lecturer will be Wing Chan of the Hut Group ( → http://www.thehutgroup.com ) on developing personalised recommendations in e-commerce, explaining why this is both crucial and extremely challenging → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/full-article/?articleid=674

---

NSS PRIZE DRAW.

  Congratulations to Ludwig Knoepfel (Y3, IC) on winning  the £100 Amazon voucher in our National Student Survey prize draw held every two weeks. Final year students: to enter, all you need to do is complete the NSS Survey, then visit SSO.

---

CODING DOJO.

  This Weds 5 March at 15:00 in Collab, Coding Dojo is organizing a meeting where you will solve two graph programming problems on the TopCoder platform. This will be good training for the Staff vs Students competition, which is coming soon. Don't forget to bring your laptop → https://www.facebook.com/events/742392652445455/

---

FACEBOOK HACKATHON.

  @csmcr have been invited to participate in the official Facebook Hackathon regional heats at Shoreditch Works in London on Sat 15 March. If you’re interested in joining please let Miso Zmiric know ( → miso.zmiric@student.manchester.ac.uk )  as he’s co-ordinating transport to London. If enough people from Manchester sign up, Facebook will organise a special bus. Sign up → http://fb.com/events/584327678330453

---

MAY BALL.

  CSSoc are selling tickets 13:00-14:00 this Weds 5 March in LF15 for the Midnight Masquerade May Ball at the Midland Hotel on Friday 9 May, run with the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/mayball

---

PASS2.

  Today Mon 3 Mar in Collab 1 at 17:00. All Y2 students welcome.

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  There won’t be a meeting this week – back next week → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

RUBY WORKSHOP.

  This Weds 5 March at 15:00 in the MSc lab, Manchester Ultimate Programming (aka 1-UP) continues its workshop series with Test-Driven Development using RSpec & Ruby → https://www.facebook.com/events/715112955186301/

---

HARDWARE HACKATHON.

  Manchester Ultimate Programming  is running a hardware programming hackathon this FRIDAY (note change of date) 7 March at 16:00 on the topic of FPGAs – computing without processors! It’s intended for all students interested in computer architecture and hardware design. Refreshments will be provided → https://sites.google.com/site/1uphardcore

---

GREAT UNI HACKATHON.

  The Great Uni Hackathon is this coming Sat 8 March in the Collab. Sign up → http://greatunihack.co.uk

---

EXAM FEEDBACK SESSION.

  Final call for the Semester 1 feedback session on Weds 19 March in IT.407, from 14:00-16:00. To view your marked COMP scripts, register in advance by emailing SSO with your name, student ID number and the list of COMP course unit scripts you wish to view. Deadline for registering: 12:00 this Weds 5 March → compsci-sso@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

---

MEET ACCENTURE.

  Interested in working with Accenture? Or simply want a few tips for your CV? Accenture is holding a skills session next Weds 12 March in LF15 at 14:00.

---

WHAT TO READ?

  Applicants to our UG programmes have been asking us if there’s anything we can recommend them to read before coming here. Please tell me about any reading/resources you've found helpful → toby.howard@manchester.ac.uk

---

POETRY COMP.

  Why not have a go in the Engineering and Physical Sciences Poetry Competition – in 2012, one of our UGs was a runner-up! First Prize £500 and 2 runners-up get £200 each. Deadline 28 March → http://epspoetry.com

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

Good morning. It's Monday 24 February, and it’s Week 5, an A week. Almost halfway to the Easter vac! I hope things are going well. Here’s today’s news.

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  We had a very lively and productive 2-hour meeting last week, so thanks to all the Reps and staff who attended. Read the report from Secretary Dan Tzabar (Y2, CS4) → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk The next meeting is Weds 26 March.

---

WHAT TO READ?

  Applicants to our UG programmes have been asking us if there’s anything we can recommend them to read before coming here, to prepare them for their studies (and beyond!). So we’re putting some ideas together of books and online materials. We’d welcome your input – please tell me about any reading/resources you've found helpful → toby.howard@manchester.ac.uk

---

MAY BALL.

  CSSoc are now selling tickets for this year’s Midnight Masquerade May Ball at the Midland Hotel on Friday 9 May, run with the School of School of Arts, Languages and Cultures → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/mayball

---

PASS2.

  Jack Evans (Y3, CS) and Dani Grayston (Y3, AIwIE) write: PASS2 is back. Struggling with the Knapsack problem? Come along and we can help. Today Mon 24 Feb in Collab 1 at 17:00.

• POETRY CORNER. Now in its 3rd year, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Poetry Competition aims to show that creativity in science and engineering can produce poetry too – why not have a go? (in 2012, one of our UGs was a runner-up!) First Prize £500 and 2 runners-up get £200 → https://www.facebook.com/UoMEPSPoetryCompetition

---

HACKING EDUCATION IN MANCHESTER.

  Today Mon 24 Feb at 11:00 in Kilburn LT 1.1, a special series of seven “lightning talks” from local groups who are Computing in the Community. Part of student volunteering week and COMP101, but everyone welcome →  http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/industry/news/full-article/?articleid=668

---

PERSONALISED RECOMMENDATIONS.

  And next Mon 3 March at 11:00, the COMP101 guest lecturer will be Wing Chan of the Hut Group on developing personalised recommendations in e-commerce explaining why personalisation of recommedations is both crucial and extremely challenging → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/full-article/?articleid=674

---

REMOTE WORKING WIKI.

  A reminder that we've put together a wiki to to help students with remote working from outside Kilburn. We’d welcome your contributions → https://wiki.cs.manchester.ac.uk/index.php/RemoteWorking

---

GOOGLE.

   Manchester Ultimate Programming and Google Students Events Manchester ( → https://www.facebook.com/googlestudents.manchester ) have partnered to give you the chance to get in touch with Google. This Weds 26 Feb, you can find out about Google’s AdMob Challenge ( → http://www.google.com/ads/admob/challenge.html ) and life at Google. Join our event to find out how you can also pitch your ideas to a googler and how to get Google SWAG! → https://www.facebook.com/events/1427102320862066/

---

RUBY WORKSHOP.

  Following the Scala workshops, Manchester Ultimate Programming brings you even more opportunities to get the most out of CS. This Weds 26 Feb we kick off the Ruby series with Mark Van Harmelen. First topic is Learning Ruby: How to do it using web resources, an intensely practical session to get you up and running with Ruby. Next week we have TDD using RSpec & Ruby and the one after it you'll get to build your very own Ruby app! Note that these sessions come just in time for The Great Uni Hackathon ( → https://www.facebook.com/events/626226837419063/ ). Join in the Ruby workshops → https://www.facebook.com/events/715112955186301/

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  Tomorrow Tues 25 Feb at 13:00 in Kilburn room G33 (ground floor) → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

OPEN DATA MANCHESTER.

  Tomorrow Tues 25 Feb, 18:30-21:00 at Manchester Science Park, this month’s Open Data Manchester event focuses on transport data → http://opendatamanchester.org.uk/2014/02/12/open-data-manchester-transport-special/

---

KNEEBONE BURSARY.

  Final call. The application deadline is today Mon 24 Feb at 17:00 → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/kneebone/

---

EXAM FEEDBACK SESSION.

  The Semester 1 feedback session is on Weds 19 March in IT.407, from 14:00-16:00. To view your marked COMP scripts, you need to register in advance –  email SSO with your name, student ID number and the list of COMP course unit scripts you wish to view. Deadline for registering: 12:00 Weds 5 March → compsci-sso@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

---

MORGAN STANLEY.

  Following on from their guest lecture last week Morgan Stanley have launched their student programming contest. Win an iMac and other prizes → http://www.morganstanley.com/programmingcontest/

---

SEMANTIC WEB AT THE BBC.

  This Weds 26 Feb at 14:00 in LT1.4 Dr. Yves Raimond from BBC Research & Development will talk about their use of Semantic Web tech. The BBC generates a vast quantity of information, broadcasting over 1,000  programmes per day, and has huge historic data archives. Yves will describe recent work by BBC R&D using Semantic Web technologies, machine-generated annotations and crowd-sourcing to manage and rapidly publish large archives of content → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/our-research/seminars/

---

ANNUAL TURING LECTURE.

  Also this Weds 26 Feb, Dr Bernard Meyerson from IBM will be talking about “Beyond Silicon: Cognition and more” in University Place at 18:00. Book your place → http://conferences.theiet.org/turing/

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

Good morning. It's Monday 17 February, and it’s Week 4, a B week. I hope things are going well, despite the weather! Here’s today’s news...

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

EXAM RESULTS.

  The Y1 and Y2 COMP results will be published today from 10:00 via Arcade and the LF Exams Noticeboard. Y3 COMP results will be on the noticeboard only. Non-COMP results will be published as soon as we receive them from the other Schools.

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  The first of the two SSC meetings this semester is this Weds 19 Feb. If you have any issues you’d like your Reps to raise on your behalf, please contact them ASAP → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

WEB VULNERABILITIES EXPOSED.

  Morgan Stanley will be guest lecturing about web security today Mon 17 Feb for COMP10120 at 11:00 in LT1.1 – all UGs (not just Y1) are welcome at this interactive session followed by free pizza! → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/industry/news/full-article/?articleid=628

---

CSSOC TOURNAMENT NIGHT.

  This Weds 19 Feb 18:00-23:00 in the Collab, CSSoc is running a tournament in collaboration with the Gaming Society. The best overall gamer will win £50! See the event page for a listing of games and the other prizes → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/gamingtournament

---

1-UP WORKSHOP.

  Ever spent more time debugging than programming? Never learnt how to use GDB, DDD...? Then come along to 1UP MINI Workshop this Weds 19 Feb at 14:00 in the MSc lab. 1400-15:00: "Hacking Tesco shopping API with Scala"; 1500-16:20: "Continuum: A look into some of the technologies we use at IBM (Python and bash); 16:20-17:30: "Fixing bugs in C by runtime patching the Mac OS X kernel". Register → https://www.facebook.com/events/536712489760301/

---

THOUGHTWORKS.

  They’re touring the UK with their popular Technology Radar, summarising key developments in software engineering, and will be here in Manchester this Weds 19 Feb –  join members of the Technology Advisory Board for a presentation and discussion including Big Data vs. Privacy and the JavaScript juggernaught rolls on → http://info.thoughtworks.com/techradarevent2014-london-glasgow-manchester-registrationpage.html

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  Tomorrow Tues 18 Feb at 13:00 in Kilburn room G33 (ground floor) → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

KNEEBONE BURSARY.

  The annual Kate Kneebone Acorn Bursary is open to all undergraduates. Application deadline next Mon 24 Feb at 17:00 → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/kneebone/

---

BIG DATA.

  The Square Kilometre Array radio telescope (→ www.skatelescope.org) is a massive radio astronomy system which will be built over much of South Africa and Australia, costing $2 billion, with its headquarters at the University’s Jodrell Bank. Hear about the digital signal processing and “big data” challenges from Professor Tony Brown and Dr Keith Grainge in this talk aimed at UG students. This Fri 21 Feb at 13:00, Room C2, Renold Building (8 on the campus map → http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/travel/maps/interactive-map)

---

ANNUAL TURING LECTURE.

  On Weds 26 Feb, Dr Bernard Meyerson from IBM will be talking about “Beyond Silicon: Cognition and more” in University Place. Book now → http://conferences.theiet.org/turing/

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

 

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning. It's Monday 10 February, and it’s Week 3, an A week. I hope things are going well. So, on with today’s news, and I have a lot for you today!

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

STUDENTHACK SUCCESS.

  Congratulations to our School team for winning the AutoTrader prize at StudentHack, Europe's largest student-run hackathon, this past weekend 8 & 9 Feb: Jessie Abramson (Y3, AI), Izz Abudaka (Y1, CS), Grzegorz Jacenków (Y1, CSBMwIE), Mark Larah (Y2, CS4), Charlie Reynolds (Y1, AIwIE) and Bartek Siemieniuk (Y1, SE4). Well done! → http://www.studenthack.com

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  The first SSC meeting of this semester is next week, on Weds 19 Feb. If you have any issues you’d like your Reps to raise, please contact them ASAP → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

CODING DOJO.

  This Weds 12 Feb at 15:00 in Collab, Coding Dojo is organizing a meeting where you will solve two dynamic programming problems on the TopCoder platform. This will be a good training for the Staff vs Students competition, which is coming soon. Don't forget to bring your laptop → https://www.facebook.com/events/451278964971637/

---

JPEG RACE.

  CSSoc are holding a JPEG race this Weds 12 Feb. Win £30 in Amazon vouchers – registration starts at 11:00 Weds at the Byte Cafe → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/jpegrace

---

CHARITY FRIDAY.

  The School raised over £300 last Friday for the British Heart Foundation. Many thanks to all who contributed, and especially Cassie Barlow and Holly Dewsnip for organising.

---

1-UP.

  There’s a Scala ( → http://www.scala-lang.org ) workshop this Weds 12 Feb at 14:00 in the MSc Lab,  followed by Hard-Core projects from 16:00. Also, 1UP has been invited by the School of Mechanical and Civil Engineering’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Society to help with their submission to 2014 International Micro Air Vehicle Conference and Competition (IMAV 2014). The first meeting will be hosted at Sackville Street H6 from 12:00 this Weds 12 Feb. For details → ai.robert.wangshuai@gmail.com

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  Tomorrow Tues 11 Feb at 13:00 in Kilburn room G33 (ground floor) → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

SENSORS AND GADGETS.

  Vasilis Pavlidis writes: to further enhance student Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects, we have recently acquired some cutting-edge temperature and humidity sensors as well as few smart gadgets from Sensirion Inc. Interested? Talk to Vasilis → pavlidis@cs.man.ac.uk

---

CYBER 10K.

  Our friends at NCC Group have organised a Cyber security challenge and would like students to participate.  Can you solve the security challenges that face businesses and consumers today? There’s £10k in prize money → http://www.cyber10k.com

---

DIGITAL TALENT DAY.

  Final call for Manchester Digital Talent Day, happening this Weds 12 Feb in Manchester Town Hall. Meet over 60 local employers looking to recruit Computer Science students → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/full-article/?articleid=603

---

MARKS & CLERK.

  Considering a career in Intellectual Property? Meet Marks & Clerk at their drop-in session tomorrow Tues 11 Feb on Kilburn LF, 12:00-14:00 → http://www.marks-clerk.com/uk/

---

PROCTOR & GAMBLE.

  And another drop-in. Meet P&G on Kilburn LF at 12:00 this Thurs 13 Feb.

---

GERRY PENNELL TALK.

  The IT behind the Greatest Show on Earth. This Weds 12 Feb, in LT1.4 at 14:00, Gerry Pennell, previously CIO for the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, explains the significant role that IT plays in a major sporting event and overviews some of the challenges in successfully delivering it.

---

GOOGLE SCHOLARSHIPS.

  Deadlines are fast approaching for the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship → http://www.google.com/anitaborg/emea/ , the Google Summer Trainee Engineering Program (STEP) →  http://goo.gl/UHG6JR and the Google Europe Scholarship for Students with Disabilities → www.google.com/studentswithdisabilities-europe

---

ANNUAL TURING LECTURE.

  On Weds 26 Feb, Dr Bernard Meyerson from IBM will be talking about “Beyond Silicon: Cognition and more”. Book now → http://conferences.theiet.org/turing/

---

FUTURE OF OUR WORLD.

  The University is running a series of lectures all this week, each at 17:00 in University Place, Lecture Theatre A. Today Mon 10 Feb: The Future of Food with Dr. Alice Larkin-Bows; tomorrow Tues 11 Feb: Global Inequalities with Professor David Hulme; Weds 12 Feb: Sustainable Living with Professor Alan Warde; Thurs 13 Feb: The Future of Energy with a panel of speakers chaired by Dr. John Broderick; and on Friday 14 Feb: The Unknowns of Climate Change with Dr Grant Allen. Tickets → www.manchesterstudentsunion.com/earthweek

---

LOVELACE COLLOQUIUM.

  The BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium is a national one-day conference for women students in Computer Science and related subjects. It’s at the University of Reading on 16 April. There are cash prizes. Submission deadline: 28 Feb → http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/cs/lovelace-colloquium/colloquium2014/

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning. It's Monday 3 Feb, and it’s Week 2, a B week. I hope you’re getting back into the swing of term. Here’s today's news, and as always, there’s lots of it!

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

CHARITY FRIDAY.

  This Fri 7 Feb the School is supporting the British Heart Foundation. From 13:00-1500 in the Atlas Rooms we’ll have a book & DVD sale, clothes swap, cakes… please come along and help us raise cash. We’d welcome contributions, especially any unwanted Xmas gifts! Full details → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/MM/bhf.jpg

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  The first SSC meeting of this semester is Weds 19 Feb. If you have any issues you’d like your Reps to raise, please contact them ASAP → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB:

  Tomorrow Tues 4 Feb at 13:00 in Kilburn room G33 (ground floor). Bring along your design dilemmas and your testing troubles, or just come for moral support.  Anyone using agile project management techniques or coding practices in their 3rd year project is welcome → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

COURSE UNIT CHOICES.

  If you haven’t yet, please finalise and enter your Semester 2 Course Unit choices. Deadline 5pm this Fri 7 Feb → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/options.php

---

GET YOUR HOODIE.

  Neha Agrawal (Y3, CSE) writes: CSSoc is selling Computer Science Hoodies from at the Byte Cafe from 11:00-1400 all this week. Only £20 each (the lowest price ever!) Have a look and grab yours! → http://imgur.com/dmF2tZX

---

1-UP.

  The Hard-Core Projects continue this Weds 5 Feb in the MSc Lab from 16:00.  All welcome.

---

KNEEBONE BURSARY.

  A reminder about the annual Kate Kneebone Acorn Bursary, open to all undergraduates. The application deadline is Mon 24 Feb → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/kneebone/

---

SHIP & DUCK.

  Web Developer internships are available for 2014-2015 with Ship & Duck. Visit their drop-in session with free lunch tomorrow Tues 4 Feb at 12:00 on Kilburn LF. Get valuable internship experience in large application development, .NET web applications, MSSQL, C#, HTML and JaveScript. If you're bright, enthusiastic, ethical and creative, they’d love to meet you. → http://shipnduck.com/

---

MARKS & CLERK.

  Considering a career in Intellectual Property? Meet Marks & Clerk at their drop-in session next Tues 11 Feb on Kilburn LF, 12:00-14:00 → http://www.marks-clerk.com/uk/

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning, and welcome to Semester 2 – it's Week 1, an A week. I hope your exams went well, and that you'll enjoy everything happening this semester. Only 10 weeks until Easter :-) ! OK, on with today's news...

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

SEMESTER 1 SURVEY RESPONSE.

  We’ve now looked in detail at the Unit Evaluation Questionnaires from last semester. Thanks for your feedback. We take your views seriously, and all the Course Unit lecturers have contributed to a report responding to your comments → https://wiki.cs.manchester.ac.uk/index.php?title=US_Response_AY1314_Semester_1

---

THIRD YEAR MEETING.

  There’s an important meeting for all 3rd Year students, this Weds 29 Jan at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.1. I look forward to seeing all 3rd Years there.

---

WELCOME PAUL.

  We have a new member of staff – Paul Waring – who'll be playing an important role in providing technical support for UG students. Paul was an undergraduate here in the School, graduating in 2006. He then stayed at the University to gain an MA in Classics and Ancient History, and an MPhil in Computer Science. After 5 years in the insurance industry, Paul has returned to the School as a member of staff.

---

CSSOC NOSH.

  Pez Cuckow (Y3, CSBMwIE) writes: Welcome back from CSSoc, we'll be heading to Red Hot World Buffet in the city centre for a big nosh-up this Thurs 30 Jan at 19:30 → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/buffet

---

1-UP.

  The CEO of Desk&Co, Hector Kolonas, will be talking about his experiences tomorrow Tues 28 Jan at 14:00 in LT1.4. Join in for the free workshop before StudentHack → http://tinyurl.com/hack1up. Also, BBC Coding Challenge and Hard-Core Projects will be in the MSc Lab  this Weds from 14:00 → http://tinyurl.com/bbc1up

---

TIMETABLES.

  A reminder that you can access your timetables online → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/timetables. You can also use Pez Cuckow’s timetable generator to build an iCal file your favourite calendar app → http://labs.pezcuckow.com/cstimetable

---

COURSE UNIT CHOICES.

  Please review and enter your Semester 2 Course Unit choices right away. You have until the end of next week (Week 2B, Friday 7 Feb) to finalise your choices, but we'd appreciate you entering your choices ASAP, please → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/options.php

---

COURSE UNIT INFO.

  Looking for Course Unit stuff? Here’s the hub page, and we’ve now added demonstrator details, to help you to get to know your demonstrators better → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013

---

EXAM RESULTS.

  See when exam results will be out → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/assessment/results

---

TOOTILL PI.

  Thanks to generous donations made by alumni and friends of the University, the new Pi Network in the Tootill labs has been installed and is now operational, and available to all students. To get connection authorisation, send your name, University username and Pi MAC address to Paul Waring → paul.waring@manchester.ac.uk

---

CHANNELGRABBER.

  A Manchester company, ChannelGrabber.com, is doing a drop-in session this Thurs 30 Jan in Kilburn. Come and see what current @csmcr placement students have been up to and find out about opportunties in software engineering → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/news/full-article/?articleid=557

---

WHAT NEXT?

  Run by Manchester Entrepreneurs, the objective of the What Next? conference (Sat 22 Feb) is to showcase the opportunities available to talented students considering entrepreneurship. Sign up →  http://www.whatnextconference.co.uk 

---

STUDENT HACK.

  Europe's largest student hackathon comes to Manchester on Feb 8/9 but hurry! You’ll need to submit your ideas before 31 Jan → http://www.studenthack.com

---

MANCHESTER DIGITAL SKILLS FESTIVAL.

  Over 60 local leading digital businesses with various vacancies available, including software development. Meet them on Weds 12 Feb at Manchester Town Hall. Register → https://www.eventbrite.com/e/talentday-2014-student-registration-ages-18-tickets-9602510367

---

BE A RESEARCH VOLUNTEER.

  Want to make a contribution to Ageing Research? PhD student Sam Couth is seeking volunteers to take part in computer-based experiments related to how we see, feel, touch and make sense of things. Participants will be reimbursed for their time. → samuel.couth@manchester.ac.uk

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! I hope your exams are going well. Just a week to go until Semester 2 teaching starts, so lots to look forward to!

Best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

REMOTE WORKING.

  Many students want to work on labs and coursework away from the Kilburn Building, so we've put together a wiki page to help with this. We hope you'll find it useful → https://wiki.cs.manchester.ac.uk/index.php/RemoteWorking

---

COURSE UNIT CHOICES.

  Please review and enter your Semester 2 Course Unit choices. You have until the end of Week 2 (Friday 7 Feb) to finalise your choices, but the sooner the better.

---

STUDENT HACK.

  Europe's largest student hackathon comes to Manchester on Feb 8/9 but hurry! You’ll need to submit your ideas before 31 Jan → http://www.studenthack.com  

---

MANCHESTER DIGITAL SKILLS FESTIVAL.

  Over 60 local leading digital businesses with various vacancies available, including software development. Meet them on Weds 12 Feb at Manchester Town Hall. Register now → https://www.eventbrite.com/e/talentday-2014-student-registration-ages-18-tickets-9602510367

* QUIET ROOM. A reminder that we have a quiet study space here in Kilburn, which you might find helpful for exam revision. It's Room 1.12, and you get to it through the 3rd Year Lab, Room 1.8. It's specifically for quiet, personal study.

---

STUDENT AMBASSADORS.

  Want to share your passion for Computer Science with secondary school/college kids who want to be Computer Scientists? Learn new skills and develop your CV, meet new people, and earn some money too. Become a Computer Science Student Ambassador → http://bit.do/StudentAmbassadors

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

 

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Hello and welcome back. Happy New Year! I hope you had a good break. The two-week exams period starts today, so I wish you good luck. Top tips: stay calm, write and illustrate your answers clearly – keep in mind that someone has to read your writing!

Best wishes
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

EXAMS TIMETABLE.

  Don't forget to check your personal exams timetable via your Student Portal, and tell SSO immediately if you spot any issues.

---

QUIET ROOM.

  A reminder that we have a quiet study space here in Kilburn, which you might find helpful for exam revision. It's Room 1.12, and you get to it through the 3rd Year Lab, Room 1.8. It's specifically for quiet, personal study, away from the hustle and bustle of the School. No chat, no phones, just quiet.

---

UNDER PRESSURE?

  During January the University Library is running a series of clinics and workshops to support you through the exams period. Book onto a revision clinics to hone your academic skills, or take a break and sample one of the Library's wellbeing activities to help you relax → http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/librarywellbeing

---

STUDENT AMBASSADORS.

  Want to share your passion for Computer Science with secondary school/college kids who want to be Computer Scientists? Learn new skills to develop your CV, meet new people, and earn some money too. Become a Computer Science Student Ambassador → http://bit.do/StudentAmbassadors

---

LIBRARY CHALLENGE.

  Do you have an innovative idea to enhance the customer experience within the University Library? Enter their Eureka! Innovation Challenge and you could win up to £1,000 → http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/eureka

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a good week,

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning. It's Week 12 (an A week) and the last week of term – as you probably know! I hope the Semester has gone well, and that you've had a stimulating and fun 3 months. On behalf of the School I wish you a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year (but don't forget your exam revision!) The Monday Mail will be back in January. On with today's news...

best wishes
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

FUNDACIOUS RESULTS.

  Congratulations to Jack Kelly (Y1, CS) who has won the Head of School’s Xmas Presents award which will fund his proposal to host a prestigious public Raspberry Jam event here in the School, next March. Well done Jack!

---

BE A CODE TUTOR.

  Interested in helping kids in local schools learn how to code? In collaboration with local charity the Tutor Trust, the School is offering paid opportunities (min £10 per hour) to help local schools run computer-based activities. Full training will be given. Find out more near the Byte Cafe, this Weds 11 Dec 10:00-14:00. This is a great opportunity to extend your skills, do good work, and enhance your CV → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~david/TutorTrust

---

KILBURN ACCESS MEETING.

  A reminder that at 17:00-18:00 tomorrow Tues 10 Dec in LT1.1, there’ll be  an open meeting for all undergraduates, at which Head of School Jim Miles will explain the School’s position and the issues surrounding out of hours access to the building, and hear your views.

---

Y1 LIKES/DISLIKES.

  We asked Y1 students to tell us their likes, dislikes and suggestions as part of their Reading Week essay submission. This generated a huge amount of data, but we’ve now read it all. See a summary and responses/action points from the School → http://goo.gl/8N0YpF

---

JANUARY EXAMS.

  The January exams timetable is out – you can find it through your Student Portal. Please check it right away and visit SSO immediately if you spot any mistakes or problems.

---

CSSOC XMAS.

  This Weds 11 Dec is CSSoc's last event for this year: what else but Christmas Pub Golf. Golfing/Christmas attire is definitely encouraged, and there's a cash prize for the best outfit. Tee up → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/christmaspubgolf

---

TELL US ABOUT YOUR COURSES.

  The Semester 1 Unit Evaluation Questionnaires are your chance to tell us what you think about each of your course units. This is how it works: you give us your views, we take those to your lecturers and publish their responses, and changes happen.

---

TEACH FIRST.

  Interested in being a Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths (STEM) teacher? Find out about the Teach First programme, tomorrow Tues 10 Dec, University Place 3.204 at 13.30. Drinks and lunch provided. Sign up → http://graduates.teachfirst.org.uk/events

---

AGILE Y3 PROJECT CLUB.

   No meeting this week, but we'll be back in Semester 2. → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

GOOGLE SCHOLARSHIPS.

  The Google Anita Borg Scholarship is for current and academically strong female Computer Science students. Successful applicants receive EU 7,000 for the 2014 academic year. → http://www.google.com/anitaborg/emea . Google also offers a EU 7,000 Scholarship for academically strong students with disabilities → http://www.google.com/studentswithdisabilities-europe

---

WOMENCOURAGE.

  On 1 March 2014 we’ll be hosting the inaugural ACM-W Europe WomENcourage (→ http://womencourage.acm.org) conference here in Kilburn. This is a free event to support women studying Computer Science and those in the early stages of their carees, with attendes from all over Europe. The organisers are seeking up to 16 volunteers, male and female, to help run the event. As a volunteer, you’ll be able to attend the conference, and meet  representatives from Intel, Google, Microsoft Research, Facebook and Bloomberg. Interested? → acm-w-europe@acm.org

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! it's Monday 2 December, and it’s Week 11, a B week. Once again, lots going on, have a good week!

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

MAKE A FUNDACIOUS THING.

  Bid for cash to develop fun and audacious technologies/events to benefit life in the School. Your bid should describe your ideas, what you’ll use the money for (max £500 per project) and how it will benefit your fellow students. Hurry! Deadline this Weds 4 Dec → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/xmaspresents/

---

BBC DIGITAL MEDIA.

  Laura Howarth-Kirke and Kristian Epps, who both graduated this summer, will be talking about their experiences on the BBC’s graduate digital media scheme, this Weds 4 Dec at 13:00 in LT1.1. Find out what life is like at the BBC for graduates. All welcome → http://www.bbc.co.uk/careers/trainee-schemes/digitalmediascheme

---

CODING IN DELFT.

  The Coding Dojo team who entered the ACM comp in Delft last week have blogged about their experiences → http://codingdojo.cs.man.ac.uk

---

MOVEMBER SUCCESS.

  Students and staff (27 in the team) raised an amazing £1,651 for Men’s Health charities – thanks for all your support. See the MoMen (and MoLadies) in all their glory → http://goo.gl/nYCRkm

---

TELL US ABOUT YOUR COURSES.

  The Semester 1 Unit Evaluation Questionnaires launch today. It’s your chance to tell us what you think about each of your course units. This is how it works: you give us your views, we take those to your lecturers, publish their responses, and make any improvements necessary. Here's the response from the most recent UEQs, Semester 2 last year → http://goo.gl/mLlucS

---

CSSOC CURRY NIGHT.

  This Weds 4 Dec CSSoc is organising a Christmas curry night. Costumes are very welcome but not compulsory! Christmas Crackers to the first 40 → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/christmascurry

---

CSSOC BEERFEST.

  And on Thurs 5 Dec, CSSoc will be arranging tickets for the Beerfest at the Student Union. Tickets are £3 → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/beerfest

---

TALK TALK.

  They’ll be Talking Talking about technical opportunities at the Talk Talk Group today, Monday 2 Dec. Sign up → https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/skill-up-tickets-9420052631

---

AMPERSAND.

  Ampersand Commerce and 1UP have launched the Ampersand Ultimate Graduate Programme. Come along this Thurs 5 Dec at 14:00 in Kilburn LF15 to hear all about the programme. Apply → http://ampersandcommerce.com/whats-up-1-up

---

MANCHESTER ULTIMATE PROGRAMMING.

  All the 1UP workshops, meetings, master classes and Hack-a-thons are finished for this Semester. 1UP want your feedback → http://tinyurl.com/1upfeedback

---

HAVE YOUR SAY.

  Y1 and Y2 students, make your voice heard in the University’s Student Barometer survey, open until this Friday 6 Dec → http://staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/supporting-students/student-experience

---

AGILE Y3 PROJECT CLUB.

  This Fri 6 Dec at 12:00 in Kilburn 2.33. All welcome → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! it's Monday 25 November, and it’s Week 10, an A week. Lots to tell you about today!

Have a great week,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

---

CODING DOJO ACM COMP.

  Gavin Brown writes: Last weekend our Coding Dojo teams flew to the Netherlands to compete against 90 other University teams from across Europe in the prestigious ACM Programming Competition. Our two teams together solved 5/10 of the challenging problems, coming in 9th place in the UK – a fantastic result, beating teams from Oxford, Imperial and Edinburgh amongst many others, and 27th overall in Europe.  We’ll publish a full breakdown and commentary on the event soon. Our teams were Clara Diaconeasa (Y2), Alex Grigoroi (Y3), Mihail Kovachev (Y3), Tudor Morar (Y4), Marius Popsecu (Y3) and Victor Paunescu (Y3). Well done all! → gbrown@cs.man.ac.uk

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  We had a lively meeting last week, with lots of stuff discussed. Read the full report from Secretary Daniel Tzabar (Y2, CS4) → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

COURSE STATS.

  One thing that came up at the SSC was that some students aren’t aware that we publish the statistics for course units. We do! → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/assessment/unitstatistics.php

---

MAKE A FUNDACIOUS THING.

  We invite all UG students to bid for cash to develop fun and audacious technologies/events to benefit life in the School. Your bid should describe your ideas, what you will use the money for (max £500 per project) and how it will benefit your fellow students. Deadline next Weds 4 Dec → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/xmaspresents/

---

MANCHESTER ULTIMATE PROGRAMMING.

  This Weds 27 Nov at 14:00 in Kilburn 2.19, Dirk Koch will be talking about FPGA projects → https://sites.google.com/site/1uphardcore/

---

WORKING FROM HOME.

  Want to catch up on Lab work from home? We’ve put together some wiki-tips on how to do this effectively, including help on installing Linux and keeping files in sync. Wikis are crowd-written, so please add your own tips/experiences → https://wiki.cs.manchester.ac.uk/index.php/StudentFAQ/IT#Working_from_home

---

HAVE YOUR SAY.

  Y1 and Y2 students, make your voice heard in the University’s Student Barometer survey, open until 6 Dec → http://staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/supporting-students/student-experience

---

THE QUIET ROOM.

  Last year, you asked us to provide a quiet study space here in Kilburn, for all UG students. So we did. It's Room 1.12, and you get to it through the 3rd Year Lab, Room 1.8. It's specifically for quiet, personal study. No mobile phone chatting or leaky headphones allowed. So it’s quiet. Why not check it out and enjoy an oasis of calm in our busy School?

---

COURSE UNITS.

  Bookmark our course unit launchpad → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013/

---

AGILE Y3 PROJECT CLUB.

  This Fri 29 Nov at 12:00 in Kilburn 2.33. All welcome → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

THE GREAT UNI HACKATHON.

  If you’re eager to practise your coding and design skills, come to the Computer Science Hackathon this Sat 30 Nov 10:00–18:00 here in Kilburn. Our sponsor Witlr will be providing free pizza and drinks, and giving prizes. Register → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/Hackathon

---

POSTGRADUATE STUDY.

  If you’re interested in PG study, come to the Postgraduate Open Day this Weds 27 Nov → http://www.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/opendays

---

PLAYING WITH DATA.

  This Sat 30 Nov Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) are hosting a Citizen Developer hackathon at their HQ on Portland Street. It’s all about Manchester Open Data and mobile web apps → https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/playing-with-data-tickets-9157788191

---

CALLING ALL ENTREPRENEURS.

  Unipreneur is a weekend event designed to help students develop their entrepreneurial talents. 29 Nov–1 Dec → http://unipreneur.com

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning – it's Monday 18 November, and it’s Week 9, a B week. Tons of news today!

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  The next meeting of the SSC is this Weds 20 Nov. If you’d like your reps to raise any issues on your behalf, please contact your appropriate year/programme rep ASAP → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

MAKE A FANTASTIC THING.

  The Head of School is bestowing Xmas gifts! Current UG students are invited to bid for funding to develop fun and audacious technologies/events to benefit life in the School. Your bid should describe your ideas, what you will use the money for (max £500 per project) and how it will benefit your fellow students. Bid by Weds 4 Dec. Full details → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~gbrown/xmaspresents

---

TOOTILL PI-NET SUCCESS.

  Paul Nutter has won a grant of £4,000 from the Univsity to create a dedicated Raspberry Pi network in the Tootill Labs for teaching and student projects. Well done Paul!

---

FACEBOOK EVENT.

  FB ships code daily to over 1 billion people worldwide. This Weds 20 Nov at 15:00 in LT1.1 Mirca-Gabriel Suciu (Y4, CS4) will be talking about his Summer FB placement. Bring your CV for the chance to interview for an intern/graduate position at FB. Also food, prizes and swag. Register → http://tiny.cc/fbmanchesteruni

---

RUBY WORKSHOP.

  Mark van Harmelen is running a Ruby drop-in session this Thurs 21 Nov. All welcome → https://www.facebook.com/events/653629507992895/

---

CALLING ALL BLOGGERS.

  Edoardo Moreni (Y2, CS4) runs a blog about Entrepreneurship, Tech and Startups and is looking for more writers. Check out Edoardo’s blog and contact him if you’d like to get involved. It could be great for your experience, and your CV → http://greatpreneurs.com

---

LASER QUEST.

  It’s “pyuuu pyuuu . . . aaaargh” time again. CSSOC is going Laser Questing this Weds 20 Nov evening at the Trafford Centre. Get your ticket (£10) at the Byte Cafe 11:00-14:00 this week → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/3

---

HAVE YOUR SAY.

  Y1 and Y2 students, make your voice heard in the University’s Student Barometer survey, open until 6 Dec → http://staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/supporting-students/student-experience

---

DINNER WITH ACCENTURE.

  Tomorrow Tues 19 Nov, come to an evening with Accenture at a restaurant in the city centre, and find out about them and their recruitment. Apply → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/accenturedinner

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  This Fri 22 Nov at 12:00 in Kilburn 2.33. All welcome → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

IMAGINATION DAY.

  Following their guest lecture for COMP101 last week, Imagination Technology are inviting applications for their Student Open Day on Fri 29 Nov. Apply by Fri 22 Nov → http://www.imgtec.com/graduates/uk/email/openday2013/

---

THE GREAT UNI HACKATHON.

  Eager to practise your coding and design skills and build something great? Come to the Computer Science Hackathon on Sat 30 Nov 10:00–18:00 here in Kilburn. Our sponsor Witlr will be providing free pizza and energy drinks, and giving prizes. Register → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/Hackathon

---

1-UP.

  Another hackathon. This one’s with Bright Future this Weds 20 Nov, 17:00–19:00. Meet at Byte Cafe at 16:50 and walk to MBS West. Register → 1up@cs.man.ac.uk. Also, thanks for all who came to last week’s 1-UP workshop. Videos will be uploaded soon.

---

PLAYING WITH DATA.

  And yet another! Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) are hosting a Citizen Developer hackathon on Sat 30 Nov at their HQ on Portland Street. It’s all about Open Data and mobile web apps around events and environmental data in Manchester. Sign up → https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/playing-with-data-tickets-9157788191

---

ARDUINO WORKSHOP.

  Register for the Thales Arduino Workshop on 20 Nov and explore the powerful capabilities of Arduino, have an expert on hand to show you the ropes, with the chance to win great prizes, including a Smartwatch. Register → http://www.thalesarduino.com

---

POSTGRADUATE STUDY.

  Interested in PG study? Come to the Computer Science Postgraduate Open Day next Weds 27 Nov → http://www.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/opendays

---

CALLING ALL ENTREPRENEURS.

  Unipreneur is a weekend event designed to help students develop their entrepreneurial talents. 29 Nov–1 Dec → http://unipreneur.com

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a great week!

best wishes,

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It's Monday 11 November, and it’s Week 8, an A week. On with today’s news...

---

FACEBOOK EVENT.

  Ever wondered what it’s like to work for a company that ships code daily to over 1 billion people around the world? Mirca-Gabriel Suciu (Y4, CS4) had a placement at FB this summer, and will be talking about his experiences next week Weds 20 Nov at 15:00 in LT1.1. Bring your CV to the event and it will be passed to one of FB’s recruiters, giving you the chance to interview for an intern or graduate position. Also food, prizes and FB swag. Register → http://tiny.cc/fbmanchesteruni

---

PRINT QUOTA UPDATE.

  We’ve added £6 to everyone’s printing quota.

---

1-UP.

  This Weds 13 Nov 14:00-18:00 is the Ultimate Programming Workshop. Meet people from people from Ampersand, BBC, AppSense, CakeSolutions, Hedtek and Shadowcat Systems. Register → http://ultimate-programming-workshop.eventbrite.co.uk

---

PUB QUIZ.

  Come to the CSSOC pub quiz this Weds 13 Nov at 19:00, at The Grove, Whitworth Park. Not all questions are CS-themed but they're not all easy! The entry fee is £1 and the winner takes it all! → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/pubquiz

---

POSTGRADUATE STUDY.

  Interested in doing PG study? Come and chat to some current postgrads in LF15 13:00-14:00 tomorrow Tues 12 Nov. It’s informal and friendly – and there will be biscuits! Also, there’s the Computer Science Postgraduate Open Day on Weds 27 Nov → http://www.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/opendays

---

HAVE YOUR SAY.

  Y1 and Y2 students, make your voice heard: take part in the University’s Student Barometer survey, open from this Fri 8 Nov, until 6 Dec → http://staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/supporting-students/student-experience

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  This Fri 15 Nov at 12:00 in Kilburn 2.33 (note new venue) –struggling to slice your stories?  Learning spikes swamping your development time?  Paper prototype in pieces?  Being test-driven around the bend?  Come along to our next meeting for support and snacks.  All welcome! → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

CALLING ALL ENTREPRENEURS.

  Unipreneur is a weekend event designed to help study develop their entrepreneurial talents. 29 Nov-1 Dec → http://unipreneur.com

---

TECH HUB NIGHT.

  See what Manchester's top startups are working on – these are the people that are changing the future of business and tech. Tomorrow Tues 12 Nov, 18:00 → http://manchester.techhub.com/events/our-first-ever-techhub-manchester-demo-night

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a great week!
best wishes,

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It's Monday 4 November, and it’s Week 7, a B week. I hope you enjoyed Reading Week! On with today’s news...

---

BARCLAYS SUCCESS.

  Huge congratulations to Team Koupedia, aka Vasilis Nicolaou (Y4, CS4), Maria Charalampous (PGT), Georgios Chairepetis (PGT), Kyriacos Georgiou (Y3, CSwIE) and Angelos Georgiadis (CS graduate, July 2013) on winning the BarclaysTech challenge last week → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/news/full-article/?articleid=310

---

HACK MANCHESTER SUCCESS.

  And equally huge congratulations to the Foot Injury Clan, aka James Robertson (Y3, CS4), Ted John (Y3, CS4), Radu Chichi (Y3, CSwIE) and Miso (Mike) Zmiric (Y3, CS4) on winning the LayerShift challenge at Hack Manchester! → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/news/full-article/?articleid=308

---

Y3 SEMINARS.

  Good luck to all Y3 Project students, whose seminars start this week. All UG students are welcome to attend any seminar, just drop in/out. See the timetable → http://goo.gl/MP27kk

---

1-UP.

  PhD student Eric Schneider from Liverpool University will be talking about his work on Artificial Intelligence, in Kilburn 2.19 this Weds 6 Nov at 14:00. A reminder that next Weds 13 Nov 14:00-18:00 is the Ultimate Programming Workshop, advance registration required → http://ultimate-programming-workshop.eventbrite.co.uk

---

BONFIRE FUN.

  Get your sparklers out and join CSSoc at Platt Fields for the fireworks tomorrow evening Tues 5 Nov → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/fireworks

---

HAVE YOUR SAY.

  Y1 and Y2 students, make your voice heard: take part in the University’s Student Barometer survey, open from this Fri 8 Nov, until 6 Dec → http://staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/supporting-students/student-experience/

---

MOVEMBER.

  Students and staff (27 in the team) are currently cultivating rather silly moustaches to raise money for Men’s Health charities, and have already raised £140! Please sponsor these chaps who fear no embarrassment → http://moteam.co/csmcr

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  This Fri 8 Nov at 12:00 in Kilburn 2.33 (note change of venue): helping anyone trying “specification by example” techniques, plus finishing off the Halloween sweets from the COMP33711 lectures.  All welcome! → sembury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

WORK AT CERN.

  Interested in working at the world-famous lab? CERN will be talking about vacancies and internships this Weds 6 Nov at 13:00 in LT1.1. All welcome → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/news/full-article/?articleid=312

---

CREDIT SUISSE.

  Find out what IT employees at Credit Suisse do, as they take you through a recent case-study. This Weds 6 Nov, 18:30. Register → http://goo.gl/BPMyjy

---

IBM MAINFRAME CHALLENGE.

  A great opportunity to learn about IBM stuff, and win things: hoodies / Raspberry Pis / Samsung Galaxy Tabs / visits to IBM Research Labs. Register → http://www-05.ibm.com/employment/uk/graduate-programmes/mainframe/

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy your week!

best wishes,

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It's Monday 28 October, and it's Reading Week (aka Week 6), so there are no scheduled teaching activities this week. It's a chance for you to have a break and make sure you're up to date with everything – although don't forget about assignments due in at the end of the week! Usual teaching and timetabled acrivities resume next Monday 4 November.

---

ACM TEAM SELECTED.

  The ACM trials are over, and we can announce the winners are... drumroll please... Clara Diaconeasa (Y2, CMwIE), Mihail Kovachev (Y3, CSwIE) and Tudor Morar (Y4, CS4). All three struggled through 5 immensely difficult algorithmic problems, including dynamic programming, binary search, max-flow, and other tough stuff. They’ll fly to the Netherlands with our victors from last year (Alex Grigoroi (Y3, CS4), Victor Paunescu  (Y3, CS4), Marius Popescu  (Y3, CS4)) to represent Manchester in the international ACM competition. Photos → https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e07svfezov6rqys/WdFQQwUfu6

---

SSC.

  Last Weds 23 Oct was the first Staff-Student Committee meeting of the year. We discussed a lot of things – including the changes we will be making, after listening to your views, to the Y3 projects system for next year. Read the full report of the meeting → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

1-UP.

   Manchester Ultimate Programming will be hosting the Ultimate Programming Workshop'13 on Weds 13 Nov. Check the website and get ready → https://sites.google.com/site/1upworkshop All at 1UP → http://man-up.appspot.com

---

CSSOC.

  Join CSSoc at Platt Fields for the fireworks next Tues 5 Nov → http://url.cssoc.co.uk/fireworks

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MOVEMBER.

  It’s nearly November which means students and staff will be growing extremely silly moustaches to raise money for charity. Help us beat the £1200 we raised last year! Sign up → http://moteam.co/csmcr

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  No meeting in Reading Week. Back next week at the usual time of Friday 12:00, but in a new venue: Kilburn 2.33.

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STRIKE DAY.

  The three campus unions (UCU, Unison and Unite) are planning a day of strike action this Thu 31 Oct. The Kilburn building will be open as usual.

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Follow the links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy Reading Week!

best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It’s Monday 21 October, and it’s Week 5, an A week. A reminder that next week (28 Oct –1 Nov) is Reading Week, so there’ll be no scheduled teaching activities in that week. Anyway, here we are with today’s news…

---

STEVE BLOGS.

  Steve Pettifer has blogged about our introduction of Raspberry Pis to Y1 teaching. Find out about this £15,000 project that took 12 months to plan and realise, and involved a complete re-design of Y1 introductory labs → http://roguepointer.net

---

CSSOC HALLOWEEN PUB CRAWL.

  Neha Agrawal (Y3, CSE) writes: Want to do something spooky for Halloween? Been wanting to dress up as John Latham? Well here's your chance. Join CCSoc for a special Halloween-themed pub crawl, with prizes for the spookiest costume, the best John Latham costume and… the best spooookiest John Latham costume. Put in your vamp teeth and join us at Ford Maddox Brown at 19:00 this Weds 23 Oct → http://goo.gl/TAWyZR

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CODING DOJO.

  This week at 15:00 on Weds 23 Oct in Collab, the Coding Dojo is running the ACM trials, to decide who will fly to the Netherlands on 22 Nov, to represent the University in the international ACM programming competition. Sign up (and please bring a laptop) → http://codingdojo.cs.man.ac.uk

---

1-UP.

  Find out about the Computer Science tech behind the BBC. Meet the BBC's David Craddock this Weds 23 Oct at 14:00 in LF15 → http://tinyurl.com/bbcisback

---

MORGAN STANLEY.

  They’re here in Kilburn LF tomorrow Tue 22 Oct 12:00-16:00.  Don’t miss this great opportunity for CV checking and mock interviews → http://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=24824

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  Suzanne Embury writes: this Fri 25 Oct at 12:00 in Kilburn G33, we'll be discussing project management techniques and (appropriately for Halloween) checking up on how our walking skeletons are coming along. All welcome!

---

EXAM FEEDBACK.

  Final call for the feedback session to look at last Summer’s exam answerbooks (COMP only) for all Y2 and Y3 students, at 14:00 on Weds 6 Nov in IT407. Pre-booking required: email SSO by 12:00 TODAY Mon 21 Oct with your details and what papers you’d like to see → compsci-sso@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

---

STUDENT AMBASSADORS.

  Want to share your passion for Computer Science with secondary school/college kids who want to be Computer Scientists? Learn new skills to develop your CV, meet new people, and earn some money too. Become a Computer Science Student Ambassador → http://bit.do/CSambassadors

---

BARCLAYS BBC TECH CHALLENGE.

  Barclays and the BBC have invited two teams from the University to participate in their annual tech challenge starting in Reading Week. Entry details (deadline Weds 23 Oct) →  http://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=24841

---

BARCAMP.

  BarCamp is an international network of conferences about technology and the Web. Fifty free tickets are available for this year’s event. Details and signup → http://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=24842

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Follow the links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a good week!
best wishes,

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It’s Monday 14 October, and it’s Week 4, a B week. On with today’s news…

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  Your Student Reps for this year are now elected, and the first meeting will be next week Weds 23 Oct, so if you’d like them to raise any issues on your behalf, please contact your appropriate year/programme Rep → http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

CODING DOJO.

  This week at 15:00 on Weds 16 Oct in Collab, is preparation for the ACM trials, which will take place next week, to decide who will fly to the Netherlands to represent the School in the ACM competition.  We'll be doing example problems, and introducing you to the automatic code submission and grading system. Please bring your own laptop if at all possible. → gavin.brown@manchester.ac.uk

---

OUR RESPONSE TO YOUR FEEDBACK.

  We’ve now looked in detail at the Course Unit Evaluation Questionnaire results from Semester 2 of last academic year. You like a lot of what we do, but there are some things you want improved. We take your views seriously, and we’ve asked all the Course Unit lecturers to respond to your comments. Read here → https://wiki.cs.manchester.ac.uk/index.php/UEQ_Response_AY1213_Semester_2

---

NEW STUDENT WIKI.

  A reminder that’s there’s a new wiki for student use, now up and running. Check it out and contribute → https://wiki.cs.manchester.ac.uk/students//index.php/Main_Page

---

EXAM FEEDBACK.

  There’ll be a feedback session to look at last Summer’s exam answerbooks (COMP only) for all Y2 and Y3 students, at 14:00 on Weds 6 Nov in IT407. Pre-booking required – email SSO with your name/student ID number/list of COMP course answerbooks you wish to view. Deadline 12:00 Mon 21 Oct → compsci-sso@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

---

CSSOC.

  Forever getting lost around Kilburn? Want to get to know the building a little better? CSSoc are running a scavenger hunt around Kilburn this Weds 16 Oct, from 09:00 to 18:00. Posters with QR codes on will be strategically placed around the building. Your mission is to find as many as possible. Teams must sign up on the day at the CSSoc notice board on LF, outside Collab 2.

---

SPINNAKER AHOY.

  Come and hear Professor Steve Furber talk about his research group’s amazing SpiNNaker project, part of the Flagship Human Brain Project, an ambitious 1-billion-Euro programme to unlock the secrets of the human brain. This Weds 16 Oct at 13:30 in Kilburn 1.4. All welcome. → http://apt.cs.man.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/

---

1-UP.

  Robert White (Y3, AI) writes: “Join the PHP Army this week for 1-UP! Kevin from Pass2Pro will blow your mind with his PHP experience. Come and get inspired this Weds 15 Oct at 14:00 in Kilburn 2.33 (2nd floor)” → http://tinyurl.com/phparmy

---

CAREERS FAIR.

  Not one but two, in fact! Tomorrow Tues 15 Oct our Careers Fair is in Kilburn LF with 17 companies including Amazon, IBM and ARM (see the full list → http://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=24778).  And the following day Weds 16 Oct there’ll be over 80 recruiters at the Engineering, Science and Technology Fair at Manchester Central → http://www.manchestercentral.co.uk/events/engineering-science-technology-fair

---

LONDON HACKATHON.

  The Startup Hacks hackathon is a 48 hour weekend for Europe's brightest student/graduate developers, designers and entrepreneurs to get together and create a business. There’s over £5,000 in prizes up for grabs along with a potential investments and meetings with venture capitalists. Participants will be coached throughout the weekend by awesome mentors from Facebook, Amazon, Duedil and Thread.com. Apply → http://www.startuphacks.co

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  This Fri 18 Oct at 12:00 in G33. Suzanne Embury writes: We'll look at identifying business values and thin end-to-end slices. All welcome! → embury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

CREDIT SUISSE CHALLENGE.

  Participate in the Credit Suisse IT Challenge and showcase your analytical skills. You can win an iPad with Retina display, Amazon vouchers or the chance  to meet senior representatives at Credit Suisse in London. Apply now (deadline 8 Nov) → http://itchallenge.credit-suisse.com

---

MERRILL LYNCH.

  Bank of America Merrill Lynch are hosting a drop-in session for you to find out about the company. This Thurs 17 Oct,  Kilburn LF, 11:30-14:00.

---

GODMAN SACHS.

  As well as being part of our Careers Fair this week, GS are also hosting Skills Sessions and a Technology Presentation. Find out more and sign up → http://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/campusevents/

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Follow the links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a super week!

best wishes,

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It’s Monday 7 Oct, and it’s Week 3, an A week. I hope you're settling into the new Semester! On with today’s news…

---

TWITTER.

  What’s it like working at Twitter? Find out from our recent graduate Mihai Anca this Weds 9 Oct at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.1. Mihai will be talking about working at Twitter in California. → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/about-us/news/full-article/?articleid=188

---

CODING DOJO.

  Immediately after his talk (above) Mihai will be at this week's Coding Dojo talking about coding interviews at tech companies. Essential. Everyone welcome. Weds 9 Oct at 15:00 in Collab.

---

EXAM FEEDBACK.

  There’ll be a feedback session to look at last Summer’s exam answerbooks (COMP only) for all Y2 and Y3 students, at 14:00 on Weds 6 Nov in IT407. Pre-booking required – email SSO with your name/ student ID number/list of your COMP course answerbooks you wish to view. Deadline 12:00 Mon 21 Oct → compsci-sso@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  The deadline for volunteering as a Student Rep is 17:00 tomorrow Tues 8 Oct. On the SSC noticeboard, near LF31. The first SSC meeting is Weds 23 Oct at 14:00 in IT407.

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  This Fri 11 Oct at 12:00 in G33. Suzanne Embury writes: “We'll look at different agile approaches to requirements gathering and specification. All welcome!” → embury@cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?

  If you’re thinking of doing “with IE” and you haven’t self-registered yet → http://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=265

---

BP CAREERS.

  Join BP at their interactive careers event at the Barnes Wallis Restaurant, this Thurs 8 Oct at 18:00. Register → http://bp.com/ukgradevents

---

GOLDMAN SACHS.

  Tomorrow Tue 8 Oct at 18:30, all Y1 and Y2 year students are invited to attend a GS presentation when Michael Sherwood from Goldman Sachs International and a University of Manchester graduate, will be the keynote speaker → http://goo.gl/cb2hVC

---

TEDxSALFORD.

  The TED conference is coming to Salford on 10 Nov. Get tix now before they sell out →   http://www.tedxsalford.com

---

MANCHESTER DIGITAL.

  MD is the independent trade association for digital business in the North West of England. For free membership & access to local industry events & companies → http://www.manchesterdigital.com/join-manchester-digital

---

CAREERS FAIR.

  It’s next week14 & 15 Oct in Kilburn and Manchester Central respectively → http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/industry/recruit-students/careers-fair/

---

VOLUNTEERING.

  Volunteering is a great way to step outside of academic life, meet new people, make a difference in the community and increase your employability. The Volunteering Fair has over 70 different local and national charities and voluntary organisations attending. This Thurs 10 Oct in Academy 1, Oxford Road, 11:00-15:00. Sign up → http://goo.gl/AMVQGX

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Follow the links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a super week!

best wishes,
Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It’s Monday 30 September, and it’s Week 2, a B week. I hope you’re enjoying the new term! A reminder that you can always read the Monday Mail on the Web, and see all back issues there → http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail – why not bookmark it now. On with today’s news...

---

SET SUCCESS.

  Wow. I’m delighted to tell you that Laura Howarth-Kirke has won the national Science Engineering and Technology (SET) Award for ICT student of the year, for her 3rd Year Project “Learning and Recognising Human Gestures using the Microsoft Kinect”. Not only that, but Laura also won overall SET Student Of The Year! ... but there’s more... Dr Gavin Brown, her project supervisor, won Lecturer Of The Year! Tremendous achievements. Well done Laura and Gavin! → http://senshu.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/MM/LauraGavin.JPG

---

CODING DOJO.

  And speaking of Gavin, his Coding Dojo meeting this week is an introduction to what it’s all about, including a review of the ACM Programming Competition, and what sort of coding problems featured last year. Want something challenging? Be there. This Wednesday 2 Oct 15:00 in Collab, all UG students welcome.

---

AGILE 3RD YEAR PROJECT CLUB.

  Thinking of using some agile practices in your 3rd year project, or going hardcore and applying full XP? The Agile 3rd Year Project Club can provide technical and moral support.  First meeting this Friday 4 October at 13:00 in Kilburn 2.33.  Light refreshment will be provided. All Y3 project students welcome. → suzanne.embury@manchester.ac.uk

---

THE RIGHT PATH.

  In the lab, submit/labprint seem not to work? Use the full path, like /opt/teaching/bin/submit, and add /opt/teaching/bin/ to your $PATH for next time.

---

PRINTING.

  Also important for labs - don’t forget that you need your University ID card with you in order to use the new printers. No card, no printing! → http://wiki.manchester.ac.uk/compsci/index.php/It.changes#How_do_I_print.3F

---

SECOND YEAR PASS.

  Y2 students – are you wondering what course units to take in Semester 1? Want to know what the courses are really like? Come along to Collab today Monday 11:00 to talk to Y3 students about their experiences with all Y2 course units.

---

COURSE UNIT CHOICES.

  Y2 and Y3 students, please use Campus Solutions to make your Semester 1 Course Unit selections by the deadline 17:00 this Friday 4 Oct  → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/options.php

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  The deadline is 17:00 Tuesday 8 October for nominations for Student  Reps on our SSC (→ http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk). Sign-up and make a difference! On the SSC noticeboard, near LF31.

---

1-UP.

  Manchester Ultimate Programming this week presents Dr Jing Wang, a postdoc researcher from Huddersfield University, who’ll talk about his Image Processing work. 13:00 Wednesday 2 Oct, in Kilburn Room 2.15 (2nd Floor), all students and staff welcome → http://man-up.appspot.com/

---

MENG.

  If you’re in Year 2 or 3 and thinking of going on to a Masters degree, consider MEng. Nick Filer and Duncan Hull are hosting an MEng Q&A meeting, in IT407 at 13:00 this Weds 2 Oct. All welcome.

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COLLAB CLOSURE.

  Apologies for any inconvenience, but the Collabs won’t be available from 13:00 this Friday 4 Oct. Saturday is a University Open Day and we’ll be preparing for displays, so we’ll need to move furniture for temporary storage in the Collabs. Normal service will be resumed on Monday.

---

IS IT A BIRD,

  IS IT A PLANE? Students in the School of Mechanical and Civil Engineering run the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Society and they’re looking for Computer Science students to help them build an autopilot system. Interested? → bagrat.rashoyan@student.manchester.ac.uk

---

CAREERS FAIR.

  It’s only 2 weeks away, on Tuesday 15 October. We’ve got 15 companies signed up already. More details next week.

---

MORGAN STANLEY.

  They’re inviting undergraduates from this School to apply to attend their interactive “Tech Expo” on Tuesday 8 October at Canary Wharf, London. The programme includes Introduction to Technology in Financial Services, demos, lunch and networking with recent graduate hires, and Q&A Panel on Technology career opportunities. To apply, email your CV by Thursday 3 October → tech-gradrecteam-eu@morganstanley.com with "Tech Expo 2013" as the subject. Travel expenses will be reimbursed.

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Follow the links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a great week,

best wishes,

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! It’s Monday 23 September, and it’s Week 1A of Semester 1. Throughout each semester we alternate Week A's and Week B's, and there are different timetabled activities according to A and B (→ http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/timetable). The Monday Mail will always remind you which week it is – and this is a Week A. Lots of news today!

---

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?

  If you’re already on, or considering joining, the With Industrial Experience (wIE) programmes, there’s an important meeting for you today Monday 23 September at 12:00 in IT407. → duncan.hull@manchester.ac.uk

---

IT CHANGES.

  We hope you found last week’s it.changes helpdesk useful. For future support please email it.changes@cs.manchester.ac.uk, and visit the wiki → http://wiki.manchester.ac.uk/compsci/index.php/It.changes

---

IT STATUS.

  We’ve created a new service that shows the status of the School’s IT infrastructure. Should there be any issues we’ll post details and resolution status here → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/itstatus

---

STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.

  Nominations for this year's Student  Representatives on our Staff-Student Committee (→ http://sscc.cs.manchester.ac.uk) are now open. Please consider standing as a Rep – you can make a real difference to what happens in the School.  You'll need to find two supporters – a proposer and a seconder. Don't delay! Deadline 17:00 Tuesday 8 October. The colourful sign-up sheets are now up on the SSC noticeboard, near LF31. If you have any queries about being a Rep, you can contact me, or Rosie Dammers, the Student Union Education Officer (→ rosie.dammers@manchester.ac.uk) or → https://www.facebook.com/ManchesterReps

---

RASPBERRY PIs.

  After a year’s planning, last week all Y1 students received a Raspberry Pi, and we launched the new Raspberry Pi COMP101 labs. It seems to have been a great success! If you were at those labs, do let me know what you thought.

---

JAM.

  If you’re fascinated by the endless possibilities of the Pi, check out Raspberry Jam – a monthly event to support Pi hobbyists and developers with their projects. The next event in Manchester is on Saturday 12 October at MadLab. If you’re interested, sign up soon because tickets often go quickly → http://mcrraspjam.org.uk/next-event/

---

CODING DOJO.

  Gavin Brown writes: “From next week we’ll be running meetings on Wednesdays from 15:00  in Collab. For those who may not know, we get together to solve very challenging algorithmic problems, practicing for the international ACM programming Competition in November every year. We’ll have sessions on 2, 9, 16, 23 October, including a visit from a recent graduate, now an engineer at Twitter. The ACM trials will take place on 23 October, and the best three qualifying students will get a free trip to the Netherlands to compete in the 2013 competition.” Interested? Contact Gavin → gavin.brown@manchester.ac.uk

---

COURSE UNIT CHOICES.

  Please use Campus Solutions to make your Semester 1 Course Unit selections. We’d like you to do this ASAP, today please. You have up until the end of Week 2 (Friday 4 October) to alter your choices. but we need you to make a full initial set of Semester 1 choices now (no need to worry about Semester 2 choices yet).

---

CSSOC.

  Neha Agrawal  (Y3, CSE) writes: “Help to run CSSOC! Come to our recruitment meeting this Wednesday 25 September at 13:00 in Kilburn LF15. There will be snacks.” → https://www.facebook.com/events/283412341797598

---

TACTUS.

   You’ve probably seen the new touch-screen information display on the wall on Kilburn LF. This is “Tactus”, developed over the summer by Gavin Brown (→ http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~gbrown) and vacation students Miso Zmiric (Y3, CS4) and Nancy Fitzgerald (Y3, CS). More screens will be installed around Kilburn soon. The plan is to open Tactus to students to develop apps and have them deployed onto the screens around the building. We’ll be running a Student Hackathon on this later in the year.

---

MANCHESTER ULTIMATE PROGRAMMING.

  1-UP (formerly called MAN-UP) is the School's student-led Manchester Ultimate Programming club, run this year by PhD student Robert White (→ ai.robert.wangshuai@gmail.com). First meeting of the year will be at 13:00 this Wednesday 25 September, in Kilburn Room 2.15 (2nd Floor), when Matt Fer will talk about his 3D visualisation work. All UG students and staff welcome! → http://man-up.appspot.com

---

ANIMATION14.

  Did you know that the School runs the annual UK Schools Computer Animation Competition? We're now in our 7th year, and we've just launched Animation14. Already over 200 schools around the UK have signed up for this year's comp. Want to get involved? Can you help us promote it with people you know? Contact me directly please, and → http://animation.cs.manchester.ac.uk

---

TV TECH CHALLENGE.

  Want to build the television of tomorrow? What that looks like is entirely up to you and your imagination using kit provided on the day: Google Android set top boxes or Raspberry Pis. The event is11-13 October, but you need to sign up early → http://www.manchesterdigital.com/events/tv-tech-challenge

---

HACK MANCHESTER.

  HM is a 24-hour coding competition. Teams of up to four turn up with an idea and just 24 hours later present a working product. It’s at the Manchester at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) on 26-27 October 2013. Sign up quickly for the last few tickets → http://www.hackmanchester.com

---

CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Follow the links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Have a great week,

best wishes,

Toby → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby

:: Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in the School. From Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
:: http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail | http://www.facebook.com/computersciencemcr | https://twitter.com/csmcr

Good morning! A warm welcome to you all, and especially to students joining us for the first time. I'm Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies (→ http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby), and you are reading the Monday Mail – which I send to all undergraduates (and staff), every Monday during term-time – to keep you up-to-date with what's happening in the School. So let's go!

---

TIMETABLES.

  This is Welcome Week. Lectures start next week – Week 1. The timetable for Welcome Week is special, so please have a look and make sure you know what’s going on → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013/timetable/welcomeweek.php

---

IT CHANGES.

  We’ve been rather busy during the Summer (in fact for the last 12 months!) completely redesigning the School’s IT infrastructure. To help returning students get up to speed, we’ve written the it.changes wiki, and there’ll be a it.changes Helpdesk on LF during welcome week. Here’s the wiki → http://wiki.manchester.ac.uk/compsci/index.php/It.changes

---

HAVE YOUR SAY.

  → Next week we’ll be setting up this year’s Staff-Student Committee, which meets regularly to talk about things that concern you, and we fix things. There’s lot of ways you can talk to the School, and we really want to hear from you! → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/have-your-say

---

SET AWARDS FINALIST.

  CSwIE student Laura Howarth-Kirke graduated in July and has been selected, based on her 3rd Year Project, as one of the 3 finalists for the prestigious national Science, Engineering and Technology Student of the Year Awards. Well done Laura and good luck!

---

BYTE CAFE.

  We hope you like the new furniture in the Byte Cafe area – we asked you what you wanted back in May, and we’ve done our best to get a balance of things to suit everyone. The Cafe itself has a new coffee machine too.

---

ROOMS AND PCs.

  There’s been a lot of other redesign and improvement work over the summer, and we replaced over 200 PCs with brand-new ones. G23 has new desks and seats, and a new heating/ventilation system. The 3rd Year Lab has new seats. Let me know what you think.

---

COMPUTERS WITH BRAINS.

  Our very own Professor Steve Furber is giving a University Welcome Week Distinguished Lecture – “Computers with Brains”. It’s at 18:30 – 19:30 today Monday 16 Sept  in Lecture Theatre B, University Place. Steve’s a fantastic speaker so catch this if you can. Advance booking needed → http://goo.gl/8aypdt

---

CSSOC EVENTS.

  CSSoc Secretary Neha Agrawal (Y3, CSE) writes: We’ve got lots going on this week! Look for our stall in the Welcome Week Fair in the Student Union/Manchester Academy on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday 19 Sept, it’s the Pub Crawl - everyone welcome! Come along and make new friendsl → www.facebook.com/events/630093097015674/

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FOOTBALL.

  The football club (another CSSoc venture) is recruiting now →  https://www.facebook.com/events/636650373033835/

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AYE AYE ME HEARTIES.

  As I’m sure you’ll know, this Thursday 19 September is Talk Like a Pirate Day. We can’t promise that all School activities will be conducted in a silly voice, but we’ll do our best! → http://www.talklikeapirate.com

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LOOKING FOR INFO ABOUT THE SCHOOL?

  Bookmark the UG homepage → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/

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TV TECH CHALLENGE:

  Want to build the television of tomorrow? What that looks like is entirely up to you and your imagination using kit provided  on the day:  Google Android set top boxes or Raspberry Pis. The event is11-13 October, but you need to sign up early →  http://www.manchesterdigital.com/events/tv-tech-challenge

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HACK MANCHESTER.

  HM is a 24-hour coding competition. Teams of up to four turn up with an idea and just 24 hours later present a working product. It’s at the Manchester at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) on 26-27 October 2013. Sign up quickly for the last few tickets → http://www.hackmanchester.com

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CAREERS / COMPS / REPORT ENVIRONMENT ISSUES.

  → Links at http://tinyurl.com/themondaymail

Enjoy Welcome week,

best wishes,

Toby Howard → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby