Your weekly round-up of undergraduate life in The University
of Manchester
Department of Computer Science
from Paul Nutter, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
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Good morning UG! It’s Monday 6 June, and it’s the last few days of the exams season, and also of this Semester, which ends on Friday. This is the last Monday Mail for this academic year, so I'll wish you a happy and rewarding summer. If you’re graduating, we hope to see you and your families here on Graduation Day (Thursday 21 July) for the ceremony in Whitworth Hall (10:00) and the reception and prize-giving here in the School afterwards – and we hope you’ll stay in touch with us as alumni. If you’re about to start a year's Industrial Experience, good luck for what I’m sure will be a fantastic time for you. If you’re returning for your next year of study with us in September, have a great summer and we look forward to seeing you again soon. On with today’s news...
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
MITIGATING CIRCS.
A reminder that if you feel that any aspects of your exams have been affected by mitigating circumstances, please note that the deadline for notifying the School is this Friday 10 June.
COURSE UNIT SELECTION.
If you're returning next academic year, please make your course unit selections ASAP after the system opens in July: 11 July for CM students, and 29 July for others. Please note that due to space constraints, a few courses have maximum enrollments.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY.
See results publication dates and more.
GRADUATE CAREERS FAIR.
The Graduate Recruitment Fair will be at the Armitage Centre in Fallowfield next week, on Weds/Thurs 15/16 June. Over 150 exhibitors will be offering graduate jobs across the two days, with different exhibitors on each day.
LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER TO VOTE.
Several recent analyses have shown that the student vote is likely to have a significant impact on the upcoming EU Referendum. You have until midnight tomorrow Tuesday 7 June to register to vote.
* TURING’S SUNFLOWERS. The University has recently published the solution to a mathematical conundrum proposed by Alan Turing, sixty years after his death. See Turing’s Sunflowers.
SUMMER READING AND CODING.
If you’re looking to pick up new technical skills over the summer, you might be interested to know that the University Library has a subscription to nearly 150 books from O’Reilly Media. The perfect place to broaden your technical skill set – for free!
EXPERIMENT.
You can earn a £10 Amazon voucher helping PhD student Manuele Reani (supervisor: Caroline Jay) in his experiments on how people interact with graphical visualizations of data/problems. The experiment will be about an hour long, and you will be asked to look at some graphs on a computer screen describing some data. Sign up for a slot.
EVALUATE BIG DATA SOFTWARE.
The University is looking for students (and staff) who can help evaluate big data analytics and visualisation software including Tableau, Qlik, Spotfire and IBM Watson Analytics. There’ll be a prize for the three best evaluation reports: £250, £150 and £100 of Amazon Vouchers.
ANARCHY AMONG THE ENGINEERS.
If you missed the Cockcroft Rutherford Lecture “Citizen Science: Anarchy Among the Engineers” by Professor Danielle George last month, it’s now on YouTube.
Good afternoon UG! It’s Monday 30 May, and it’s the Spring bank holiday today. I hope your exams are going well. On with today’s news ...
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
EXAM STUFF.
Make sure you know your exam schedule and locations – it's your responsibility to be in the right place at the right time! In case of emergencies contact SSO immediately – email them or phone 0161 306 8155.
* UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS. If you have some coursework, or maybe your 3rd year Project, that you’re proud of, why not submit it to the Undergraduate Awards? You could win a trip to Ireland to the UA Global Summit in Dublin – a three-day long networking and brainstorming event which brings together the brightest and most innovative students in the world. Submission deadline is 14 June.
STAFF NEWS.
Congratulations to staff from the School that were nominated by students for the Manchester Teaching Awards 2015/16. Most Inspiring Lecturer: Bijan Parsia, Andy Brass; Best Lecturer: Suzanne Embury, David Rydeheard, Uli Sattler; Best Supervision (Postgraduate Taught): Mikel Lujan. And congratulations to Caroline Jay on her promotion to Senior Lecturer, and Mikel Lujan for his promotion to Professor.
COURTYARD.
The courtyard area of Kilburn will soon be undergoing some changes, in particular the installation of a “lightwell” that will allow natural light to shine down to the ground floor of the building, which is being refurbished. You can find more details of the plan and add your thoughts about the changes, and the Big Question – what should happen to Floating Point Zero? – here.
QUIET ROOM.
Room 1.12 is a quiet study space for UG students. You get to it through the 3rd Year Lab (Room 1.8). It's specifically for quiet, personal study.
MIT CIRCS.
A reminder that if you feel that any aspects of your exams have been affected by mitigating circumstances, please note that the deadline for notifying the School is Friday 10 June.
LIBRARY SUPPORT.
The University Library is offering revision support workshops and de-stress events to support students during revision and exams. You can find information about all their services here.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 23 May. So the exams period is underway and all Year 1 students will have had their first exam last week, together with some Year 2 and Year 3 students. I hope things are going well, and good luck for any exams you have in the coming week. On with today’s news...
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
EXAM STUFF.
Make sure you know your exam schedule and locations – it's your responsibility to be in the right place at the right time! In case of emergencies contact SSO immediately – email them or phone 0161 306 8155.
* QUIET ROOM. Need a noise-free zone? Room 1.12 is a quiet study space for UG students. You get to it through the 3rd Year Lab (Room 1.8). It's specifically for quiet, personal study.
MACHINE LEARNING SUCCESS.
Gavin Brown (pictured) from the Machine Learning and Optimisation Group, and Co-Investigator Mikel Lujan from the Advanced Processors Technologies Group have been awarded a 4-year £500,000 grant to conduct research in "Learning Algorithms for Broad and Deep Architectures" (LAMBDA). The LAMBDA project explores an approach to deep learning which is not just deep, but also broad. The project aims to make "broad" models that are faster and easier to learn, and as a consequence reduce energy consumption and make learning such architectures significantly easier for scientists.
MIT CIRCS.
A reminder that if you feel that any aspects of your exams have been affected by mitigating circumstances, please note that the deadline for notifying the School is Friday 10 June.
LIBRARY SUPPORT.
The University Library is offering revision support workshops and de-stress events to support students during revision and exams. You can find information about all their services here.
REGISTER TO VOTE.
You may possibly have noticed that the UK is having a referendum on its continued membership of the European Union. To make your voice heard, you’ll need to register to vote at either your home or term-time address. See the BBC News item “end-of-term students risk missing referendum vote”.
NEW PODCAST.
Our External Affairs Officer Jez Lloyd has published episode 7 in his excellent series of School podcasts. It’s all about life after graduation and features interviews with four recent graduates about their experiences working at organisations including Twitter, the BBC, Envoy, Appsense and IBM. Well worth a listen.
CYBERSECURITY CHALLENGE.
Interested in representing the UK at the 2016 European Cyber Competition in Germany this November? Pre-qualification is now open until 28 May – everyone must have registered and attempted six challenges to be considered for qualification.
* WOMEN SCIENTISTS TOUR. Join Manchester Girl Geeks for an afternoon walking tour of Manchester's city centre featuring stories of Manchester's historical scientific women. Learn about the contributions women have made to science in Manchester and around the world, and hear the stories of well-known – and less well-known – science heroes. And afterwards, come for tea and cake (included in your ticket price). The walk starts at Manchester Art Gallery, 14:00–17:00 on Sunday 5 June. Tickets are £4.50.
BAKE-OFF.
The 2nd Annual Computer Science Bake-off will be held this Friday 27 May. To enter please email Karon Mee. Don't worry if you’re not a baker, as there’s a category for best decorated shop-bought cake too!
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 16 May. Scheduled teaching activities are now over, and the Exams period starts this week. I hope all goes well. 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 the central contact point is SSO, and you should email them (or call 0161 306 8155) immediately if you think you have any issues. Now, on with today’s news...
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
SCHOOL VACATION JOBS.
A reminder that the deadline for applying for summer Vacation Work here in the School is 17:00 this Weds 18 May.
MORE VAC WORK.
David Rydeheard writes: two organisations have paid opportunities to support schools over the summer: MCS projects run technology competitions for schools around the UK, and Firetech Camps run vacation workshops for schoolchildren around the UK and in Europe too. The School works with both of these excellent organisations and both are looking for students to help them run activities. Good pay, good fun and rewarding. Contact David ASAP for more details.
* HAVE YOUR SAY. The Unit Survey gives you the chance to tell us what you think about your course units, and for COMP16212, COMP28512, COMP19120 and COMP29220 the survey has been extended to 24 May. Please take a moment to give us your feedback on these courses – you can use Blackboard or the app (iOS | Android). We take your views seriously, we react, and we publish a response to your views, for every course unit.
RESULTS.
The expected results publication dates (via MyManchester) are 29 June (for Year 3) and 8 July (for Years 1, 2 and 4). If there’s any change to these dates we’ll let you know.
MIT CIRCS.
A reminder that if you feel that any aspects of your studies so far have been affected by any mitigating circumstances, please note that the deadline for notifying the School is this Thurs 19 May. If you’re affected during the exams period (19 May–8 June), the deadline is Friday 10 June.
NEW SCHOOLS STUDY.
The Royal Society has commissioned a study, funded by Google and Microsoft, and led by our own Professor Steve Furber, to understand the challenges faced by schoolteachers delivering Computing and Computer Science. The research will review the progress made since the introduction of the new English computing curriculum in 2014, and will develop a wider action plan to further transform computing in schools.
SCAM ALERT.
There’s a scam email flying around – Subject: “You have been awarded a grant” – saying something like “Dear student, I am pleased to inform you that you have been awarded the Student Educational Grant by the Department for Education (DfE) ... please submit your details via the link below...” It’s a phishing scam, wanting your details for nefarious purposes. Press delete!
OXFORD ROAD CLOSURE.
From today until Sunday 5 June inclusive, Oxford Road will be closed to traffic between the junctions with Brunswick Street and Booth Street West/East while the University demolishes the end of the Precinct opposite the RNCM.
MADLAB JOB OP.
Manchester Digital Laboratory – aka MadLab – has a full-time, three-month paid position available at their city centre HQ. This is a fantastic opportunity to develop new skills and gain experience of working in a ‘real’ working environment. MadLab will offer support and training throughout your placement. Interested? Send them your CV and covering letter ASAP.
BLENDER MEETING.
And speaking of MadLab, Manchester Free Software's May Meeting is about video editing with Blender, by Michael Dorrington. It’s a follow-on-your-laptop tutorial. Tomorrow Tues 17 May 18:30–20:00 at Madlab in the Northern Quarter. All welcome.
* WALKING. Why not have a break and go for walk? The Greater Manchester Walking Festival offers over 200 free, guided walks in and around Manchester and districts throughout May.
LIBRARY SUPPORT.
The University Library is offering revision support workshops and de-stress events to support students during revision and exams. You can find information about all their services here.
BAKE-OFF.
The 2nd Annual Computer Science Bake-off will be held on Friday 27 May. To enter please email Karon Mee. Don't worry if you’re not a baker, as there’s a category for best decorated shop-bought cake too!
GIRLS IN TECH EVENT.
GHC/1 is a one-day condensed version of the US Grace Hopper Celebration, in association with the Anita Borg Institute. It’s in London on 22 June, info and sign up here.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 9 May, and it’s Week 12, a B week. It’s the final teaching week of the year. Phew, it’s been a long Semester, and I hope it’s been a good one for you. I hate to mention it, but the exams start next Thursday 19 May for two weeks. Good luck! On with today’s news, and there’s quite a lot going on…!
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
Y1 PROJECT SHOWCASE.
Last Thursday’s 1st Year Project Showcase was a huge success and the work on display was as original and imaginative as ever. Well done to all First Year students, and congratulations to the winners – voted for by you! And the winners are… Best Visual Appeal: X5 for Clink; Best User Interface: X4 for Dungeon; Best data content: Y4 for Festival Finder; Best implementation quality: Z6 for Available; Best implementation quantity: Y9 for Synnefo; Best data content: W3 for Byte Cafe Mobile Order. Y9 achieved “Highest Overall Votes”, closely followed by X5. Winners: to claim your prize, one of your group please contact Uli Satter ASAP. Well done winners and well done all groups for your fantastic work!
PASS AWARDS SUCCESS.
Congratulations to Devin Ridgway (Y4, CS4) and George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE), who each received awards for their outstanding contributions to the School’s PASS scheme at the Peer Support Celebration Evening last week, attended by over 100 students and staff from across the University. And thank you to everyone in the School who has helped to make our PASS scheme a huge success again this year!
PASS2.
And speaking of PASS, this from David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4): Second years, it's week 12 and your exams start next week! Come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102 for any last minute questions you have.
* HAVE YOUR SAY. The Unit Survey gives you the chance to tell us what you think about your course units, and for Semester 2 courses it’s open until 15 May. Please take a moment to give us your feedback – you can use Blackboard or download the app (iOS | Android). We take your views seriously, we react, and we publish a response to your views, for every course unit.
SSO SURVEY.
We’d like you to tell us what you think about the School's Student Support Office (SSO). Do we provide everything you need? Please take a moment to complete this very short questionnaire by next Monday 16 May and help us to continue to review and improve our support for all our students. We really value your feedback.
KILBURN CLOSURE.
An upgrade to the University’s telephone system means that the Kilburn building will be closed next Saturday14 May from 08:00–13:00. We apologise for any inconvenience, but we hope that you'lll have time to plan any work that would have required you to be in the building that morning. A reminder that there is alternative working space in The John Rylands Library and The Alan Gilbert Learning Commons.
STAFF STUDENT QUIZ.
Last Wednesday evening’s staff-student pub quiz with pizza and drinks (courtesy of Head of School Prof Jim Miles) was great fun, with 50 students and 15 staff taking part. Thanks to everyone who helped organise the event. Our fantastic emcee Seb Mararu (Y2, CSwIE), below top right, clearly has a glittering future in the entertainment industry should he ever decide to switch from Computer Science! Congratulations to the winning team “Segfawlty Towers”, pictured below bottom right – Rob Woods (Y2, CSwIE), Olumide Adenmosun (Y3, CSwIE), Tatjana Siderenko (Y3, CS), Izzy Whistlecroft (Y3, CS) and Richard Hunt (Y3, CS4).
NSS.
Tim Morris writes: NSS has ended and the Response-O-Meter has gone into hibernation for another year. Overall, CS finished with 114 responses from 167 eligible people (68%); not quite enough to get to the final prize. Last year we had 78% of students completing the survey. The university as a whole had a response rate of about 72%, the best score came from the School of Geography: 84%. Thanks to all of you who did complete the survey. We'll get the results in August and look at them carefully.
VACATION JOBS.
We have Vacation Work opportunities for UG students here in the School for Summer 2016. There are two separate schemes running, and you can apply for as many projects as you like from both schemes. The first scheme is run by the School with 12 projects available, application deadline 17:00 next Weds 18 May; The second scheme is a collaboration between the School and the Faculty of Humanities, with 5 projects available, application deadline 17:00 this Friday 13 May.
PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP.
Anais Hristea (Y1, HCIwIE) writes: there’s an Adobe Photoshop workshop this Weds 11 May at 13:00 in IT407. It's about the basic features of Photoshop, and everybody is welcome.
MACHINE LEARNING TALK.
This from Cristian Bodnar (Y1, CSwIE): this Weds 11 May at 13:00 in LT1.3, HackSoc Manchester is hosting a Machine Learning talk given by Dr Martin Fergie. It’s a step-by-step walkthrough of implementing a basic linear classifier/regression model using Python. Topics such as bias/variance, regularisation and non-linearity through kernel mappings will be covered. Pizza and drinks will be served! Martin is the CTO of DigitalBridge, a computer vision start-up which develops applications for interior decoration. He did his PhD here in the School supervised by Aphrodite Galata, on Gaussian processes for markerless articulated human pose tracking.
MIT CIRCS.
A reminder that if you feel that any aspects of your studies so far have been affected by any mitigating circumstances, please note that the deadline for notifying the School is next Thurs 19 May. If you’re affected during the exams period (19 May–8 June), the deadline is Friday 10 June.
LIBRARY SUPPORT.
The University Library is offering revision support workshops and de-stress events to support students during revision and exams. You can find information about all their services here.
SPINNAKER.
Here’s something you don’t see every day – people building a 500,000-core computer. Jonathan Heathcote (pictured) made this timelapse video as he helped construct the SpiNNaker machine, here in Kilburn. Jonathan graduated from the School in 2012 and is now completing his PhD in the APT Research Group.
CAREERS SUPPORT.
Ben Carter, Careers Consultant for the School writes: if you’re graduating this Summer, the Faculty’s Careers team is offering enhanced support to anyone who has yet to finalise their next move after University. Please take a moment to complete this short survey (it won’t take any longer than 2 minutes – I promise!), and if you are happy for us to contact you, we’ll be in touch shortly with further details.
BAKE-OFF.
The 2nd Annual Computer Science Bake-off will be held on Friday 27 May. To enter please email Karon Mee. Don't worry if you’re not a baker, as there’s a category for best decorated shop-bought cake too!
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This Weds 11 May at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, Nick Edwards will talk about Better Decision Making, looking at how we use intelligence in everyday situations to evaluate risk and make informed decisions. We can also learn from examples of how Secret and Confidential intelligence has been shared in the past and from "intelligence failures". Everyone welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 2 May, and it’s Week 11, an A week. It’s also the Early May bank holiday, so no scheduled activities today – have a break! On with today’s news…
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
SPRING BALL.
Shane Booth (Y3, CS) writes: We hope everybody enjoyed the Spring Ball on Friday! We had almost 200 people, including 100 CS students, and everyone had a great time. We'll be finishing our events and soon passing over to our new chairs Anais Hristea (Y1, HCIwIE) and Riccardo Biraghi (Y1, CS), but before then we have one last big event – the Staff vs Student pub quiz! We've got drinks and pizza provided by the school and we should have some amazing prizes! Tickets are £3 and all money goes to Macmillan Cancer Support! We'll be selling in the Byte Café from 12:00–14:00 on Tuesday and Wednesday and we'll be selling any remaining tickets on the door. So come along, you don't even have to work hard to find it, since it's in Kilburn, Atlas 1&2 at 17:00 this Weds 4 May!
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING.
Suzanne Embury writes: good luck to All COMP23420 teams in the Stendhal Quick Quest Challenge this week. Over the past semester, our second year students have been grappling with the code base for Stendhal, an open-source massively multi-player online role playing game. They have fixed bugs and added features, including magic rings, cheese pies and mysterious Java-obsessed strangers. In this final week, all their hard work will culminate in a Quick Quest Challenge. Each team is challenged to implement a brand new quest, provided on the day, in just 30 minutes. They'll be coding live in front of TAs, staff and industry mentors, for the prize. Wish them luck – and drop in and see what’s going on: this Thursday at 11.00 in G102/KB2.25A, and Friday at 09:00 and 11:00, in Collab. Below is a screenshot from team Q1's COMP23420 coursework. Each of the 30+ teams has been mentored by our partners from a wide range of organisations including IBM, the BBC, Sage Group, Imagination Technologies, ARM Holdings, AppSense, Cheshire Data Systems, OnTheBeach.co.uk, NCC Group, Code Computer Love, Rental Cars, Web Applications UK, Data Centred, and Zuhlke.com.
PASS2.
This from David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4): Second years, your third year project selection deadline is this Friday! Come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102 for some last minute advice.
* GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK. The Unit Survey gives you the chance to tell us what you think about your course units, and for Semester 2 courses it runs from today until 15 May. Please take a moment to give us your feedback – you can use Blackboard or download the app (iOS | Android). We take your views seriously, we react, and we publish a response to your views, for every course unit.
START-UP TALK.
Alumnus Tomas Paulik (AI, graduated 2012) is now CEO and Software Architect at Shout Platform Ltd., and tomorrow Tuesday 3 May, he’s giving a talk about the challenges of starting a tech start-up company and how it progressed “From classroom to £1m valuation”. It’s at 17:30 in the Alliance Manchester Business School Alumni room. Full details.
AWARDS NOMINEES.
Congratulations to Rizos Sakellariou and Clara Diaconeasa for being nominated for the Faculty’s awards this year; Rizos for Teacher of the Year (pictured here with Louise Walker, Head of UG in Maths) and Clara for Student of the Year (pictured here with Steve Pettifer). Well done both!
LIBRARY SUPPORT.
The University Library is offering revision support workshops and de-stress events to support students during revision and exams. You can find information about all their services here.
BLOG.
Edoardo Moreni (Y4, CS4) has been one of the School’s bloggers since 2013, and as his graduation approaches, he’s posted his final blog. We’re always looking for talented bloggers who’ll commit to contribute posts regularly. You can check out current and past bloggers here. If you’re interested in joining the team, why not apply and you could earn £100 each semester.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This Weds 4 May at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, Prof Nobuko Yoshida and Dr Raymond Hu, from Imperial College London, will talk about “Multiparty session types and their applications”, focussing on recent research developments on multiparty session types for verifying distributed, parallel and concurrent programs, Scribble, the runtime session monitoring framework used in Ocean Observatories Initiative, and static deadlock analysis for Google's Go language. Everyone welcome.
MASTER OF ENTERPRISE.
If you’re interesting in gaining the specialist knowledge and skills required to become an entrepreneur and set up your own business, or are an intrapreneur within an existing organisation, the Master of Enterprise (MEnt) programme might be right for you. Find out more.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 25 April, and it’s Week 10, a B week. We have 3 weeks of teaching left, and I hope everything is going well. Good luck to all First Year students with their project presentations this week! Now, on with today’s news…
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
SCIENCEX.
The University held its ScienceX public engagement festival at the Trafford Centre last weekend and the School was there with demonstrations of virtual reality and NAO robots organised by David Rydeheard, with students Lora Lovchalieva (Y3, CSwIE), Teo Taylor (Y3, CS4) and George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE) out in force, along with Dave Ames from Edge Hill University, and Carol Murray and Sarah Zaman from the Computing At School North West Regional Centre here in the School. Below are Dave, George, Lora, David and Sarah (photo by Teo). If you'd like to get involved with public engagement activities like like, contact David.
PASS2.
This from David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4): Second years, you only have two more weeks to make your third year project selections! Come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102 if you have any questions about the projects.
NSS.
Y3/Y4 students, I hope you enjoyed the pizza on Thursday. NSS comes to an end this Saturday, so this week will be your final chance to pass comment on the School and your experience at university. Remember that this is a summary-type survey, and that the Course Unit Surveys (see below) will be opening this week and they are your chance to pass immediate comment on the specific units you’ve taken this semester. On a lighter note, the Response-o-meter changed this week – instead of two mystery prizes, there’s now just something extraordinary once we get to 3/4 of you replying to the survey. And the something extraordinary is a prize draw, open to all NSS-eligible students. The prizes will be five £100 Amazon vouchers. We need to hit the 75% mark for the draw to happen, so if you haven't completed your NSS yet, please do it TODAY, and ask your friends to do the same!
* GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK. The Unit Survey gives you the chance to tell us what you think about your course units, and for Semester 2 courses it runs from today until 15 May. Please take a moment to give us your feedback – you can use Blackboard or download the app (iOS | Android). We take your views seriously, we react, and we publish a response to your views, for every course unit.
SSC REPORT.
Last Wednesday we had the second of the two SSC meetings this semester, and as usual we had a lively and helpful discussion. Remember you can contact your Reps at any time, and they’ll pass your concerns on.
IOS WORKSHOP.
The first student-led iOS Development Workshop in the Mac Lab (LF17) was a resounding success last Wednesday. 10 students booked onto it and 17 turned up! Ben Ormos (Y3, SE) was the course designer and co-presenter, and in the first hour Matt Spear (Y1, CS) presented the Swift programming language. Ben did the second hour on using Xcode to build an iOS app and link it to specific application code. Ben is also the first person in the School to present a workshop using wifi projection from his MacBook to two TV monitors at either end of the Lab simultaneously. This meant all the attendees could see the examples and directions without having to stand up or move. We’re currently working on installing wifi projection in most meeting rooms in the School.
MIT CIRCS.
If you feel that any aspects of your studies so far have been affected by any mitigating circumstances, please note that the deadline for notifying the School is Thurs 19 May 2016. If you’re affected during the exams period (19 May – 8 June), the deadline is Friday 10 June.
FERRANTI DROP IN.
Following their announcement of the first UK office opening for over 20 years at The Landing at MediaCity UK, the Ferranti team will be available from 12:00–14:00 tomorrow Tues 26 April in the LF area. Come and have a chat about potential career opportunities.
STAFF STUDENT PUB QUIZ.
Josh Langley (Y3, CS4wIE) writes: On Weds 4 May 17:00–20:00 CSSoc and the School will be hosting a Staff vs Student Pub Quiz in the Kilburn Atlas Rooms. Tickets are £3 and include free food and both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks for the evening. We’ll be selling in Byte Cafe from 12:00–14:00 every day next week. Teams will be limited to 3–5 people a team. Come grab a ticket! For more details and updates, join the event on FB.
NEW AND MOVED SHOPS.
Did you know a new convenience store has opened in University Place, just next to Kilburn? It’s called "The Shop", and it's open Mon-Fri 08:00–20:00, and Sat/Sun 10:00–16:00. Also Blackwell’s Bookshop + Cafe has relocated from the precinct to a temporary building between the Humanities and Arthur Lewis buildings, opposite the construction site at the Business School.
* OXFORD ROAD CLOSURE. Heads up! Oxford Road will be closed from 16 May for three weeks when the University will demolish the end of the Precinct opposite the RNCM and start building the snazzy new metal and glass frontage.
POSTGRAD STUDY.
If you’re considering postgraduate study in the School, we have a number of bursaries and scholarships for Taught Masters and PhD study. For Taught Masters there are Kilburn Scholarships, Faculty Alumni Loyalty Bursary, and Postgraduate Loans from the UK government. For PhD there are 3- and 4-year fees and stipend studentships for Home/EU students and 3-year fees-only awards for international students. If you have any questions, call in to see the Admissions team in Kilburn Room 2.10.
ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES.
Antonio Pop writes: this week, we have two talks on the current research and new directions in the School. "Scheduling scientific work-flows for energy and performance" by Rizos Sakellariou will explore the optimization opportunities and challenges of mapping complex directed acyclic task graphs onto parallel machines. This will be followed by "Enabling Exascale-capable computing systems" by the Advanced Processor Technologies group's Javier Navaridas, who will present the challenges and novel ideas investigated within the School to deliver the communication infrastructure required to reach the Exa-scale milestone. This Weds 27 April at 15:00 and 16:00 in LF15. Everyone welcome!
JAVASCRIPT REACT.
Using or interested in using the React Javascript library? The Manchester React User Group is meeting this Weds 27 April, at 19:00 at SpacePortX in central Manchester. All welcome!
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is Weds 27 April at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Dr David White from the University of Glasgow will talk about “Genetic Improvement of Software: the Story so far”. All students and staff welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 18 April, and it’s Week 9, an A week. I hope everything is going well. Lots to tell you today, so on with the news!
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
NSS PIZZA.
Having reached 60% completion rate, we're giving away pizza this week, either on Thursday or Friday, to all students graduating this year, We need to know how many of you are likely to want pizzas, so please fill out this Doodle Poll with your preferred day. If you haven't yet completed your NSS, please do so TODAY (it only takes a few minutes), and help us get to the next milestone.
STAFF VS STUDENTS.
Ion Diaconu (Y3, CS4) writes: the annual Staff versus Students Coding Competition took place last Weds 13 April. The winners were a PhD/RA team (Andrew Webb and Joe Mellor), while second place went to Alan Ramsay and Giles Reger. The prize for cutest (and youngest) contestant went to Sophie Paton, age 6, who coded her solution in Scratch for our problem Alchemy Master!
PASS1.
George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE) writes. Hello first years! Just a quick reminder that as we approach the end of the year, PASS is still here to help with last minute coursework help, advice on exam prep, or even just a place to come blow off steam! See you all this Weds 20 April at 12:00 – same PASS time, same PASS place.
PASS2.
This from David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4): Second years, your project selection deadline is fast approaching! Come to PASS2 in G102 on Friday at 13:00 to ask us any questions you might have about 3rd Year projects.
MLH AWARD CEREMONY.
Congratulations again to all the students involved in Major League Hacking (MLH) events last autumn (#MLHEUFALL). The trophy was finally awarded to students in School of Computer Science last Wednesday here in IT407, with pictures of the event on Twitter. The new trophy sits proudly in the cabinet next to Byte Cafe, next to the previous one.
MEET THE PROFESSIONALS.
Want to work with organisations like Oracle, Cisco Systems or the BBC? Want to work as a web designer, product manager, security or software engineer? Come and talk to graduates from the School of Computer Science. They'll be here to chat around tables – no lectures or Powerpoints, and you'll get the chance to meet everyone. Come for the networking, stay for the pizza and drinks! This Thurs 21 April, 17:15–19:30, Collab 1. Advance registration required.
SUMMER VACATION WORK.
The School will be offering a number of paid work opportunities for UG students 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. Details of the projects available and the application process will be announced in early May.
GRADUATION.
The Computer Science graduation ceremony will be held on Thursday 21 July 2016 starting at 10:00 in the Whitworth Hall, with a reception in the School following the ceremony. Details the ceremony will be published here, and you’ll be able to register to attend the ceremony from Monday 25 April – the Student Services Centre will email you when the system has opened.
* TALES FROM CHINA. Van Minh Nguyen (Y2, CM) spent three weeks in China over Easter as part of the University’s Study in China scheme. He’ll be talking about his experiences in LT1.4 this Weds 20 April at 13:00. If you’re interested in applying next year (or just curious to find out more about Chinese culture, business and education) come along and hear about Van Minh’s chinese adventures.
TECHX WITH MICROSOFT.
This from Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE): Hacksoc is organising 3 hours of tech talks and workshops with Microsoft this Weds 20 April from 14:00–17:00 in Kilburn 1.1. The 3 talks will centre around Machine Learning, facial recognition and IoT. Experts from Microsoft will be there so it is a good opportunity for you to discuss your 3rd year project with them and/or how it's like to work at Microsoft. RSVP here. Pizza will be provided. Speaking of Hacksoc, congratulations to new president Cristian Bodnar (Y1, CSwIE) and vice-president Anais Hristea (Y1, HCIwIE), and to everyone who got an officer role in HackSoc. We wish you all the best and good luck with your new roles!
ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES.
Antonio Pop writes: This week's talk, "Reasoning about Programs with a Theorem Prover", by Giles Reger from the Formal Methods Group, will explore the prize-winning Vampire theorem prover, developed here in the School, and how it can be used to check that a piece of code is correct. Weds 20 April at 15:00 in Kilburn 2.19, all welcome.
iOS WORKSHOP.
Ben Ormos (Y3, SE) is running an iOS workshop 16:00-18:00 this Weds 20 April in the Mac Lab (LF17, opposite SSO). He'll cover the basics of Swift, along with how to begin programming for iOS. Interested? Email Ben.
* KILBURN HACK. Charlie Reynolds (Y3, AI4wIE) writes: HackSoc & 1UP invite you to KilburnHack, this coming Fri/Sat 22/23 April. Over two days teams will compete for prizes and prestige, with the best hack taking pride of place alongside the SpiNNaker board and historic memory device currently on display in the Byte Cafe. Participants will be encouraged to make use of hardware provided by the school, or use their own. Software hacks are just as encouraged, however judging will reward projects that are impressive, interactive and can be adapted to fit inside the cabinet with a control panel exposed on the outside. If the winning hack isn't in a form where this is possible, we can work with you to make it so after the event. Signup is now open.
SPRING BALL.
This from Shane Booth (Y3, CS4): We're now sold out of Spring Ball tickets, so thanks to everyone for showing so much interest! To the people who've bought tickets, you should expect an email soon to sort out seating plans. Other than that, CSSoc aren't running any more events before the Spring Ball, but we're currently organising another Staff-Student Pub Quiz the Wednesday after (4 May), so keep an eye out for more info!
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is on Weds 20 April at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Sydney Padua will talk about “The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage”, and give an outline of the history, mechanics, and programming of the 19th century Analytical Engine. All students and staff welcome.
ROBOT ORCHESTRA.
Have you heard that the Robots are coming? This year, as part of the European City of Science, Manchester is creating the largest Robot Orchestra ever on Tues 17 May. The organisers are looking for student volunteers to help with the event. Sign up – spaces are limited.
CITIZEN SCIENTISTS,
ANARCHY AMONG THE ENGINEERS! This year’s Cockcroft Rutherford Lecture – the flagship event for friends and alumni of The University of Manchester, will be held on Thursday 26 May at 18:00. Professor Danielle George from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering will be asking if it is possible to deliver successful engineering projects by crowdfunding. She’ll also be asking if citizen data scientists can help astrophysicists study the dawn of time. Free registration is open now.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 11 April, and it’s Week 8, a B week. I hope you've had a refreshing three weeks' break over Easter. We have another 5 weeks of teaching, and then it’s the exams. And after that, yes, it's the Summer – so lots to look forward to! Have a good week. On with today’s news… lots of tell you today!
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
* POSTER WIN. Congratulations to Imogen Gough (Y3, CMwIE) who was awarded Second Prize in the third year poster competition at the 2016 BCS Lovelace Colloquium held at the University of Sheffield on 31 March. Imogen's poster "Models for neurons and neuronal networks" summarised results of her 3rd year project supervised by Eva Navarro López. You can see the full-sized poster here. Well done Imogen!
FREE COFFEE DAY.
Because we’ve passed 40% on the NSS Response-o-meter, this Wednesday 13 April is free coffee day for all Y3 and Y4 students graduating this year. Call into SSO from 09:30 on Wednesday with your Student ID card, to collect your voucher for a free coffee at the Byte Cafe. (Small print: 1 coffee per person, valid Weds 13th only, Byte Cafe only). And...
NSS NEXT TARGET.
...we're now at 53% completion rate. When we hit 60%, it’s a FREE PIZZA LUNCH for all students graduating this year. So if you haven't yet completed your NSS, please do so TODAY (it only takes a few minutes), and make those pizzas appear!
PASS2 AND PROJECTS.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: Second years, your third year project selection period starts now! Take a look at the list of projects and come talk to us about them in PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday. We'll be answering any questions you might have regarding third year projects.
TECH SHOWCASE.
Starting your career in Manchester? Want to know what it's like working in local tech firms? Tomorrow 12 April 11:00–13:00 we'll have an array of Manchester businesses on parade in the Kilburn Building. Come along to find out what they do, why they do it, and what it's like to work for them. Companies coming include Autotrader, Avecto, Formisimo, Metronet, MX Data (T/A Mapway), and Wakelet.
IOS WORKSHOP.
Ben Ormos (Y3, SE) writes: I'm holding an iOS workshop 16:00–18:00 next Weds 20 April in the Mac Lab ( LF17, opposite SSO) and teach you how to actually make your first App. We will cover the basics of Swift, along with how to can begin programming for iOS. Interested? Please email me.
* KILBURN HACK. Charlie Reynolds (Y3, AI4wIE) writes: HackSoc & 1UP invite you to KilburnHack, on Fri/Sat 22/23 April. Over two days teams will compete for prizes and prestige, with the best hack taking pride of place alongside the SpiNNaker board and historic memory device currently on display in the Byte Cafe. Participants will be encouraged to make use of hardware provided by the school, or use their own. Software hacks are just as encouraged, however judging will reward projects that are impressive, interactive and can be adapted to fit inside the cabinet with a control panel exposed on the outside. If the winning hack isn't in a form where this is possible, we can work with you to make it so after the event.
ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES.
This week, we have two talks on the current research and new directions in the School. "From Sensor Networks to a Web of Things" by Alvaro Fernandes, from the Information Management Group, will review research on Sensor Networks and discuss how this is now taken further to build a Data-Centric Web of Things. Followed by "Enabling Exascale-capable computing systems" by the Advanced Processor Technologies group's Javier Navaridas, who will explore the challenges and novel ideas investigated within the School to deliver the communication infrastructure required to reach the Exa-scale milestone. All welcome. This Weds 13 April at 15:00 in LF15.
* SPRING BALL. Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: tickets for the Spring Ball on 29 April at The Place are still on sale for the next two weeks, on the SU website! So buy your tickets, get your best suit or dress ready – there will be food, a live band, a photo booth and much more, so come along and have the night of your life! To those who are having trouble buying tickets, make sure you register as a member of the society on the SU website as we have discounted tickets!
MEET THE PROFESSIONALS.
Want to work with organisations like Oracle, Cisco Systems or the BBC? Want to work as a web designer, product manager, security or software engineer? Come and talk to graduates from the School of Computer Science. They'll be here to chat around tables – no lectures or Powerpoints, and you'll get the chance to meet everyone. Come for the networking, stay for the pizza and drinks! Next Thurs 21 Apr, 17:15–19:30, Collab 1. Advance registration required.
STAFF VS STUDENTS.
The annual Staff versus Students Coding Competition takes place this Weds 13 April. Teams can be staff, students or mixed. But places are limited! Sign up now! Teams of 2 compete against others for fantastic prizes, solving 5 algorithmic challenges. Write in Java/C++/Python. Starts 14:30 in Collab, with FREE PIZZA, followed by a trip to KRO Bar sponsored by the Head of School!
NEW STUDENT BLOG POST.
Veneta Haralampieva, one of the School’s team of student bloggers, has a new post up. We’re always looking for talented bloggers who’ll commit to contribute posts regularly. You can check out current and past bloggers here. If you’re interested in joining the team, why not apply and you could earn £100 each semester.
* TEACHING AWARDS. Is there a lecturer, or a TA, or someone in SSO that you think deserves recognition for being especially fabulous? Why not vote for them in the annual Manchester Teaching Awards, open until 15 April.
HACKSOC AGM.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: The HackSoc AGM will take place this Weds 13 April at 13:00 in IT407. This is your chance to run for officer positions and the President position within HackSoc, organising hackathons, tech talks, coaches to other events, and hopefully conferences. More information on the facebook event page. See you all there.
HACKER AWARDS.
And straight after the AGM, HackSoc is hosting the third European MLH season awards ceremony. They'll be celebrating the wins of The University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham and University College London with a few talks about their wins, lots of food and snacks and general socialising with the hacker community. Read more about our win. Sign up for the awards ceremony. Following the ceremony we are going to invite everyone to TOPs buffet for a nice dinner paid for by MLH, RSVP here,
TECHX WITH MICROSOFT.
Also from Sami Alabed: Hacksoc is organising 3 hours of tech talks and workshops with Microsoft next Weds 20 April from 14:00-17:00 in Kilburn 1.1. The 3 talks will centre around Machine Learning, facial recognition and IoT. Experts from Microsoft will be there so it is a good opportunity for you to discuss your 3rd year project with them and/or how it's like to work at Microsoft. RSVP here. Pizza will be provided.
* BRIDGE DEMO. If, like me, you enjoy watching things being demolished, check out this cool timelapse video of the Faraday bridge on the North Campus being removed last month.
LEVY MARKETS.
Levenhulme’s travelling food and drink market is back on campus, every Tuesday 11:30–14:30 on Bridgeford Street, next to the Manchester Museum. Italian street food, gyoza, bao, kimchi, hot dogs, Polish specialties including pierogi dumplings, gourmet burgers, luxury ice cream, and up to 20 flavours of gooey chocolate brownies.
FREE EYE EXAM.
Did you know you can get a free eye test here on campus? Final year Optometry students perform the eye examination under supervision by fully qualified staff. Book your free appointment on 0161 306 3860.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 21 March, and it’s the first week of the 3-week Easter vacation. I hope you’re enjoying a well-earned rest and maybe doing a bit of catch-up. Year 3 students, good luck with writing your project reports and making your screencasts, and remember to ask your Supervisor for comments on drafts of each. The Monday Mail is having an Easter break, but will be back again on Monday 11 April (Week 8, a B week). Meanwhile, on with today’s news, and have a Happy Easter!
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
SPRING BALL.
Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: CSSoc, along with the School of Languages, present to you the swankiest night of the year – The Spring Ball 2016 – on Friday 29 April. This year, we've decided to move to a new venue, The Place (see pic below). Please come in formal wear – there's no theme but it’s a Ball, so we want everybody to look great! Each ticket includes drinks on arrival, 3-course meal with wine (vegetarian options available), live band, photobooth and photographers, DJ and dancefloor. Tickets are £27, available now from the Students Union.
EASTER OPENING HOURS.
A reminder that during the Easter vacation 21 March – 10 April you’ll need your out-of hours pass to use the Kilburn building, at all times, not just out-of-hours. Labs open are Tootill and 1.8 (3rd Year Lab).
* NATIONAL STUDENT SURVEY. The amazing Raspberry Pi-powered NSS Response-o-Meter is now up and running on LF, thanks to Steve Rhodes, Jeff Pepper and Tim Morris. Remember, when the response rate hits 40%, it’s FREE COFFEE for all Year 3 & 4 students. When it hits 60%, it’s a FREE PIZZA LUNCH. Beyond that… well it will be something special!
CAREERS APPOINTMENTS.
If you’re looking for a careers appointment in-School this week, Ben Carter’s usual Thursday session has been shifted to tomorrow Tues 22 March. You can book on CareersLink as usual.
STAFF VS STUDENTS.
This year’s Staff versus Students Coding Competition will be on Weds 13 April. Teams can be staff, students or mixed. But places are limited! Sign up now! Teams of 2 compete against others for fantastic prizes, solving 5 algorithmic challenges. Write in Java/C++/Python. Starts 14:30 in Collab, with FREE PIZZA, followed by a trip to KRO Bar sponsored by the Head of School!
HACKSOC AGM.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: The HackSoc AGM will take place on Weds 13 April at 13:00 in IT407. This is your chance to run for officer positions and the President position within HackSoc, organising hackathons, tech talks, coaches to other events, and hopefully conferences. More information on the facebook event page. See you all there.
HACKER AWARDS.
And straight after the AGM, HackSoc is hosting the third European MLH season awards ceremony. They'll be celebrating the wins of The University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham and University College London with a few talks about their win, lots of food and snacks and general socialising with the hacker community. Read more about our win. Sign up for the awards ceremony.
JISC COMP.
Check out Jisc’s Summer of Student Innovation competition, which funds talented, innovative students to come up with practical technology solutions to problems in today’s education and research. Participants get to work through the whole process, acquiring business, entrepreneurship and technical skills. Past entries have included apps to enhance wellbeing and enhance the student experience.
GRUNDY AWARDS.
The Grundy Educational Trust provides funding for postgraduate degrees in Science and Technology. Apply here.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 14 March, and it’s Week 7, an A week. I hope things are going well for everyone. It’s been a long Semester so far, but the good news is that this is the last week of teaching before the 3-week Easter break. I hope you enjoy this week!
Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
STUDENTHACK.
Sami Alabad (Y2, CSwIE) writes: Last weekend we hosted StudentHack IV, a 40-hour hackathon held at Manchester Metropolitan University Business school. We had 288 attendees from 48 different universities and schools, becoming the second biggest student-run hackathon in the UK. Over the weekend we saw impressive hacks being developed, and the winner of 2nd place and my personal favourite was AskNigel, a talking monkey that suggests places to visit, created by Cristian Bodnar (Y1, CSwIE). Other winners from The University of Manchester were Personal Ai Trainer by Alexandru Lupuleti (Y2, CS4), Stefan Idriceanu (Y2, CS4), Mihai Garbur (Y2, CSwIE) and Alex Stratulat (Y2, SE4wIE), winning The Hut Group challenge, and Park Painter by Matt Spear (Y1, CS) and 3 others, which won the Yelp challenge. See all the hacks submitted. To see how much fun we had check StudentHack's album – thanks to Teo Taylor (Y3, CS4) for awesome photography work. The University also issued an official Press Release about the event. Thanks to everyone who participated, volunteered, judged, and sponsored StudentHack. Mihai Bujanca (Y2, CSwIE) and HackSoc will be organising the next GreatUniHack in November.
PASS2.
This from David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4): Second years, if you're still struggling to find a placement or falling behind with your course come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102 for some help.
* INTERNET OF THINGS. This week’s COMP101 guest lecture is by Geraint North from ARM on Software Development on the Internet of Things (IoT). Geraint will be demonstrating mbed.com, a platform for developing applications using the IoT. Geraint graduated with a BSc in Software Engineering with Industrial Experience from The University of Manchester in 2002. Since graduating Geraint has held various roles at Transitive, IBM and now ARM in Manchester where he is a High-Performance Computing (HPC) Architect. All welcome, this Thurs 17 March at 11:00 in LT 1.1.
MAC LAB.
Our iOS Developers Lab (Kilburn Room LF17, opposite SSO) has 10 Mac-minis with 27” Thunderbolt displays, two wall-mounted HDMI TVs, and a projector. The lab is for all UG/PGT/PGR students who want to do iOS/OS X development. All of the Macs have now been upgraded to the latest El Capitan (10.11.3) and Xcode (7.2.1).
NATIONAL STUDENT SURVEY.
Attention everyone graduating this year! As you probably know, the government is seeking your views on your time at University. It’s really important for the School that as many of you as possible complete the Survey and give your feedback. So I’d be really grateful if you could that… and to encourage you to participate, we’re starting a new reward scheme this week. Once we get to certain levels of responses, we’ll be giving you all points. And what do points mean? PRIZES! So look out for the brand new high-tech response-o-matic totaliser, to appear on LF sometime this week. And there’ll be more details about the prizes next week. Thanks in advance for your cooperation!
* BLOG UPDATES. Check out the excellent new blogs by Veneta Haralamieva (Y3, CSwIE) and Todd Davies (Y3, CS), pictured here. Veneta, together with Zarina Meeran from Brunel University, has created another blog too, Tech-logica.com, “Planting A Voice For Women In Technology”, aimed at encouraging young kids, and more girls, to pursue a career in Computer Science. If you’d like to contribute to Veneta and Zarina’s blog, and share your experiences of studying Computer Science, please contact Veneta. By the way, the School is always looking for talented bloggers who’ll commit to contribute posts regularly. You can check out current and past bloggers here. If you’re interested in joining the team, why not apply and you could earn £100 each semester.
ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES.
This week, Dirk Koch from the Advanced Processor Technologies group will talk about the "The 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 FLOPS Computer" – the development of the technical foundations to reach Exa-scale performance, providing at least 10^18 FLOPs. The University of Manchester and the APT group are playing a major role in this European endeavour. This talk will be about applications, systems, and the tricks to be used in order to achieve this gigantic performance without needing the power of a few nuclear reactors. This Weds 16 Mar at 15:00 in Kilburn G102, everyone welcome.
MADLAB MEETING.
At this month's Manchester Free Software group meeting, Michael Dorrington will be talking about LibreOffice. Tomorrow Tues 15 March 2016 19:00–20:30, at Madlab. All welcome.
GOOGLE SUMMER OF CODE.
Applications open today (14 March) for GSoC, a global program focused on introducing students to open source software development. Students get paid to work on a three month project with an open source organization during their summer break from university. Read full details.
SILICON DRINKABOUT MANCHESTER.
Why not come to this weekly meet-up for startups and techies to meet like-minded people, have some fun and relax at the end of the working week. There's no sign-up needed, just come along and say hi! This Friday 18 March, 18:00–22:00, SpacePortX, Manchester, M11DZ.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 7 March, and it’s Week 6, a B week. I hope things are going well for everyone. Time marches on – it’s only 2 weeks to the Easter vacation. Lots of news today – have a good week!
best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4 · IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB · SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
HACK SUCCESS.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: The University of Manchester has won the Major League Hacking EU Hackathon Season for the second time. We came first last season ahead of 300 other European universities that participated in the fall hackathon season. What makes this even more interesting is that we are the only university that kept its position within the top 3 in the last 3 seasons, an extremely impressive feat considering how competitive the Spring season was! Read full details of the win. Well done all!
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: Second years, if you’re still struggling to find a placement or falling behind with your course come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102 for some help.
STUDY ROOMS.
Rooms LF5 & 6, opposite the Byte Cafe, have been out of action for a while, but they’re back and open for you to use as study rooms.
GRADUATION.
Our School’s graduation ceremony will be on Thurs 21 July at 10:00 in the Whitworth Hall. The University’s Graduation Team will contact students directly, April-ish, about registration. There’ll be a reception in School after the ceremony.
START THE WEEK.
Steve Furber was was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Start The Week last week, discussing SpiNNaker, computer science and robotics. Well worth a listen.
* CSSOC AGM. Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: Come to CSSoc’s Annual General Meeting! It's the time of the year when people can put themselves forwards and everybody decides who will lead us to further drunken glory! But far more importantly, we're going to be bringing a tonne of pizza, snacks and drinks! So come for the pizza, vote on who gets to run the society and feel free to run for a role, if it sounds like something you'd enjoy! This Weds 9 Mar 14:00–15:00 in LF15.
WOMEN IN COMPUTING.
There are too few women in computing. Can we change this? As a Computing at School Regional Centre, the School hopes to have influence and is running an “Ada Lovelace Day” – a girls-only day to be held here next Weds 16 March. If you’d like to be involved contact Sarah Zaman or Carol Murray.
PASS LEADERS.
George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE) writes: We’re looking for those of you who want to share your experience, enthusiasm, and knowledge to become PASS leaders next year. Becoming a PASS leader helps to improve all the soft skills that employers are looking for: communication, team working and facilitation. It stands out on your CV as something you do to help give back to the community – a virtue that companies actively seek. Applications for PASS Leaders are open to any student who is not graduating this academic year or who will be on placement in the academic year 2016/17. Please complete this application form. Any PASS Leaders from previous years are welcome to return but please complete the form. If you have any questions before completing the form, please speak to your PASS leaders – or email either me or Devin Ridgway. By completing this form, you are not committing to becoming a PASS leader, merely informing us of your intentions.
* JUSTFEST. The University of Manchester’s Social Justice Festival takes place this Weds 9 March in and around Academy 1 from 12:00 to 16:00. The event challenges injustice, supports human rights and promotes a fairer society, in a festival environment. There’s a diverse line-up of performers who share a passion for Social Justice including, George The Poet, Akala’s Hip-hop Shakespeare Company and Blak Twang and Silvastone. In the JustFest Exhibition you can speak to people whose work challenges injustice, including those working in international humanitarian relief, mental health, and refugee support.
IP CHALLENGE.
The IP Magnet Challenge is a one day Intellectual Property data hackathon/idea development day, this coming Sat 12 March, 09:00–17:00, at Central Library. St Peter’s Square, Manchester. It’s part of the Google Digital Garage project, and open to all – developers, designers, idea generators, startups, IP experts or anyone with an interest in patents and trademarks. Bring a laptop. At the end of the day, each entrant/team will give a three-minute presentation on their project and the winner will be chosen by the judging panel during the next week. The Best Idea Winner will win a contract worth up to £4,000 to develop the idea into a working prototype. It's free to enter, with free tea, coffee, cakes, lunch & networking. Sign up.
DEBUGGING THE GENDER GAP,
Autotrader are opening their doors tomorrow evening Tues 8 March for a screening of the documentary film about women in software engineering. Full details.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 29 February (yes, 2016 is a Leap Year!), and it’s Week 5, an A week. I hope things are going well for everyone – and good luck to all 3rd year students whose project demos begin this week. Have a good week!
best wishes
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING MENTORS.
As part of the complete redesign of COMP23420, last week more than 40 software engineering mentors from companies across the North West visited the School to meet all the 23420 teams. The two days were very successful and I hope everyone found this exciting new initiative helpful. Join me in thanking Duncan Hull for securing mentors from an impressive range of companies: AppSense, ARM, the BBC, Barclays, CDL, Code Computer Love, DataCentred, EGN Digital, Farm Digital, IBM, Imagination Technology, NCC Group, OnTheBeach, RentalCars, Sage, The University of Manchester, Web Applications UK and Zuhlke.
VISIT AUTOTRADER.
AutoTrader would like to invite a small group (max 10) final year students to an event in their Manchester office this Friday 4 March from 10:30–15:00. The event will be a showcase of their 2014 graduate intake and an opportunity to network/find out more about working there. Contact Duncan Hull ASAP if you’re interested.
SSC.
The next Staff-Student Committee meeting is this Weds 2 March 14:00–15:00. If you'd like to raise anything, please contact one of your reps ASAP.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: Second years, if you're still struggling to find a placement or falling behind with your course come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102 for some help.
EXAM FEEDBACK.
Last call for registering for the feedback session at 14:00 on Weds 16 March, where you can view your marked COMP exam answer books, and the marking schemes, for the Semester 1 exams. Advance registration required, please Email SSO with your ID, name and list of courses you’d like to view, by the deadline of 12:00 this Weds 2 March. Also, each Semester staff write general feedback about the way their exams were answered, and you can read that feedback here.
* ULTIMATE PROGRAMMING WORKSHOP. Charlie Reynolds (Y3, AI4wIE) writes: Tomorrow Tues 1 March at 14:00 in Collab OnTheBeach.co.uk will be running a workshop in which we will go through a simple holiday filtering exercise using Ruby and HTML, given some criteria and holiday data. We aim to cover some of the fundamentals of TDD and BDD (Test Driven, and Behaviour Driven Development) using Cucumber and ultimately students will develop some of their own features alongside the examples provided.
CSSOC.
This from Zaviriya Jina (Y2, CSBMwIE): CSSoc are having a pub golf night tomorrow (Tues 1 March) Come along to Ford Madox Brown at 19:00 to enjoy a night coursing through pubs on Oxford Road whilst getting a chance to meet people on our course and making friends!
QUIET ROOM.
A reminder that we have a quiet study space for all UG students, here in Kilburn, a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle. 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.
DROP IN WITH MARKS & CLERK.
One of the world’s leading intellectual property practices with offices across four continents are looking for students who are interested in using their technical knowledge as a patent attorney. Come to the drop-in on Kilburn LF 12:00–14:00 tomorrow Tues 1 March and have a chat with Comp Sci alumni. Pizza and donuts will be served!
* BIG GREEN. Our Faculty is holding a Big Green Gathering next Tues 8 March – a day to celebrate the environmental sustainability activities of our staff and students. Visit the programme page to find out more.
GREEN TECH CONTEST.
And also on the Green theme, the University has been invited to submit a team to participate in the TECO Green Tech Contest (23 August 2016, Taiwan). The team will consist of at least five members, including both academic staff and students. Applications based on UG/PG/RA projects that are related to green technologies are eligible for consideration. Teams will give a 10 minute presentation and 5 minute demonstration of their project. Three return air tickets will be funded by the organiser and the winning team’s prize will be a trophy and $12,000. Interested? Submit your application (Title, Abstract and team members) to John Keane by next Mon 7 March.
SCALA DEV.
Interested in functional programming and Scala development? The Scala development interest group meet the last Monday of every month, and next meeting is tonight Mon 29 Feb at 19:00 at Madlab in the Northern Quarter. All abilities welcome, including noobs.
ROBOT SHOWCASE.
Next Weds 9 March 13:00–17:00 the Robotics Group in the School of EEE are hosting a showcase of their research. Talk to the academics, students and researchers and see what research and collaboration opportunities are available. Demonstrations and presentations throughout the afternoon. Sackville Street Building, F46.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 22 February, and it’s Week 4, a B week. I hope all's going well. We're about halfway through the first part of Semester 2, with the Easter break in another 4 weeks. Lots of news today, so let's get on with it!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
FACEBOOK WIN.
Congratulations to Antonio Marino (Y3, SEwIE) whose team won the Facebook's Favourite Choice award at the TreeHacks hackathon at Stanford University in California last week. Antonio writes: Sam Kortchmar (Brown University), Avery Lamp (Millburn High School, New Jersey), Beth Yue Shi (UC San Diego) and I built Appception, an app that lets you build React Native apps with a drag-and-drop UI. The interesting thing about it (and what differentiates it from AppChef, Team Goat's project at the Facebook Finals) is that the app you're building is fully operational while you're building it (so there aren't "edit" and "run" modes). TreeHacks (@hackwithtrees) had more than 700 attendees. 85 teams submitted projects, of which 39 entered the Facebook's Favourite Choice challenge (best use of any Facebook technology).
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING MENTORS.
This week marks the start of the School's brand new industry mentoring scheme for second year Software Engineering students. We have more than 40 talented and experienced software engineers from employers across the North West visiting the school on Tuesday and Thursday, to work with the COMP23420 teams while they work on their projects, and to talk about the realities of software development today. I know you will give the mentors a warm welcome!
SSC.
The next Staff-Student Committee meeting will be Weds 2 March 14:00–15:00. If you'd like to raise anything, please contact one of your reps as soon as possible so we have time to review any issues in advance of the meeting.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: Second years, struggling with deadlines? Falling behind in lectures? Can't find a placement or internship? Come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102 for help and advice
EXAM FEEDBACK.
A reminder that there will be a feedback session at 14:00 on Weds 16 March to give you the opportunity to view your marked COMP exam answer books for the Semester 1 exams. Advance registration required, please Email SSO with your ID, name and list of courses you’d like to view. Deadline for registration 12:00 Weds 2 March.
ACADEMIC WRITING HELP.
Places are still available for the University Language Centre’s Academic Writing Tutorial Service. This service is ideal for international students who are looking for support with their essays, projects or dissertations. Get further information.
* VOLUNTEERING WEEK. This week is Student Volunteering Week #SVW2016 at universities across the UK. Find out about voluntary unpaid activities that involve spending time doing something that aims to benefit people and the environment.
HACKING EDUCATION.
Speaking of volunteering, representatives from CodeClub, Manchester Robogals, The Hive Learning community, and others, will be giving a series of lightning talks about how computer scientists can volunteer their technical skills for the benefit of the local community. The talks are part of COMP101 this Thurs 25 Feb at 11:00 in Kilburn 1.1. All welcome!
CSSOC.
Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: This Weds 24 Feb at 20:00 CSSoc are taking over the Grove to ask a bunch of questions to you guys and see who comes out on top! We've got a £50 cash prize to the team that scores the most points, and a few prizes for other teams! We've also got a special team, made of a number of staff members for you to pit your knowledge against and we're looking for more. So please come along and invite all your lecturers.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES PROJECT.
Sean Bechhofer writes: the School is collaborating with researchers in the Faculty of Humanities on a number of inter-disciplinary projects and we’re looking to employ vacation students in Summer 2016. If you’d like to find out more, please contact me.
GOOGLE HASH CODE.
Julio Vega Hernandez (PhD) writes: The Google Hash Code competition last Thursday had 79 people divided into over 20 teams participating from our hub in the Kilburn Building. We would like to thank everyone for their incredible effort as teams had to solve a very tough problem in just under 4 hours. Hope you had a fun coding night! Special mention goes to the top 2 teams of our hub: MancPowah – Tudor Morar (PhD), Andrew Webb (PhD), Ion Diaconu (Y3, CS4) and Hikmat Hajiyev (Y2, CS), and Tree New Bee – Andi Zhang (Y2, CM), Zhenzhong Xiao (Y2, CSwIE) and Mingtian Zhang (Y2, CS). See you next year!
BOGLE STROLL.
Are you one of the brave? Can you take on a challenge for charity and beat the mysterious Bogle? In 1961 a team of stranded UoM lecturers tamed the mythological Bogle monster as they made the gruelling 55 mile journey from Lancaster to Manchester, having missed the last train. Each year since then UoM students and staff, alongside members of the public, have taken on the challenge to beat the Bogle, walking 26 or 55 miles around Greater Manchester for charity. Now in its 55th year, Bogle 2016 is taking place on 4 & 5 March. Take a sponsored scenic stroll around our wonderful city, for partner charity the Booth Centre (working to support homeless people ) or for a charity of your choice. Sign up! Bogle is organised by Manchester RAG (Raise & Give), the fundraising arm of the University of Manchester Students’ Union.
ON THE RADIO.
Our very own Steve Furber, Professor of Computer Engineering, who teaches on COMP28512 Mobile Systems, and is the principal designer of the ARM chip, talks on BBC Radio3 about his work on neural networks – constructing machines which work like parts of the human brain.
WOMEN IN TECH.
IBM would like to invite you to an evening of meeting their professional women at their central Manchester lab. This is an ideal opportunity to interact with professionals who have had a broad spectrum of careers in Information Technology. The event will run from 17:30 on Tues 15 March. Deadline for registration is Friday 4 March
TURING LECTURE:
The annual Turing Lecture is in University Place this Weds evening (24 Feb). This year the lecture is being given by Bob Schukai, head of innovation at Thomson Reuters on “The Internet of me: It’s all about my screens”. Free registration.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 15 February, and it’s Week 3, an A week. I hope everything is going well. Spring is in the air, and the daffodils are coming up around the campus. Hooray! Now, on with today's news, and I have quite a lot for you today!
best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
ART PROJECT.
Peter Bogdan (Y3, CS) has helped create a piece for The Imitation Game, an exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery (open now, free entry, Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3JL). Peter writes: My 3rd Year Project (supervised by Steve Furber) deals with creating a robot control system using a spiking neural network simulation running on SpiNNaker. I have put together and implemented sections of "brain" to form a motor cortex which drives the arms of two robots so that they can gesture while talking and lift their arm in the air in a silencing movement. The physical robots have been built by Mechatronics MSc students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm”. The Imitation Game features work by eight international contemporary artists who explore the theme of machines and the imitation of life. Its title is inspired by Alan Turing’s Turing Test, devised to test a computer’s ability to imitate human thought. Why not pop into Manchester Art Gallery and check out Peter’s work?
OUR RESPONSE TO YOUR FEEDBACK.
We’ve now looked in detail at the Course Unit Survey results from Semester 1 of this Academic Year (2015-16). We take your views seriously, and we’ve asked all the Course Unit lecturers to respond to your comments. Your can read their responses here.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: The summer is fast approaching and time is running out to find an internship or placement, so if you need help or advice come along to PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in G102.
EXAM FEEDBACK.
There will be a feedback session at 14:00 on Weds 16 March to give you the opportunity to view your marked COMP exam answer books for the Semester 1 exams. Advance registration required, please Email SSO with your ID, name and list of courses you’d like to view. Deadline for registration 12:00 Weds 2 March.
* MEET THE PRESIDENT. The President of the University, Nancy Rothwell, is making her annual visit to the School this Weds 17 Feb and she's holding an informal open 30-minute meeting for students at 15:00 in Kilburn 2.19 (second floor). If you’d like to have the chance to talk directly to her, here’s your opportunity. If you can’t make it yourself, you can ask a student Rep to raise an issue on your behalf. Also, Becky Fox, Student Representation Intern at the Students Union, will have a table on Kilburn LF tomorrow Tues 16 Feb from 12:00-14:00 with postcards you can fill in with anything you’d like to say to the President, and these will be passed onto Reps for the meeting.
STUDENTHACK.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: StudentHack IV is back! this time bigger, longer and more epic than ever! 38 hours of hacking starting 19:00 on Friday 4 March and ending 09:00 Sunday, we are inviting students from all around the UK to join us. Companies such as CDL, Yelp, Microsoft, telcom and many more are supporting this event and they are coming to see your amazing projects! Since 2012, StudentHack is one of the longest running student hackathons in the UK and has now joined with GreatUniHack to deliver one epic event! Tickets will be available to grab at 18:00 today, Monday. We expect a massive demand, and last Wednesday all tickets were gone in under 5 minutes!
CSSOC.
Also this from Sami: Do you get hungry? Do you feel like throwing balls at stuff? Are you feeling famous? Well CSSoc is going to Almost Famous for some burgers and then to burn those burgers with some casual bowling! Meet us at Almost Famous tomorrow Tues 16 Feb at 17:00. For more details, join the event page.
* NATIONAL STUDENT SURVEY. All students graduating this year will have been emailed by IPSOS/MORI and invited to take part in this survey. Once you’ve done the survey, take the acknowledgement (on your phone, or printed) to SSO for a FREE bar of chocolate and the chance to vote for a charity. When the survey ends at the end of April) the School will donate £400 to the charity with the most votes. The contenders are: Francis House Children's Hospice, Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention, Manchester Deaf Centre, Manchester Mind, and Royal Manchester Children's Hospital Charity.
SCHOOL VOLUNTEERS.
Sarah Zaman and Carol Murray from the North West Regional Centre for Computing at School, based here in Kilburn, are looking for students to volunteer to help run activities in schools across the North West. If you’re interested, email Sarah to find out more.
TURING LECTURE:
The annual Turing Lecture is in University Place on the evening of Weds 24 Feb. This year the lecture is being given by Bob Schukai, head of innovation at Thomson Reuters on “The Internet of me: It’s all about my screens”. Free registration.
INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEERING.
If you’re interested in volunteering this summer and are looking for a way to step out of your comfort zone and experience something new, then one of the University’s overseas volunteering projects could be for you.
* CAMP DIGITAL. Camp Digital is a conference that brings together Digital, Design and User Experience (UX) communities on Thursday 17 March in Manchester Town Hall. The organisers have 12 free tickets (normally £300) to give to students at the University.
ENTREPRENEUR CONF.
How will technology of today and tomorrow shape the way we live our lives? Check out the Manchester Entrepreneurs What Next? Conference, a week on Saturday, 27 Feb. The line-up includes Head of Technology for Partners at Microsoft, and Head of Training and Development at Digital Garage from Google. Ticket includes access to all talks, a workshop, breakfast and lunch, refreshments, free after-party drinks and a chance to win £500 cash from a pitch competition.
ENTREPRENEUR WORKSHOP.
Have you spotted a market opportunity that can be turned into a successful business, but don't know where to start? At a workshop on 24 Feb, 14:-00-17:00, Martin Henery (Manchester Enterprise Centre) and Gabriel Perez (PGDip in Bioscience Enterprise) will introduce you to the right business tools involved in product innovation and refining your venture's value proposition. Register.
BUSINESS MASTERS.
Interested in a Master’s course at Alliance MBS? They have 17 courses to choose from: from business analysis to operations, and marketing to finance. Register for an info session. There’s also a Loyalty Bursary for students and alumni of the University. Email for further information.
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING.
Interested in HPC? Find out more about OpenStack (an open source platform for cloud computing used at CERN etc) tomorrow Tues 16 Feb at SpacePortX in Manchester from 18:00. There will be short talks by speakers from CERN, DataCentred, Cardiff University, OpenStack and the University of Cambridge. Free pizza and beer too!
MEET SHELL.
Do you have the passion, creativity and capability to bring to life projects that will drive the future of energy and technology? Shell is looking for remarkable computer science graduates to join them. They offer a variety of challenging internships and graduate roles in mobile application development, business analysis, project management, data analysis and risk management. Stop by the Byte Café area today Monday 15 Feb between 10:00 and 13:30 to speak to Shell staff: learn about Shell internship/graduate schemes, speak with Shell IT graduates about the unique roles available and the application process, and bring your CV for a free review.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 8 February, and it’s Week 2 of teaching, a B week. I hope you're getting back into the swing of things after the exams period, and we plan to announce provisional exam results on Thursday 25 Feb. There's lots of Monday news today, so let's go!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
COURSE CHOICES.
Final call. The deadline for choosing/changing your Semester 2 course units is 16:00 this Friday 12 Feb. After that, course changes won’t be possible. See full details and instructions.
* CLEAN CODE. This week’s COMP101 guest lecture is from George Theofanous, Danya Bouskouchi and Gareth Mok, Java Developers at AutoTrader, who will talk about clean and smelly code, or “how to make your code awesome”. Gareth graduated with from the School in 2012 (CSwIE). Thursday 11 Feb at 11:00 in LT1.1. All welcome, see full details.
VISIT AUTOTRADER.
And speaking of AutoTrader, they’d like to invite a small group (max 10) final year students to an event in their Manchester office on Friday 4 March from 10:30-15:00. The event will be a showcase of their 2014 graduate intake and an opportunity to network/find out more about working there. Contact Duncan Hull ASAP if you’re interested.
PASS1.
This from George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE): Hello first years! Welcome back to sunny Manchester! Hopefully you're all well rested after the Christmas break, and January exams didn't treat you too harshly. Just a quick note to remind you that PASS kicks off again this week, 12:00 Weds as usual – we're looking forward to tales of your Christmas, as well as any problems you choose to bring along. See you there!
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: Second years, since this Friday 12 Feb is your last chance to get advice on your second semester course options, come along to PASS2 at 13:00 in Collab 1 to ask any questions you might have.
* GRADUATE WISDOM. Joe Forshaw (CSwIE, graduated 2014, now at Retrofuzz creative design agency in Manchester) has written some from-the-heart 6-point advice for Computer Science undergraduates, based on his own experiences here in the School. As well as his 6 Top Tips he says: “Remember to have a good time. Particularly with Computer Science, you're surrounded by smart, brilliant people. Make the most of it!” How true! Read Joe’s excellent blog post.
STUDENT ACTIVITIES FUND.
A reminder that we have a UG Student Activities Fund, to help you participate in opportunities which benefit you educationally or personally, and which can bring wider benefit to others in the School. Since we launched the scheme in November 2015 we’ve supported four different activities benefitting over 100 students. Read full details of the fund and how to apply.
THURSDAY CAREERS ADVICE.
Ben Carter from the Careers Service is Careers Consultant for the School, and writes: If you’re in the mood for some hearty Careers advice, from this week on you’ll find me in Kilburn room LF5 on a Thursday morning. You can book in advance for a quick 15 minute application check, or a 30 minute Guidance chat or Interview Simulation. Log in to CareersLink to book: look for the link on the left once you’re in.
MEET THE PRESIDENT.
The President of the University, Nancy Rothwell, is making her annual visit to the School on Weds 17 Feb and she's holding an informal open 30-minute meeting for students (no staff, just students) at 15:00 in Kilburn 2.19 (second floor). If you’d like to have the chance to talk directly to her, here’s your opportunity. If you can’t make it yourself, you can ask a student Rep to raise an issue on your behalf. Also, Becky Fox, Student Representation Intern at the Students Union, will have a table on Kilburn LF next Tues 16 Feb from 12:00-14:00 with postcards you can fill in with anything you’d like to say to the President, and these will be passed onto Reps for the meeting.
* NICE AND CLEAN. You may have noticed a certain sparkle in the labs. I hope you have! Because we had all the UG labs professionally and anti-bacterially cleaned in early January – quite a job, 324 keyboards, mice, monitors and desk areas. One of the cleaners noted that a particular PC “looked like someone had eaten a roast dinner off it”, so please remember that food and drinks (other than bottled water) are off-limits in labs! And definitely no roast dinners!
CSSOC PUB CRAWL.
Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: Now that we're finally done with exams, CSSoc is proud to organise its first event of the semester: the “We Made It” Pub Crawl! Whether you feel like celebrating success or drinking your problems away, come this Weds 10 Feb, and have a pint with us! Meet us at Ford Maddox Brown at 19:00. For more details, join the event page. Also, an update on the hoodies: due to a mixup with the SU processing the invoice, the hoodies have been delayed slightly, but we hope to have them ready for collection in the next 2 weeks.
E-LEARNING COMP.
The University’s “Best in eLearning” competition is looking for e-learning resources that you think are exceptional. You can nominate any course for its innovative or effective use of eLearning, deadline 20 May. If you nominate you’ll be entered into a weekly prize draw to win an iPod Shuffle, as well as the grand prize draw to win an iPad. Nominate.
* DIGITAL TALENT DAY. Manchester Digital Talent Day, this Weds 10 Feb in Manchester Town Hall, has some great opportunities from a wide range of employers including The Co-operative, AO.com, Rentalcars, AutoTrader, The Hut Group, On The Beach and the BBC. Free registration.
INTERVIEW BOOT CAMP.
Got an interview for a placement or graduate job? The Careers Service are running a boot camp this Weds 10 Feb. Email them ASAP to book your mock interview.
BUX COMP.
BUX is running a trading competition, with total cash prize of £400 and an opportunity to win a free trip to Amsterdam and visit their office. Sign up and have a go.
BOSCH DROP IN SESSION.
Bosch will on Kilburn LF tomorrow Tues 9 Feb from 12:00-14:00. They’re looking for individuals to join their bespoke two-year Graduate Engineering Scheme in the summer of 2016. The programme includes software testing, diagnostic authoring, product ownership. For more info speak to the Bosch team.
* HASHCODE. Hash Code is a team-based programming competition organized by Google. You pick your team and programming language, Google picks a real-life engineering problem for you to solve. The University’s HackSociety is hosting a hub in Kllburn Collab 1 this Thurs 11 Feb at 17:30 for the Online Qualification Round, and registered teams from Manchester are invited to participate from the hub. Top-scoring teams from this round will then be invited to Google’s Paris office to compete in the Final Round of the competition in March. If you’re interested in joining the hub, find a team (2-4 people) and first register with Google (be sure to select Manchester from the list of hubs) and then register for the hub itself (before the event, otherwise you may not get in) using this form.
IKNOW SOLUTIONS RECRUITMENT.
Looking for a career in Consulting with European travel? Pop along at lunch time next Tues 16 Feb and have a chat to iKnow Solutions who are a IBM Business Partner focusing on Big Data, Analytics, Integration & Governance and Master Data Management. Sign up for the session.
* CREDIT SUISSE COMP. CS is running their Global Navigator competition. Play by 14 Feb for the chance to win a ski trip to Switzerland, an Apple Watch, or £250 Amazon Voucher.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is Weds 10 Feb at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Professor Blaž Zupan from the University of Ljubljana will talk about “Data Fusion (of Everything)”. Blaž says: have you ever been overwhelmed by data? In many fields, including life sciences, data abounds. One of the grand challenges of machine learning is to infer a predictive model by jointly considering all the available data sets. In my talk, I will present an approach to data fusion by matrix tri-factorization, and show its application in several recent studies, including in finding new bacterial response genes in social amoeba Dictyostelium. All students and staff welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 1 February, and it’s week 1 of Semester 2 teaching, an A week. The exams are over, and lectures and other activities start today. Check your timetable! I hope you’re ready for the new semester, and I hope everything goes well over the coming months. On with today's news!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
EXAM RESULTS.
We plan to publish the provisional Semester 1 exam results on Thursday 25 Feb. We’ll let you know as soon as they’re available.
FINAL YEAR MEETING.
There’s an important meeting for all final year students this Weds 3 Feb at 13:00 in LT1.1. We'll be talking about what you can do in Semester 2 to get the best out of your project and to secure the degree and the career that you want. Advice about exams, too.
FOSDEM TRIP.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: this weekend HackSoc went on their first trip abroad to Brussels, Belgium, taking 18 students whose accommodation was funded by the School’s Student Activities Fund. In addition to it being famous for the waffles and chocolate, Brussels is where the annual FOSDEM is held, a conference with more than 600 talks about various topics with heavy emphasis on free software.The highlight of the trip was Richard Stallman who talked about why he classifies proprietary software as malware, and he held a Q&A session afterwards where we got to talk with him in person! There were more than 6,000 developers at the event and it was inspiring to hear their stories about being a software engineer in various fields. We’ll be writing a blog post to cover everything as it would be unfair summarise this event in just a few paragraphs, so keep an eye on the Monday Mail for a follow-up!
HACKING THE HACKS.
This week’s COMP101 lecture will be given by Paul Vlissidis, technical director at NCC group, on "Hacking a Hack – How the cloud helped me become a cyber-stalker". His talk will discuss white hat security and how he (ethically) hacked a journalist (Claudia Joseph of the Daily Mail) and stole her credit card details, keys to her house and lots of personal information, by starting with phishing emails. All students and staff are welcome (not just first year students) – 11:00 in LT 1.1 this Thurs 4 Feb.
* TECH EVENTS IN MANCHESTER: There are tonnes of Technology Events in Manchester (and the North West) every week, so wouldn’t it be nice if there was a single calendar which told you about all of them? Thankfully, Gemma Cameron aka @Ruby_Gem (who many of you will know from HackManchester.com) has put together a shared calendar of events which is regularly updated by the tech community in the North West. Check it out.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: struggling with second semester option choices? Haven't found an internship yet? Come along to PASS2 for help this Friday 5 Feb at 13:00 in Collab 1 as usual!
HACKSOC.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: HackSoc is having a quick meeting this Weds 3 Feb at 12:00 in LF15 about the upcoming GreatUniHack / StudentHack events in March. Please rsvp.
COURSE UNIT CHOICES.
The deadline for choosing/changing your Semester 2 course units is 16:00 a week on Friday (12 Feb). See full details and instructions. Some courses may have a maximum enrolment capacity, and if so that’s noted on the relevant syllabus pages. Any queries, please contact SSO.
* TIME TO TALK. 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year, yet there continue to be stigmas and misconceptions around mental health. This Thurs 4 Feb is Time to Talk Day (see video), a day for the nation to take 5 minutes to have a conversation about mental health and tackle the stigma surrounding it. Check out the the charity bake sale and information sessions on Thurs from 11:00–14:00 in University Place Foyer and First Floor Atrium. If you think you need to talk to someone, the University's Student Counselling Service offers the chance for you to do so in a totally confidential environment.
LADIES OF CODE.
Angie Maguire of the “Ladies of Code” group writes: we have a very active chapter in Manchester and run free workshops, speaker sessions and social evenings and we'd love to see you all at future events. On Tues 23 Feb we’re hosting a free screening of CODEGIRL, an award-winning documentary by Lesley Chilcott. See our meetup page for more info.
* PODCASTING. It’s got a longer history than you might think. In the late 1960s two lecturers here in the School, Simon Lavington and Jeff Rohl, pioneered a system for recording lectures and making them available on 1” videotape. The tech was a bit different in those days! Read more.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is this Weds 3 Feb at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Professor Jerzy Marcinkowski from the University of Wroclaw, Poland, will talk about “The Hunt for a Red Spider: Conjunctive Query Determinacy Is Undecidable”. The scenario is as follows. There is a database D, which we do not see (for efficiency or security reasons). We however see a view V over D. We have another query Q to D. Can we evaluate Q only seeing V, but not D? Of course sometimes we can and sometimes we cannot. Whether there is an algorithm to decide this had been an open question for over 30 years. In 2015 we found a negative answer to this question. The talk will not be very technical and no special background is needed to follow it. All welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 25 January, and it’s the second and final week of the Semester 1 exams. I hope they’re going well. Make sure you know your schedule, and in case of emergencies, don't delay, email SSO immediately or call them on 0161 306 6625. Semester 2 teaching starts next Monday – something to look forward to! Now, on with today's news!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
COURSE UNIT CHOICES.
A reminder that the deadline for choosing/changing your Semester 2 course units is 16:00 Friday 12 Feb. See full details and instructions. Please note that some units may have a maximum enrolment capacity, and this is noted on the relevant syllabus pages. Any queries, please contact SSO.
HACKSOC.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: Hope you all had good exams, good luck to those who still have some to do! HackSoc is having a quick meeting next Weds 3 Feb in LF15 at 12:00. The meeting is about the upcoming GreatUniHack / StudentHack events in March, and to bring everyone up to speed, how to get involved with us in organisation/volunteering, and gathering ideas for the next event. Please rsvp. Refreshments will be provided // if Sami remembers to buy them.
* IBM MENTORING. IBM is bringing its Peer2Peer mentoring scheme to The University of Manchester. Connect with a current student or recently-graduated employee at IBM and get one-to-one guidance and feedback on your applications and CVs, and insight into careers. Register your interest by emailing Belinda Mbuthia (a current University of Manchester Electrical and Electronic Engineering student working at IBM). Deadline Monday 22 Feb.
SUMMER SPY SCHOOL.
Applications are now open for the GCHQ summer school in Manchester / Scarborough / Thames Valley. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about cybersecurity (and get paid) but you’ll need to have been resident in the UK for at least ten years to get security clearance. Students from Manchester who’ve attended this summer school in the past have strongly recommended it.
BUSINESS FUND.
Do you have a Business idea you want to turn into reality? UMIP, the University’s Centre for Intellectual Property Commercialisation have announced their Propeller Fund. Selected candidates will receive expert mentoring assistance and funding support to catapult their business ideas toward success. Entries can be anything from a simple idea, to a fully formed business plan. Apply by 14 Feb.
* DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT PHDS. The Centre for Digital Entertainment, based at Bath and Bournemouth Universities, is offering 12 paid postgraduate research studentships, to start September 2016. Their funded PhD programme includes mentoring by companies specialising in games, visual effects, and animation.
BIG DATA AT AUTOTRADER.
“Big data”, “data lakes”, “data science”, all the latest business buzzwords. What really matters is the ability to put data at the centre. Learn how Autotrader in Manchester became data driven next Weds 3 Feb at an event at the Autotrader HQ in Manchester (with ThoughtWorks). Sign up for this free event, great for learning and networking.
WATCHING THE DEFECTIVES.
The Defectives is a testing-focused community for the UK run by ROQ IT. They host events where teams of software testers or developers work (or compete) with each other in a variety of fun and innovative ways. The Defectives University Challenge is a specific event open to North West Universities and will not only be a fun introduction to the software development lifecycle, but will also introduce a competitive edge with teams working together to find defects on specific websites against the clock, with a chance to win The Defectives University Challenge Trophy. No previous knowledge of software testing is required to take part as training will be given, just a general interest and appreciation of IT and a sense of fun. Join their LinkedIn group to get involved.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is tomorrow 26 Jan at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.3, when Dr Hans Vandierendonck from Queen's University Belfast will talk about “The Swan Task Dataflow Scheduler: Design and Applications”. Task dataflow is increasingly investigated as a programming model and execution model for high-performance and energy-efficient computing systems. The model requires programmers to annotate tasks with the data read and written by the task and uses this information to optimise runtime scheduling. This talk presents the rationale behind the design of Swan, analyses its performance and discusses current projects in high-performance computing and data analytics using Swan. All welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 18 January. Welcome back and Happy New Year to you! 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 – and keep in mind that someone has to actually read your writing! Now, on with today's news!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG · SSO · Timetable · Handbook · Course Units · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4
IT FAQ · IT & Environs Support · Kilburn access · Have your say · MM · @csmcr · FB
SSC · Report absence · Mitigating Circumstances · Counselling Service
COURSE UNIT CHOICES.
Selection of Semester 2 course units is open, and the deadline for choosing/changing your Semester 2 course units on the University system is 16:00 Friday 12 February 2016. See full details and instructions. Please note that some units may have a maximum enrolment capacity, and this is stated on the relevant syllabus pages. Any queries, please contact SSO.
KNEEBONE BURSARY AWARD.
Congratulations to Anuj Vaishnav (Y2, CSE), selected as 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.
TECHCRUNCH WIN.
Edoardo Moreni (Y4, CS4) has now blogged about his team’s win at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon just before Xmas. And you can see a video of his presentation at TechCrunch. His team-mates were Antonio Marino (Y3, SEwIE), Bartlomiej Siemieniuk (Y3, SE) and Mark Larah (graduated last year).
UG OF THE YEAR.
Could you be an Undergraduate of the Year 2016? TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year is an annual awards competition which aims to find the best undergraduates in the UK. Prizes include work placements and overseas trips. Applications are now open in 12 categories, deadline for entering the competition is 28 Jan 2016. Why not enter?
WRITING HELP.
The Academic Writing Tutorial Service is free to international students who want to improve their written English. These one-to-one one-hour sessions offer expert help in improving your academic work. Full details and how to apply here.
* MEET BEN CARTER. Hi everyone, my name’s Ben Carter and I’m the newly-arrived Careers Consultant for the School of Computer Science. If you’d like to meet up with me to look over applications, practice for interviews or just chat about career concerns, you’ll be able to find me in the CareersLink booking system as we go into the new semester, as well as on Facebook. I’ve come to Manchester for a new challenge after spending four years careers advising at the University of St Andrews. Before that I was a research chemist in Liverpool (ask me about dry water and flammable ice), and science remains the thing that motivates all my work. Outside of the office you’ll find I am an enormous geek, and will happily hold forth on Game of Thrones, D&D, Warhammer or many other topics, given the chance. I look forward to meeting you as I settle in Manchester, please get in touch if you would like my help.
WOMENSPHERE CODEFEST.
Womensphere Global Codefest is a global, virtual, interscholastic competition inviting female students to create code that help achieve the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Registration is open now.
MANCHESTER DIGITAL.
The annual jobs fair organised by Manchester Digital will take place on Weds 10 February in Manchester Town Hall with many local employers who are looking to fill technical roles including Autotrader, the BBC, The Co-operative Group, RentalCars.com, The Hut Group and many more. Free registration.
INTERVIEWERS WANTED.
The Times Final Year Student Survey 2016 is looking for student representatives to carry out part-time work as interviewers for the survey in February. You must know 25 final year students and be organised and reliable. The work will take approximately 6-8 hours in total and you'll be paid up to £90. If you’re interested, contact Henry Jungnitsch.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 14 December. Not only is it Week 12, an A week, but it’s also the last week of term – but I suspect you already know this! I hope that this Semester has been a stimulating, interesting, and enjoyable 3 months for you. The Monday Mail will be back in mid-January, for the first week of the exams. Until then, have a great Xmas and recharge your batteries! Now, on with today's news… lots of it too! Best wishes,
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
SSC • Report absence • Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
TECHCRUNCH WIN.
Congratulations to Antonio Marino (Y3, SEwIE), Edoardo Moreni (Y4, CS4), Bartlomiej Siemieniuk (Y3, SE) and Mark Larah (graduated last year) who won the William Hill Prize at TechCrunch Disrupt London Hackathon. Their hack was a conditional betting automation app that allows the user to place recurring sports bets (see their video). Their prize is a world trip, to be taken probably after graduation, which includes the full VIP treatment as they attend the football in Madrid, soak up a weekend of seasonal sport in Sydney, and take in the lights of Vegas during a weekend at the casinos. They’ll also get to experience life in William Hill offices across the globe with lots of potential career opportunities along the way. That’s a win!
GREAT UNI HACK.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: On Saturday 5 Dec, we held the 3rd edition of GreatUniHack at CityLabs, and we saw an amazing turnout – 190 people! A HUGE thank you to everyone who made this event a huge success: of course the attendees, University of Manchester students and most importantly all those who spent the weekend working to deliver a great event – Sven Cortel (Y2, CS4wIE - organiser), Sebastian Mararu (Y2, CSwIE - MC and entertainment), Ben Possible (Y2, CSwIE - Volunteer lead), Hamza Ghani (organiser), Petar Hristoskov (Y1, CSwIE - logistics), Teo Taylor (Y3, CS4 - IT and photographer), Tim Xiao (Y2, CSwIE - Social media and volunteer), Madalina Raicu (Y1, HCI4wIE - Hardware), Dainis Gorbunovs (Y2, CS4wIE - photographer), Dhananjay Sharma (Y1, CS - logistics), Alexandra Misca (Y1, HCI4wIE - logistics), Abdurraham Dridi (Y1, CS - logistics), Efthymios Makaras (Y2, CS4wIE - logistics). The first pic below show the winning teams, the second an overview of the GUH experience! And to everyone who came to represent Manchester over the weekend, we hope you all had fun and see you in March. See all the submitted demos.
VENTURE OUT.
And congratulations to Antonio Sanchez Gomez (Y3, CSBM) who was Runner-Up in this year’s Venture Out Digital Awards, organised by the Manchester Enterprise Centre, for his business plan “Bridging the gap between app developers and app users”. Well done Antonio!
1ST YEAR PROJECTS.
The First Year Project poster session last Thursday was, as always, buzzing, with fabulous ideas on display and you can see all the posters in the Y1 Project Poster Gallery.
COURSE UNIT CHOICES.
Selection of Semester 2 course units is now open, and the deadline for choosing/changing your Semester 2 course units on the University system is 16:00 Friday 12 February 2016. See full details and instructions. Please note that some units may have a maximum enrolment capacity, and this is stated on the relevant syllabus pages. Any queries, please contact SSO.
* HAVE YOUR SAY. A reminder that each Semester the University runs Unit Surveys to give you the chance to tell us what you think about your course units. Please take a moment to give us your feedback – you can use Blackboard or download the app (iOS | Android). We take your views seriously, we react, and we publish a response to your views, for every course unit.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: It's the last week of the semester now so it's your last chance to get any help you need in PASS2 for your course and placements. If you need any help come along to Collab 1 at 13:00 this Friday 18 Dec.
CSSOC IN THE PUB.
Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: CSSoc are pub crawling this Friday 18 Dec, to celebrate the end of the semester and to say goodbye to all of our friends who are going home for the holiday! We're meeting at the Ford Madox Brown at 19:00 (or 18:30 if you want food) and heading to The Oxford at around 19:45 with further stops being announced on Facebook. We're also heading into our last week of selling hoodies, at the Byte Café this Thurs/Fri 17/18 Dec 12:00-14:00 If you want a hoodie, this is your last chance to order one – we're hoping to distribute the hoodies in the first week or two after the exams.
* STEVE'S NEW ROLE. Congratulations to Steve Pettifer on his appointment as Associate Vice Dean for Teaching and Learning in our Faculty (this is an extra job, he's not leaving the School!). Those of you who have been taught by Steve will know he’s an outstanding lecturer. Steve believes passionately in excellent teaching and will be a huge asset to the School, and the University as a whole, in his new role.
XMAS OPENING HOURS.
From Saturday 19 December 2015 – Sunday 17 January 2016 inclusive, Kilburn/IT access is daily 08:00 – 23:30 if you have an Out-of-Hours Pass, except for Thurs 24 Dec – Sunday 3 Jan inclusive, when both buildings are closed and there is no student access. The Learning Commons and George Kenyon IT Cluster are open throughout this period except for Friday 25 and Saturday 26 Dec. Full details on the access page.
SSO XMAS OPENING.
The School's Student Support Office (SSO) will be open as usual during December apart from the following: today Mon 14 Dec closed from 13:30, Weds 16 Dec closed 11:00-12:00, and from 15.00, Fri 18 Dec closed from 13:45, and Weds 23 Dec closed from 16:00 for the University's Christmas Holiday period, re-opening at 09:00 on Monday 4 Jan 2016.
TEACHING CAREER.
Are you looking for a graduate career with a difference? Don’t fancy working in an office? Bursaries and prestigious scholarships worth up to £30,000 tax free are being offered to top graduates who choose to get into teaching and help raise standards across England’s schools. If you’re interested and would like further information, email Jack Lofthouse from Get Into Teaching.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
There are two seminars this week. On Weds 16 Dec Gavin Brown will talk about “Manchester and Athens”. Gavin says: In 1988, the physicist Freeman Dyson wrote "The first academic city in the world was Athens, and the first industrial city was Manchester, so I like to use the names of Athens and Manchester as symbols of the two styles of scientific thinking. This will be a non-technical talk, a bit of a philosophical reflection"; and on Thus 17 Dec, Rieny Rijnen from Topic Embedded Systems will talk about “Distributed reconfigurable computing challenges”. Both talks are at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4. Everyone welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 7 December, and it’s Week 11, a B week. I hope everything is going well. It's been a long and busy semester but keep going – Xmas is in sight! On with today’s news and lots to tell you about today!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
SSC • Report absence • Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
TECH CHAMPIONS!
Congratulations to Andrei Muntean (Y2, CSwIE), Geanina Hinta (Y1, CSwIE), Cristian Bodnar (Y1, CSwIE), Anais Hristea (Y1, HCIwIE), Alexandra Misca (Y1, HCI4wIE), and Dainis Gorbunovs (Y2, CS4wIE) – L to R in the pic, with Duncan Hull on the far right – who won the #UniTechChallenge at BBC Salford Keys last Thursday 3 Dec. They beat stiff competition from five other teams at Universities across the North West, and won prizes of £600 between them and work experience at the BBC, BAML or Barclays (who organised the contest), plus fast-tracked applications to graduate and intern programs. An impressive and fantastic result, well done all!
GREAT UNI HACK.
And speaking of wins, Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: Last Saturday 5 Dec, we held the 3rd edition of GreatUniHack at CityLabs, and we saw an amazing turnout – we were expecting 120 and instead 190 people showed up! IT WAS GREAT. We saw impressive hacks throughout the weekend and the University of Manchester teams really stood out, winning the majority of the categories. Full details in next week's Monday Mail.
1ST YEAR PROJECTS.
Good luck to all 1st Year students for their project presentations this week. The poster session, this Thurs 10 Dec 11:00 – 12:30 on Kilburn LF, is open to all students and staff, so come and check out the creativity and ideas of this year’s 1st Year students.
* HAVE YOUR SAY. Each Semester the University runs Unit Surveys to give you the chance to tell us what you think about your course units. Please take a moment to give us your feedback – you can use Blackboard or download the app (iOS | Android). We take your views seriously, we react, and we publish a response (here’s our response to your 2014 Semester 2 comments).
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: Stuck with deadlines or can't find a placement? PASS2 can help! Come along at 13:00 this Friday in Collab 1 for help from the third year students.
CENTRICA DROP IN.
Centrica will be visiting the School tomorrow Tues 8 Dec, 12:00-14:00 on Kilburn LF, to talk about why it is such an exciting time to join them on their Information Systems graduate and summer placement programme. Drop by their stand for a chat.
* CSSOC HOODIES. This from Shane Booth (Y3, CS4): CSSoc are taking orders for our popular Computer Science hoodies this week! We're selling them for £15 in the Byte Cafe this Thursday and Friday 10 & 11 Dec, from 12:00-14:00. They come with the University of Manchester crest on the left and the CSSoc logo on the back as well as the new option to have your name on the right! Place your orders!
SSO XMAS OPENING.
The School's Student Support Office (SSO) will be open as usual during December apart from the following: next Mon 14 Dec closed from 13:30, Weds 16 Dec closed 11:00-12:00, and from 15.00, Fri 18 Dec closed from 13:45, and Weds 23 Dec closed from16:00 for the University's Christmas Holiday period, re-opening at 09:00 on Monday 4 Jan 2016.
SHOPPING TECH.
Ever wondered how Computer Science helps with your Christmas shopping? Will Peck, who graduated from the School in 2006 and is now a Team Leader at Ocado technology, reveals all.
DOCKER.
The Faculty of Life Sciences Bioinformatics Society’s latest event is a talk by Christian Brenninkmeijer on “Docker: Isolated, reproducible software builds with IPython, RStudio and Galaxy” Stopford Building Room 1.065/6 16:00-17:00, this Friday 11 Dec, all welcome.
* MIPS CPU Hackathon. Dirk Koch and 1-UP are organising a MIPS CPU Hackathon this Friday 11 Dec from 13:00 in Tootill 0. This is a "flipped hackathon" where you get a system that comes already with everything, including a small ROM (containing a 32-bit MIPS-1 binary program), but with a missing CPU! Your challenge: build the CPU and get the program running on real hardware (FPGA)! All students are invited, and no previous skills are needed (a brief knowledge of HDL and assembly is a plus). Please let Dirk know if you plan to come, and for any other queries, contact Anuj Vaishnav (Y2, CSE).
IBM COMP.
IBM is running its tenth annual Master the Mainframe contest for students across the UK. No experience with mainframes is necessary, and there are great prizes.
* HASHCODE. Hash Code is a team-based programming competition organized by Google. You pick your team and programming language, Google picks a real-life engineering problem for you to solve. The online qualification round will be followed by a final held in Google’s Paris HQ. Sounds exciting! Registration is open now.
FOODIE TUESDAY.
The foodie market is back by popular demand, and just in time for Christmas! Street food and produce traders from Levenshulme Market will be next to the Manchester Museum (opposite University Place) tomorrow Tues 8 Dec. Goodies on offer include hot veggie and meaty wraps and quesadilla, gooey chocolate brownies, wild game dishes, homemade pierogi (Polish dumplings) and stews, plus fresh bread and baked goods. Why not try something different for lunch!
* ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES. This week, David Lester from the Advanced Processor Technologies group will tell us about “SpiNNaker and the Human Brain Project: What’s it all about?”. SpiNNaker has been in development for over ten years; the physical hardware is now over four years old; and the Human Brain Project was first mooted over five years ago: in that time how has the technology and the project developed? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the technology and the project, and how do they compare with the alternatives? Finally, David will discuss open problems within HBP and how staff, UG, PGT, and PGR students can get involved with the project. He will emphasise the software rather more than the hardware, and highlight the neuroscience use-cases driving APT involvement in the HBP. There may be cake! Tomorrow Tues 8 Dec at 17:15 in Kilburn LF15, everyone welcome. You will need an out-of-hours access pass to attend this event after 18:00.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 30 November, and it’s Week 10, an A week. I hope everything is going well, despite the horrible weather! The end of term is fast approaching and I hope you're on top of things, but if you have any concerns, do have a chat with someone: for example, your Personal Tutor (Year 3 students this is also your Project Supervisor), or your Year Tutor, or SSO – you can find useful contacts in the link box below. Now on with today’s news!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
SSC • Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
TECH CHALLENGE.
Congratulations and good luck to Anais Hristea (Y1, HCIwIE), Cristian Bodnar (Y1, CSwIE), Dainis Gorbunovs (Y2, CS4wIE), Geanina Hinta (Y1, CSwIE), Alexandra Misca (Y1, HCI4wIE), and Andrei Muntean (Y2, CSwIE) who’ve been selected to present their solution to the University Technology Challenge to a panel of judges from Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the BBC, at MediaCityUK in Salford this Thurs 3 Dec.
ALL ABOUT ARM.
The Guardian has a feature on ARM this week, which talks about the history and future of the company, featuring our very own Steve Furber, principal designer of the ARM chip. You can also see this interactive visualisation of the ARM-1 chip in action, made to celebrate the 25th birthday of ARM last week.
ARM IN ASIA.
Speaking of ARM, they’ll be here in the School this Friday 4 Dec at 13:00 in Kilburn LT1.3 talking about opportunities in Taiwan and China. All welcome, please sign up.
KNEEBONE BURSARY.
Also ARM-related, this is the final call for applications for the Kate Kneebone Acorn Bursary – the annual commemorative award of £500 funded by the Kneebone family and ARM. In addition to the funding, the Bursary offers the opportunity to discuss a funded internship placement (with an Engineering bias) with ARM in Cambridge. All Year 2 UG students in the School are eligible to apply, deadline 17:00 this Friday 4 Dec. See full details and how to apply.
PASS1.
This from George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE): Hello first years! We’re coming towards the end of your first semester at Manchester! Hopefully you’ve all enjoyed yourselves – but I’m sure you’re also aware that you have exams in January. With that in mind, we’ll be running our ever-popular PASS workshops for Maths and Architecture this week, in addition to your regularly scheduled PASS sessions. If any of you have requests about the kind of content you’d like to see covered during either of these workshops – feel free to email me. Just ask your leaders for directions – same PASS time, same PASS place, 12:00 this Weds 2 Dec. On the subject of workshops, hopefully those of you who attended our COMP151 workshop after Reading Week found it useful. Todd Davies (Y3, CSwIE), who ran the workshop – has posted the code used on GitHub, in case any of you find it useful. Have a great week, and see you all on Wednesday!
ACM COMP.
Ion Diaconu (Y3, CS4) writes: We had two teams, with two coaches, in the regional final of this year's prestigious ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest held this past weekend at Linköping University in Sweden. Each team managed to solve two problems each and we learned a lot from the experience. We had a great time and feel motivated for next year's contest! Left to right: Fizuli Valizada (Y3, CS), Mingtian Zhang (Y2, CS), coach Tudor Morar (PhD), Zhenzhong Xiao (Y2, CSwIE), Hikmat Hajiyev (Y2, CS), coach Ion Diaconu (Y3, CS4), Ramin Jafarov (Y3, CS), Andy Zhang (Y2, CM).
SSO XMAS OPENING.
The School's Student Support Office (SSO) will be open as usual during December apart from the following: this Weds 2 Dec closed 14:45-15:15, Mon 14 Dec closed from 13:30, Weds 16 Dec closed 11:00-12:00, and from 15.00, Fri 18 Dec closed from 13:45, and Weds 23 Dec closed from16:00 for the University's Christmas Holiday period, re-opening at 09:00 on Monday 4 Jan 2016.
* ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES. Antoniu Pop writes: this week, Gavin Brown from the Machine Learning and Optimisation group will give an overview of the field of Multiple Classifier Systems, also known as "Ensemble Methods". This is a sub-field of Machine Learning, hence assuming an introductory course level background in Machine Learning. Gavin will cover the basics of the field, including the most popular algorithms and the theory behind them, concluding with the outstanding theoretical questions of the area. This talk will be in 2 parts, each about 50 minutes, with a possible third part for those interested. Tomorrow Tues 1 Dec at 17:15 in Kilburn LF15. You'll need an out-of-hours access pass to attend this event after 18:00.
MIPS CPU HACKATHON.
Dirk Koch and 1-UP are organising a MIPS CPU Hackathon next Weds 9 Dec from 13:00 in Tootill 0. This is a "flipped hackathon" where you get a system that comes already with everything, including a small ROM (containing a 32-bit MIPS-1 binary program), but with a missing CPU! Your challenge: build the CPU and get the program running on real hardware (FPGA)! All students are invited, and no previous skills are needed (a brief knowledge of HDL and assembly is a plus). Please let Dirk know if you plan to come, and for any other queries, contact Anuj Vaishnav (Y2, CSE).
PLACEMENTS.
The Diamond Student Sandwich Placement scheme offers undergraduate students an exciting opportunity to gain paid working experience within an operational scientific environment at Diamond. Full details.
* MUSIC AT MADLAB. Manchester Girl Geeks are hosting a musical tea party, with four talks on music and tech. It’s at MadLab this Saturday 5 December from 14:00-16:00. Girl geeks and boy geeks (and grown-ups too) equally welcome! Get tickets.
DIGITAL CAREERS EVENT.
Talent Day is the largest digital careers fair in the North and a must-attend event for anyone looking to work in the digital and creative industries. Over 60 of the North West's leading digital and creative companies will be at Manchester Town Hall on 10 Feb 2016 scouting for the best and brightest young talent to come and work for them. Get your place now!
SABISU CHALLENGE.
The Manchester student chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is hosting the second Sabisu Challenge next Weds 9 Dec 13:00-16:00 in the Alan Turing building. Sabisu is a data aggregation and predictive behaviour platform for oil and gas manufacturing and chemical industries. Register.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is this Weds 2 Dec at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Prof Roy Chantrell from the University of York will talk about “Ultrafast magnetization dynamics: how fast can we go?”. Everyone welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 every Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 23 November, and it’s Week 9, a B week. I hope everything is going well! This Semester seems to have gone quickly – after this week there are only 3 more weeks before Xmas! On with today’s news...
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
SSC • Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
PGT OPEN DAY.
The School is holding a PGT open day this Weds 25 Nov, which will include a presentation from MSc Programme Director Norman Paton and an opportunity to talk about the different pathway options available. Refreshments will be provided and you’ll have the opportunity to chat to members of staff and current MSc students. Register.
* CSSOC. Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: CSSoc is organising a trip to the Silicon Drinkabout, at the Manchester Museum (opposite Kilburn) this Friday 27 Nov from 18:00-22:00. It's a great chance to meet some interesting people from tech startups. Free food and drink sponsored by the Biospheric Foundation.
PLACEMENT AND GRADUATION ADVICE.
This from Dominic Laing of the Careers Service: Careers Meeting appointments are available today Monday 23 Nov from 12:00-16:00 in Kilburn LF5. Book your 15-minute appointment now – click on “make an appointment” and select “Careers meeting: Computer Science Students - 15 mins” from the drop down menu. Find Monday 23 Nov 2015 and select the 15-minute appointment slot which suits you the best. Please bring along a copy of your CV if you have one. Need a longer discussion? Book a double slot.
QUIET ROOM.
A reminder that we have a quiet study space for all UG students, here in Kilburn, a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle. 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.
* CODING DOJO. Tudor Morar (PhD) writes: Join us for a workshop focused on how to do well in a technical interview. We’ll provide some guidelines and tips to increase your chance for getting the position. We'll also do some mock interviews using real interview questions so come along if you're interested! This Weds 25 Nov at 14:00 in Collab.
CODING FOR KIDS.
STEMSoc is looking for volunteers to help primary school kids learn coding using Scratch, in Wednesday afternoon local Code Clubs on 2/9/16 Dec. You need to have a current DBS check to work directly with the kids, but if you don't there may be other ways you can contribute. If you’re interested contact Sarah Fisher via her FB page.
INTERNET OF THINGS.
The next Manchester Geek Night is tomorrow Tues 24 Nov at 18:30 when Mat Henshall, Head of Things at ThoughtWorks, will be showing a glimpse of the future with the Internet of Things. 18:30 at Autotrader HQ.
* ALAN TURING TALK. Sir Dermot Turing has written a new biography of his uncle, Alan Turing, titled Prof: Alan Turing Decoded. He’ll be talking about the book next Weds 2 Dec from 14:00-16:00 in Room G205 in, fittingly, the Alan Turing Building. Tea and cake will be served after the event. Pre-registration is open now.
SHELL EVENT.
Shell is looking for remarkable computer science graduates to join them. They offer a variety of challenging internships, year out placements and graduate roles in mobile application development, business analysis, IT project management, and big data analysis. Meet them in the Byte Café this Thurs 26 Nov 10:00-3:00.
MAN AHL.
Man AHL (they do computer-driven hedge funds) is launching an exciting new coding competition, the Man AHL Coder Prize, targeted exclusively at students, offering a prize of £5,000 and the chance to apply for an Internship in their London office. The competition is now open for registration and goes live on 1 December.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is on Weds 25 Nov at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Dr Grigori Fursin from dividiti will talk about “From ad hoc computer engineering to collaborative and reproducible data science”. Everyone welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 16 November, and it’s Week 8, an A week – yes it’s definitely an A week, I double-checked! As always I hope everything is going well, especially for Y3 students who are doing their project seminars at the moment. On with today’s news, and lots of it as usual!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
SSC • Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
HACKATHON WINS.
Congratulations to Catalin Lupuleti (Y2, CS4), Paul Gafton (Y2, CS4wIE), Stefan Idriceanu (Y2, CS4) and Bogdan Duta (Y2, SE4wIE) who won the Majestic and CapGemini prizes at AstonHack in Birmingham last weekend (pic below), and also to Cornelia Secelean (Y2, CS4wIE), Teodor Vicovan (Y2, CSwIE), Mihai Bujanca (Y2,CSwIE), and Horia Porav (non-School), who won 2nd Place at FuseHack in Amsterdam. Well done everyone!
STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.
Last Wednesday we had the first of the two SSC meetings this Semester. As usual it was lively and productive! You can read a report of the meeting on the Blackboard SSC page (My Communities > CS UG Community > School of Computer Science SSC). The next meeting will be on Weds 9 Dec. If you’d like to raise anything, please contact a rep. For day-to-day operational stuff please raise a ticket via our support page. A reminder that we can’t track discussions of issues on FB!
OUR RESPONSE TO YOUR FEEDBACK.
We’ve now looked in detail at the Course Unit Survey results from Semester 2 of Academic Year 14-15. We take your views seriously, and we’ve asked all the Course Unit lecturers to respond to your comments.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: We're over halfway through the first semester now so you should be well into your applications, interviews and coursework. If you need any help or advice about any of them come talk to us in PASS2 at 13:00 on Friday in Collab 1.
CYBER SECURITY WINNERS.
The BAE systems Capture the Flag day of cybersecurity challenges was held in Kilburn on Saturday. Congratulations to the winning team (below): Harry Ward (Y2, CS4), Shamveel Ahammed (Y1, SE4wIE), Eugen Patru (Y1, CS4), Tristan Maat (Y2, CS4), together with non-School team-mates Wouter van Verre and Alex Chow, who achieved the highest ever score at a BAE Capture the Flag event. The runners-up were also highly commended, and had the 2nd or 3rd place teams been at either of the previous two BAE events they would have won both!
FEEDBACK SESSION.
The Semester 1 exam feedback session is this Weds 18 Nov at 14:00 in LF15. If you’ve registered but are unable to attend, please tell SSO in advance.
KNEEBONE BURSARY.
A reminder about the Kate Kneebone Acorn Bursary – an annual commemorative award of £500 funded by the Kneebone family and ARM. In addition to the funding, the Bursary offers the opportunity to discuss a funded internship placement (with an Engineering bias) with ARM in Cambridge. All Year 2 UG students in the School are eligible to apply, deadline 17:00 Friday 4 Dec. See full details and how to apply.
HACKSOC.
Horia-Mihai Bujanca (Y2, CSwIE) writes: Join HackSoc for our very first workshop! This will be the first of many workshops organised by our society, and we welcome anyone to attend. Dan Hodgson (Y2, CSwIE) and Dragos Alex Radu (Y2, AI4) will be covering Javascript derivatives. The workshop is this Weds 18 Nov 14:30-16:30 in LT1.3. This is all hands-on so make sure you bring your laptops and your thinking caps. We hope to see you there!
CSSOC.
Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: CSSoc is going to Laser Quest this Thursday 19 Nov at the Trafford Centre. Come along for some great fun! The tickets cost £5 for two games and we'll be selling them today (Monday) and Wednesday from 11:00-12:00 in the Byte Cafe. Meet for Laser Quest on Thursday at 18:15 in front of Kilburn.
* CODE FOR LIFE. The University of Manchester Bioinformatics Society is running a weekly series of workshops called Code for Life every Friday at 16:00 in Stopford 1.065, open to all levels. In their first 2 workshops they covered Git and SQL. The next event is RNA-seq analysis using Tophat/Cufflinks – open source software for gene expression analysis. Full details.
TIMETABLE LINK.
If your cal supports the iCal format you can now link your personal timetables from MyManchester. This service had been suspended since September because of a timezones bug – now fixed.
OUTREACH VOLUNTEERS.
This from David Rydeheard: A big welcome to those who volunteered for outreach projects, especially with schools, earlier this semester. There are many exciting opportunities! Our kick-off meeting will be this Weds 18 Nov 14:00-16:00 in Kilburn Room 2.19, when we’ll explore activities for outreach. If you haven’t volunteered but wish to be involved, please email me.
PODCASTING.
The University wants to know what you think about lecture podcasts and will be holding a focus group, with lunch, at 12:30 on Monday 14 December in the Council Chamber at the Sackville Street Building. Interested in taking part? Email Stephen Wheeler.
TEACHING CAREERS.
Considering school teaching as a possible career? There are generous bursaries available (up to £30,000) for Computer Science students to train as teachers. There are a number of schemes available, here’s one of them. If you’re interested, talk to David Rydeheard.
* ARE YOU A SECURITY NINJA? The 2015 NCC Group Graduate Challenge has launched. It allows graduates to qualify for the interview stage of their 2015 program intake by working through online challenges and finding as many “flags” as possible
ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES.
This week, join Caroline Jay and Markel Vigo from the Information Management Group to find out about the complexities of human-computer interaction and how to improve the way we design devices and applications. They’ll talk about data-driven approaches to understanding behaviour with complex artefacts including software, ontologies, data-intensive dashboards, artwork and citizen science. Tomorrow Tues 17 Nov at 17:15 in LF15. You’ll need an out-of-hours pass to attend this event after 18:00.
POSTGRADUATE STUDY FAIR.
If you're just starting to think about postgraduate study or if you want to apply for courses for 2016, then this is the fair for you! Over 100 universities will be exhibiting, mainly UK, but also some from overseas. The fair is today Monday 16 Nov at Manchester Central.
UNI TRAVEL AWARDS.
The University offers three travel awards annually for students wishing to travel either as part of their course or outside term time: the Zochonis Special Enterprise Fund (to assist students with the cost of a project or special study), the H.E. David Travelling Scholarship (to foster international understanding and goodwill), and the Pawel Koprowski Memorial Vacation Award (to enhance your studies or for a holiday). Deadline for applying 18 March 2016.
JAVA MEETING.
Interested in Java? The Manchester Java Community holds free monthly meetings. Next Thurs 26 Nov Dr Heinz Kabutz will be talking about "The Secrets of Concurrency".
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is on Weds 18 Nov at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Dr Neils Peek of the University's Health eResearch Centre will talk about “Challenges for learning health systems”. Everyone welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 9 November, and it’s Week 7, an A week. I hope you had a bit of a break last week, but now it’s back to business and we’re on the home stretch towards Xmas – another 6 weeks to go! Have a great week, and on with today’s news!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
STAFF-STUDENT COMMITTEE.
The first of two meetings this Semester to discuss issues is this Weds 11 Nov 14:00-15:30. If you’d like to raise anything, please contact a rep. For day-to-day operational stuff (broken things, IT issues, software installs, etc), please raise a ticket via our support page. Please use the above routes (not Facebook!) to ensure any concerns get properly raised and dealt with.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: To all second years. welcome back from Reading week! Hope it went well. PASS2 is back! This week we will hold an open session, you bring the questions and we will bring the answers! PASS2 will be in the same place at the same time as usual, Collab 1 at 13:00 this Friday 13 Nov. Looking forward to seeing you there.
HARDWARE LIBRARY.
Do you like to tinker with hardware? The School has a library of hardware components for you to borrow. We have Arduino boards and shields, Raspberry Pi components, Kinect sensors, robots, drones, and much more. Full details.
ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES.
This week, join Mona Demaidi (PhD student) to learn about her work on "Ontologies to Guide Formative Assessment and Feedback" and the Personalised Feedback Generator (PFG) system that adapts student feedback in Virtual Learning Environments to each student's characteristics. Tomorrow Tues 10 Nov at 17:15 in LF15. Please be aware that you need an out-of-hours access pass to attend this event after 18:00.
SOFTWARE CARPENTRY.
Interested in helping to run the first UK Software Carpentry Workshop for Women in Science and Engineering on 14/15 Dec, here in Kilburn? The event is hands-on training for female researchers who want to upgrade their software skills. If you know a little bit of shell and/or Python and/or Git and would like to volunteer to help, please contact the organisers. You don't need to be an expert!
* GREAT UNI HACK. Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: GreatUniHack is a 24-hour student hackathon on 5 and 6 December at the CityLabs, Manchester. Take on the challenges to win prizes or just come to build and learn using hardware and gadgets provided by our sponsors and the University. Mentorship from experts in the industry, free goodies, food and much more! Check our website for more details. Tickets are extremely limited – we will be releasing the only batch of tickets this Weds 11 Nov at 18:00, here.
POSTGRAD STUDY.
Thinking about postgraduate study? The PG study fair will be in Manchester Central Convention Centre next Monday 16 Nov. Free registration.
* SCHOOLS EVENT. On Saturday 31 Oct, as part of Manchester Science Festival the University hosted the Science Spectacular – a range of public engagement interactive science activities for all ages. George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE), Teodore Taylor (Y3, CS4) and Lora Lovchalieva (Y3, CSwIE) (L to R in the pic) demonstrated Oculus Rift VR tech and Lego mindstorm robots. The event was a huge success with over 1,500 people passing through the Whitworth Hall. If you’re interested in taking part in inspiring events like this, contact Jez Lloyd.
CREDIT SUISSE TODAY.
A reminder about the two events today: the Technology Innovation Challenge from 12:00-14:30 in Atlas 1, and the Spring Insight Event from 18:30 in Manchester Museum. Full details of both events, registration required.
LONDON TECH.
The latest instalment of Silicon Milk Roundabout, the London technology jobs fair, is happening again on Sat 14 & Sun 15 Nov at the Old Truman Brewery, 85 Brick Lane, East London, E1 6QL from 13:30 – 19:00 both days. Lots of interesting technology companies will be hiring (internships, placement students and graduates) on both of the days (mostly Sunday for technical jobs).
* IBM SERVER. In partnership with the Australian Open and IBM Big Data, Return Serve uses an Oculus Rift headset and a motion-sensitive tennis racquet that allows you to return a live serve from one of the best tennis players on earth. Wear the headset and find yourself on centre court with a 360 degree view of the arena. Come along for a chance to play against the likes of Serena Williams … virtually! Today Monday 9 Nov 11:30-16:30 in University Place.
AVECTO DROP-IN EVENT.
Avecto are a market-leading, global Cyber Security organisation partnered with Microsoft (Gold), McAfee and Cyberark. They’re classified as a Sunday Times Tech Track 100 business (for the 3rd year running), and are looking to expand their team of UoM graduates in their technology and commercial divisions. Come and meet them, this Thurs 12 Nov 12:00–14:00 on LF. More info here.
* DROPBOX PROMOTION UPDATE. Participants from this University in the worldwide Dropbox Campus Cup scheme have now received 3GB free storage for two years. That could soon rise to 8GB if people promote the scheme further. We are not affiliated with Dropbox, other cloud services are available, etc, etc!
CYBER SECURITY DAY.
BAE systems invite you to Capture the Flag – a day of cybersecurity challenges in the Kilburn building this coming Saturday 14 Nov. Take part in challenges including web security, cryptanalysis, forensics, reverse engineering, shell coding, problem solving, packet analysis and hacking trivia. Develop your understanding of defensive programming, buffer overflows, SQL injections, program decompilation, data forensics, protocol analysis, advanced debugging and crypto limitations. Lunch will be provided, and prizes for the winners. All students welcome, pre-reg required.
* BOOLEAN DOODLE. Did you see the cool Google Doodle last week in celebration of George Boole’s 200th birthday?
STARTUP STORIES.
Do you have a business idea and want to make it happen? Get inspiration at the latest Manchester Entrepreneurs event, Startup Stories – two UoM alumni will talk about how they made their success stories. Tomorrow Tues 10 Nov at 18:15 in Roscoe B. Get free tickets.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 2 November, it’s Week 6, and it’s Reading Week. There are no scheduled teaching activities this week in the School – it's a chance for you to recharge your batteries and maybe do some catchup. Usual teaching and timetabled activities resume next Monday 9 Nov (Week 7A). I hope you enjoy your week!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
STUDENT ACTIVITIES FUND.
Today I'm very pleased to announce the launch of the UG Student Activities Fund. We know there are many creative opportunities inside and outside the School which can be of great value to you educationally, for your personal development, and for enhancing your employment prospects. We’ve launched this new fund to financially assist students in organising/participating in such activities. Read full details of the fund and how to apply.
* ZEN AND THE ART OF BEING AT UNI. Edoardo Moreni (Y4, CS4) has been writing a regular blog for the School for almost 3 years, and in his new post he reflects on what being at University is all about. It’s a superb and honest piece of writing that I urge you to check out. If you're Interested in joining our blogging team and earning £25 per post, talk to Jez Lloyd.
KNEEBONE BURSARY.
The Kate Kneebone Acorn Bursary is an annual commemorative award of £500 funded by the Kneebone family and ARM. In addition to the funding, the Bursary offers the opportunity to discuss a funded internship placement (with an Engineering bias) with ARM in Cambridge. All Year 2 UG students in the School are eligible to apply, deadline Friday 4 December 2015. See full details and how to apply.
LOCAL HACK DAY.
Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) writes: Thank you all for coming to the Local Hack Day on 10 Oct. Videos of the following talks are now available on our youtube channel: network and security, pathfinding and real world applications,, gesture recognition using the Doppler effect, linear regression: an introduction to machine Learning, and face detection and recognition with OpenCV & Python. Special thanks to the speakers from our School whom we accidentally omitted to mention in the previous Monday Mail report: Charlie Reynolds (Y3, AI4wIE) and Mihai Alex Fleseriu (Y2, CSwIE).
* GREAT UNI HACK. Also from Sami: GreatUniHack is coming back again this semester, so mark 5 and 6 December on your calendar for 24 hours of hacking in the CityLabs. Take on the challenges to win prizes, or just come to build and learn using hardware and gadgets provided by our sponsors and the University. Tickets are extremely limited for this edition so please visit our website to pre-register and be notified when tickets go live.
CSSOC.
Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) writes: CSSoc hope everyone has a good (and productive) Reading Week! We're not doing any events this week, but we'd like to invite you on behalf of Credit Suisse to their two events next Monday 9 Nov. Firstly there's the innovation challenge at 12:00, where you can come and try to design a high level, innovative solution to a technology problem! Secondly, at 18:30 we have the Spring Insight event where you can learn about doing a summer internship and possibly even secure yourself an internship! Credit Suisse has been kind enough to also provide free food and refreshments for both events – registration required at the links above.
BYE BYE BRIDGE.
The University has published a great timelapse video of the Precinct Centre bridge being demolished in the summer. It's worth a look!
ALUMNI NETWORKING.
Meet with alumni from the School who are now working in a wide range of jobs and sectors, and gain first-hand insight into life after graduation in an informal and friendly session of speed networking. Tomorrow Tues 3 Nov, from 17:00 in Kilburn. Register.
* RED BULL RACING. They’ll be visiting the University this Thurs 5 Nov, talking about Formula 1, aerodynamics and High Performance Computing (HPC) at 13:00 in Renold Building room E7 (North Campus). For an example of Computer science Careers at Red Bull see Kyriacos Georgio’s profile – he graduated in 2014 and now works full-time at Red Bull.
CYBER SECURITY DAY.
BAE systems invite you to Capture the Flag – a day of cybersecurity challenges in the Kilburn building on Sat 14 Nov. Take part in challenges including web security, cryptanalysis, forensics, reverse engineering, shell coding, problem solving, packet analysis and hacking trivia. Develop your understanding of defensive programming, buffer overflows, SQL injections, program decompilation, data forensics, protocol analysis, advanced debugging and crypto limitations. Lunch will be provided, and there will be prizes for the winners. All students welcome, pre-reg required. email ctf@baesystems.com.
CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH.
Our School is a hotbed of research, much of it done by PhD students working together with academic and research staff. Want to know what’s going on? Thinking of doing a PhD? Check out our annual Research Symposium this Tues-Thurs 3-6 Nov in Kilburn and find out what over 50 of our research students are up to. There’s amazing stuff from Multi-core Computing to Learning from Data, from Digital Biology to Logic and Automated Reasoning. Everyone welcome to attend talks or browse poster sessions.
* PODCAST. As part of the celebrations of Ada Lovelace Day last week our summer student intern, Natalie Taylor, interviewed a number of academics and students to find out their thoughts about the challenges facing Women In Computer Science/STEM. Interviewees include Caroline Jay, Uli Sattler, Sophia Ananiadou, Danielle George from EEE, recent CM graduate Sarah King, and Osnat Katz from Robogals Manchester. You can stream the podcast, download through itunes or search “CS@Manchester podcast” in your preferred app. If you have any questions or podcast suggestions please contact Jez Lloyd.
THE ROBOTS ARE COMING.
Manchester will be hosting the European City of Science in 2016. As part of the celebrations, Professor Danielle George from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering is planning to build the world’s largest robot orchestra. She’s seeking help from engineers, programmers, musicians and makers to make it happen. Interested? Attend the start-up event on Weds 18 November at The Shed (MMU).
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 26 October, and it’s Week 5, an A week. I hope everything is going well. A reminder that next week is Reading Week and there won't be any scheduled teaching activities then – it's a chance for you to take a breather. But this week is as busy as ever, so on with today’s news!
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
STAFF STUDENT COMMITTEE.
The SSC page now has photos of all your reps, with contact details. So if you have any issues, please tell a rep for your year, and they’ll raise it with the School. A reminder that for day-to-day stuff (broken things, software install requests, etc), please use our support page to submit a ticket which someone will action. I should also mention that we can’t guarantee to keep track of discussions on Facebook, so to make sure your concerns get raised and properly dealt with, please use the above mechanisms.
FEEDBACK SESSION.
The Feedback Session for returning students to view their marked exam answer books, originally scheduled for Weds 4 Nov, has been re-scheduled to Weds 18 Nov at 14:00 in LF15. Deadline for registration (email SSO specifying papers you’d like to see) has been extended to 12:00 this Weds 28 Oct.
* HACK MANCHESTER. We hope that all the students competing in Hack Manchester over the weekend had a good time. Here’s George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE) and Matt Akerman (graduated 2015) aka Team Everyday Superheroes (see their vid); and Jakub Kijack (Y3, CS4), Obaya Dralega (Y3, CS), Samson Dalmeida (Y3,CS4wIE) and Anmol Khurana (Y3,CS) aka Team Sigma Phi (see their vid).
1-UP.
Paul Gafton (Y2, CS4wIE) and Charlie Reynolds (Y3, AI4wIE) write: 1-UP is organizing a small C presentation followed by a workshop, this Weds 28 Oct at 13:00 in Tootill 0. The main focus will be pointers, dynamic memory allocation and segmentation fault debugging. Everyone is welcome, especially second year students. You can also use this opportunity to ask any questions about the C language and get help with debugging your programs. Please note that we're not able to help with specific coursework exercises.
PASS1.
This from George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE): Greetings first years! Maths getting you down? Architecture leaving you confused? Worry not! This week, in addition to your regularly scheduled PASS sessions, we’ll be running helper workshops for COMP111 and COMP151. Just ask your leaders for directions – same PASS time, same PASS place, 12:00 this Weds 28 Oct.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) say: We're back in Collabs this week and going over any remaining course questions before Reading Week, as well as what it's like actually being out on placement.
* CSSOC. This from co-chairs Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) and Shane Booth (Y3, CS4): CSSoc are going to K2 this Friday 30 Oct to "sing" their hearts out. Come along for a great karaoke time! We'll be selling tickets from this Weds in Byte Cafe so come and guarantee your spot and prepare your vocal chords! We managed to get a massive discount and the Karaoke tickets are £4. Advance tickets aren't needed to attend but you will be asked to pay at the door and you won't be guaranteed entry. Don't sing? Not a problem – you can watch other people ruin your favourite songs. Meeting at The Paramount (near the Central Library) at 19:00 for food, and at 21:00 for K2. See the FB page.
BIG DATA IN MANCHESTER.
This group is having its next meeting this Weds 28 Oct at 18:30 at the Rental Cars HQ in Central Manchester. Michael Natusch from Pivotal will be talking about the “connected car”, a vehicle rigged up to the Internet of Things (IoT) that uses machine learning to predict journey destinations. Free registration.
WICS SOCIETY.
Siir Tecirlioglu (Y3, CSwIE) writes: There’s a new society for Women in Computer Science and all the girls studying Computer Science (or related courses) are encouraged to sign up. There will be various socials and programming events. The next event is an Afternoon Tea this Thurs 29 Oct.
CODING DOJO ACM COMP.
On Saturday, 19 teams represented the University in the UK & Ireland ACM competition, in the biggest edition of the event so far. Congratulations to all the teams that took part in the 5 hour event,and especially to winning team Tree New Bee – Andi Zhang (Y2, CM), Zhenzhong Xiao (Y2, CSwIE) and Mingtian Zhang (Y2, CS), who achieved a more than respectable 22nd place out of more than 150 teams, solving 4 out of 13 problems.
* TALK TALK HACK. Our very own Daniel Dresner, Lecturer and researcher in Information and Cyber Security and Governance, was on the BBC talking about the implications of last week’s widely-publicised cyber-attack on TalkTalk.
MCR TECH NIGHTS.
Manchester Tech Nights is a meetup of the local technology community. Their next (11th) meeting is tomorrow Tues 27 Oct at 19:00 at Spaceport X. Rosie Campbell from BBC R&D will be talking about The Unexpected Consequences of Teaching Computers to See Like Humans, and Daniel Tallentire from Parker Software will be talking about the K.I.S.S. methodology. Free registration.
MANCUNIAN SCIENTISTS.
The John Rylands Library are asking people to vote for their favourite Manchester Scientist as part of this year's Manchester Science Festival. We wouldn’t dream of trying to influence the result but you might like to consider casting your vote for Alan Turing (far right, below). Other scientists are of course available: Dalton, Whitworth, Joule, and Lovell (left to right).
TRADINGSCREEN.
TradingScreen are looking for enthusiastic graduates to join development, support and network infrastructure teams. Visit them for free pizza, plus a chance to win £25. Kilburn LF this Thurs 29 Oct, 12:00-14:00.
* COMPUTER SCIENCE CAREERS FAIR. We hope you enjoyed our careers fair last week on Thursday & Friday. We’d appreciate your feedback on what you liked (and didn’t like) about the fair by answering three short survey questions. This will help us to plan future fairs to best fit your needs.
TECH CHALLENGE 2015.
Barclays Personal and Corporate Banking, BBC Future Media and the Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) are inviting students from a number of North West universities to take part in the Technology Challenge 2015. This is a privileged opportunity for students to benefit from mentoring from experienced professionals, whilst taking part in an exciting technology-centric business simulation task. If you'd like to enter, there's space for three teams of up to eight students from the University of Manchester – please contact Duncan Hull before this Weds 28 Oct with details of your team members and why you think your team should be selected to represent the University. If you're struggling to find eight members for your team, Duncan can help. For further details see this video of a previous event.
GOLDMAN SACHS.
GS is hosting a Technology presentation and Networking Reception at 14:00 this Weds 28 Oct in the Atlas Rooms in Kilburn – a chance to learn more about the company, get more detail on their typical Technology projects and opportunities for internship, placement and graduate positions. Also, the GS European Women In Technology network (EWIT) is hosting a networking dinner at Kro Bar on the same day from 18:00 – an opportunity for women interested in a career in Technology to learn more about GS. Pre-registration required.
OXFORD ROAD.
As you may know, there are big changes planned for Oxford Road, to make it more cyclist-friendly, with daytime traffic limited to buses and taxis. Check out this video for a visualisation of how things will soon be.
CREDIT SUISSE.
Forthcoming events: Company Presentation: Explore your exciting future – an interactive panel of Technology experts, followed by an opportunity to meet with both Senior and Junior representatives over a networking lunch, Weds 4 Nov, 13:00-15:00; Technology in Focus: Innovation Challenge – Join Credit Suisse for lunch and networking with a difference at the Technology Innovation Challenge, Mon 9 Nov 12:00-14:30; Spring Insight Event: Consider a career in banking at Credit Suisse – 2018/19 Graduates have an opportunity to have some Pre-Christmas fun and come and enjoy some food and drinks with Credit Suisse Representatives, on Mon 9 Nov 18:30-20:30. This is a unique opportunity for you to learn about the Spring Insight Program which CS will be running in April 2016.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 19 October, and it’s Week 4, a B week. I hope everything is going according to plan, and that life in Manchester is treating you well. On with today’s news, and there’s quite a lot of it (as usual!).
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
STAFF STUDENT COMMITTEE.
Voting for student reps is now complete, and thank you to everyone who took part. This year’s reps have now been elected. We have 10 for Y1, 8 for Y2, 6 for Y3, and 1 for Y4 – you can see them all, with contact details, on the SSC page. There’ll be a start-up session for the new reps this Weds 21 Oct, and the first meeting between reps and the School to discuss issues will be on Weds 11 Nov. If you’d like to raise any issues, please contact a rep for your year.
24-HOUR LINUX.
In response to student requests, some dual-boot Win/Linux machines have been installed in the 24/7 access George Kenyon cluster (in the building behind University Place). We’d welcome your feedback.
DISK QUOTA.
And also in response to your requests, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve been able to increase the Linux disk quota to 5GB for every student. Given the low price of storage these days you may be wondering why we are currently limiting at 5GB. The reason is that all the filestore is backed up automatically, and we need to consider the impact on the backup system.
PASS1.
This from George Vanburgh (Y3, CSwIE): First year students – feeling the pressure? Not to worry! PASS1 continues this Weds 21 Oct at 12:00. Feel free to bring any and all problems, academic or otherwise along to your sessions, and we'll do our best to sort them out. Haven't made it to PASS yet? Come along to Collab1, and we'll sort you out.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) say: this Friday 23 Oct we'll be in LF15 (not Collab). Along with the usual course questions we’ll be covering the start of your placement such as moving city, or even country, and the first few days and weeks of your placement.
* BLOG. Veneta Haralampieva (Y3, CSwIE), is one on the School’s bloggers and she’s just written a great new post about starting her final year here in the School. Check it out. We’re looking for more bloggers, so if you're Interested in joining the team and earning £25 per post, email Jez Lloyd.
AMAZON PRIZEWINNERS.
Congratulations to the following students who each won a £50 Amazon voucher from our Applicant Experience Survey draw. Thank you to everyone who participated – your feedback is very helpful for us. Thunder Aldakhil (Y1, CSE4), Gleb Bersenev (Y1, CS4), Iulian Cristea (Y1, CSBMwIE), Dan Dumitriu (Y1, CS), Terry Feng (Y1, CS4), Filippo Ferrari (Y1, AI4wIE), Edvard Holden (Y1, CS), Samuel Jenkins (Y1, CS), Nathan Oldfield (Y1, CS) and Maria Shipley (Y1, CMwIE).
1-UP ADD UP.
Anuj Vaishnav (Y2, CSE) writes: last week 1-UP organised a hardware workshop using physical gates to build a full Adder and SR flip flop. The cool end result was a hand-crafted 8-bit adder built by the group! We also taught how to reform the logic in different combinations of gates from truth tables.
CODING DOJO ACM COMP.
Tudor Morar (PhD, Y3) writes: the ACM competition will take place this coming Saturday 24 Oct, at 09:30-15:00 in the Collab rooms. You'll be competing in teams of 3, trying to solve as many problems from the given set during a 5 hour time limit. Sign up (deadline Weds 21 Oct at 16:00). The leading team will get to represent UoM at the Northwestern European competition in Sweden – all expenses paid! RULES: We will try to provide computers for everyone, but since space is limited we recommend bringing your own laptop (or desktop PC or mainframe, if you prefer). You’re allowed to bring your own printed material (e.g. books, print-outs), but not to use code from other sources or electronic material of any kind. For any enquiries please use our facebook group or email Tudor. If you need to brush up on your skills, the Coding Dojo is organising a workshop this Weds 21 Oct at 14:00, in Collab.
* COMPUTER SCIENCE CAREERS FAIR. This year’s fair is taking place over two days due to the high demand – this Thursday 22 & Friday 23 Oct, 11:30 – 15:00 in Kilburn. We have 27 different exhibitors! If you’re looking for a placement or grad job come along and see what’s on offer. This is preceded by the Engineering & Science Careers Fair this Weds 21 Oct, and the Business & Management Fair this Tues 20 Oct, both in Manchester Central (next to the Midland Hotel) with around 80 exhibitors on each day.
EXAM FEEDBACK.
Last call! Our feedback session at 14:00 on Weds 4 Nov in LF15 gives returning students the opportunity to view their marked exam answer books for AY14. Advance registration required: email SSO with your ID, name and list of courses you’d like to view. Deadline for registration 12:00 this Weds 21 October.
CSSOC.
This from co-chairs Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) and Shane Booth (Y3, CS4): CSSoc is taking a breather this week, to organise our Halloween Karaoke event. This will be at K2 Karaoke on Fri 30 Oct. We'll be in the Byte Café from 10:00-13:30 this Weds 21 Oct. If you want to come, we need your £4 entry before the event!
WRITING HELP.
The Academic Writing Tutorial Service is free to international students who want to improve their written English. These one-to-one one-hour sessions offer expert help in improving your academic work. Full details and how to apply here.
* ADVANCED SEMINAR SERIES. This week: "Go Parallel or Go Home!". Parallel programming skills are scarce and in very high demand. At the end of Dennard scaling, hardware transitioned from frequency to parallel scaling, but software is lagging behind. Join Antoniu Pop (pictured here) from the Advanced Processor Technologies group to find out how we got here, why such skills are essential and what are the high-impact research opportunities with which you could get involved. This Thurs 22 Oct at 17:15 in Collab 1. Please be aware that you need an out-of-hours access pass to attend this event after 18:00.
LADIES WHO CODE.
Former MEng Computer Science student Raluca Puichiliță, (now at ThoughtWorks) is organising Ladies Who Code Manchester for an extra special Ada Lovelace celebration tomorrow Tues 20 October, at Autotrader HQ in Manchester from 18:00. They’re bringing together women from across Manchester and the North West to share stories and celebrate successes with a series of lightning talks followed by networking. Free registration.
ADA,
ADA, ADA. ...and check out the spellbinding interactive storytelling show about Ada Lovelace (complete an with LED dress and a kilometre of string). Friday 30 October at The Lowry, Salford Keys, tickets £10 with NUS card.
* OUR NEW CHANCELLOR. This week the University appointed its new Chancellor, Manchester poet Lemn Sissay. He’s written a new poem about his role at the University, Inspire and be inspired. Lemn was recently on Desert Island Discs too.
MANCHESTER SCIENCE FESTIVAL.
Over 130 events are happening around Greater Manchester, as part of the ninth annual Manchester Science Festival (this Weds 22 Oct to 1 Nov).
SECURITY COMP.
Do you have an idea that could improve security for business and consumers? You could win £10,000 in the Cyber 10K competition run by NCC Group, deadline 30 Nov. They'ill also be opening their annual Ninja challenge again within the next month, so keep an eye on http://areyouan.ncc.ninja. You can speak to NCC Group at our careers fair this week.
* DAFT ITEM OF THE WEEK. The Telegraph newspaper had an interesting item last week on public appearances of the Windows Blue Screen of Death. Here’s one, when advertising columns in a Thailand shopping mall were struck by the dreaded BSOD.
SVC2UK.
“Silicon Valley comes to the UK” is an industry-supported event for students led by business leaders, investors and serial entrepreneurs. With talks and workshops on offer from an incredible line-up of speakers, it ‘s designed to inspire the next generation of budding entrepreneurs and enable networking with industry leading figures from Silicon Valley. Weds 4 Nov. Sign up.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is on Weds 21 Oct at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Professor Sarah Bridle from the School of Physics and Astronomy will be talking about “Seeing the invisible by measuring galaxy shapes from noisy, blurry images”. Everyone welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 12 October, and it’s Week 3, an A week. I hope you're doing well and enjoying life both inside and outside the School! A lot to tell you today, so on with the news…
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4
IT FAQ • IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB
Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
STAFF STUDENT COMMITTEE.
If you haven’t already, please vote for your reps! Voting closes at 12:00 this Friday 16 Oct. Log in to Blackboard (via my.manchester); under "My Communities" click "CS UG Community"; click on the link for your year (eg “SSC Voting 1st Year"); on the next page click on the survey link. Results will be announced next week.
* LOCAL HACK DAY. This from Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE): last Saturday we ran the Manchester Local Hack Day, with 164 students attending. We had very interesting talks by our speakers from Coding Dojo, 1UP, and EEEPass. Special thanks to our workshop speakers Mihai Bujanca (Y2, CSwIE), Aivaras Tumas (Y2, CSE4wIE), Edoardo Moreni (Y4, CS4), Jack Kelly (Y3, CS), Tolijan Trajanovski (Y2, CS4), Stefan Idriceanu (Y2, CS4), and Alex Gleseriu (Y2, CSwIE). Our special guest was the co-founder of WordPress Mike Little, who shared with us an inspiring talk about open source and the beginnings of WordPress. This was the second biggest local hack day out of the 88 universities worldwide who participated (see map) – we were only 2 people short of being the biggest! All talks were recorded and will be uploaded to our website soon. I would like to thank the whole team who helped make this run so smoothly. See you soon at GreatUniHack!
EXAM FEEDBACK.
Our feedback session at 14:00 on Weds 4 Nov in LF15 gives returning students the opportunity to view their marked exam answer books for AY14. Advance registration required: email SSO with your ID, name and list of courses you’d like to view. Deadline for registration 12:00 next Weds 21 October.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) say: This Friday 16 Oct at 13:00 in Collab 1 we’ll be focusing on assessment centres and interviews with some assessment centre style group activities. As usual we will also cover any questions you might have about anything course related.
CODING DOJO.
Ion Diaconu (Y3, CS4) writes: Interested in algorithms and problem-solving? Want to do better at technical interviews with Google, Facebook and Twitter? Coding Dojo will be organising a series of workshops designed to bring you up to speed with various classic algorithms and data structures. The first one will be about sorting, tomorrow Tues 13 Oct at 17:00 in the Collabs. See you there!
CSSOC BUFFET.
This from co-chairs Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) and Shane Booth (Y3, CS4): Come Dine With Us! CSSoc is marching this Thurs 15 Oct at 19:00 to Red Hot Buffet, come join us at our glorious table and dine like there is no tomorrow. Follow the calling to this epic journey.
OPEN DAYS.
The past two Saturdays the School hosted two undergraduate Open Days, and welcomed over 400 visitors in total. Both days were a great success, and we would like to thank the 25 student and alumni ambassadors who came and helped out on the days – we couldn't have done it without you! If you’d like to be involved in our applicant Visit Days starting in November, please contact Alyson Owens.
BE A BLOGGER.
We’re looking for students to write an occasional blog about their life in the School, and we’ll pay £25 per post. Check out this new blog from Todd Davies (Y3, CS). Interested in becoming a blogger for the School? Email Jez Lloyd.
* RESEARCH SEMINARS. A new series of seminars starts this week to showcase the latest developments in research here in the School. The seminars are for all students (and staff) eager to discover, discuss and get involved with advanced material. Each speaker will present their research and discuss the exciting opportunities for getting involved. Dirk Koch from the Advanced Processor Technologies group will be our first speaker this Thurs 15 Oct at 17:15 in IT407. His talk "Hardware versus Software Programming" will introduce FPGAs (programmable hardware chips) to software programmers and discuss when to use what and how. Dirk says: "Microcontrollers, CPUs, GPUs – the programming world doesn't stop there!"
PREPARE FOR THE FAIRS.
There are lots of careers fairs coming up next week (Week 4B), if you’d like book a session to prepare with the careers service, they’ll be here in Kilburn next Mon 19 Oct.
COMPUTING AT SCHOOL.
The School of Computer Science has been appointed a Computing at School Regional Centre. This is major recognition of the work we‘ve been involved with over a number of years in supporting schoolteachers and schoolchildren in the adoption of computing in schools. See Jez Lloyd’s video showing some of the amazing things people here have done.
TEACHERS EVENT.
And speaking of our schools activities, all students are invited to the first Computing Regional Conference for school teachers, this coming Sat 17 Oct 09:00-15:00, here in Kilburn. It’s free! The keynote speaker is Professor Danielle George from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Danielle gave last’s year’s televised Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. In addition there are workshops with teachers showing how they teach topics in computing. Come along and offer ideas and support. You are the experts and teachers will be keen to hear from you! If you’d like to come, please let David Rydeheard know.
* EDIT-A-THON. The Women in Science Workshop and Wiki Edit-a-thon October 2015 is happening in Kilburn this Weds 14 Oct – men are also welcome, of course!
ENGINEERING AWARDS.
The Engineering Professors’ Council is offering its 20th Anniversary Award for students, who can enter as individuals or teams. Prizes of £500 and £1000.
STUDENT MINDS.
Student Minds is the UK’s student mental health charity. Their Eating Disorders support group is now up and running for all students. It’s an open forum for students struggling with eating issues of any kind. Every Weds 18:00-19:30 in the The Wellbeing Rooms, Simon Building. Volunteer helpers also welcome.
ENTERPRISE EVENTS.
The Manchester Enterprise Centre is running lots of interesting events for enterprising Computer Science students. Check out their schedule.
WOMEN IN TECH DINNER.
Goldman Sachs are hosting a European Women In Technology Dinner event on Weds 28 Oct in Manchester. It's aimed at encouraging more women to join the technology division of an investment bank, as well a great networking channel. If you’re a female student and expect to graduate in 2017/8, sign up, deadline 26 Oct.
MORGAN STANLEY.
MS are hosting a technology presentation and networking session in the Manchester Museum tomorrow Tues 13 Oct, and a Tech Expo in London on 21/22 Oct. Sign up for both. They’d also like to invite students to their code-a-thon in London on Saturday 31 Oct.
BLACKROCK DROP-IN.
Learn about technology at BlackRock. They offer opportunities for internships, placements and graduate analyst positions. Come to the drop-in, tomorrow Tues 13 Oct, 12:00-14:00, Kilburn LF.
VOLUNTEERING.
Volunteering is a great way to step outside of academic life and make a difference in the community. Find out more at the Volunteering Fair, tomorrow Tues 13 Oct 11:00-15:00 in Manchester Academy 1.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 5 October, and it’s Week 2B of Semester 1. I hope you’re enjoying the new Semester, and first year students, I hope you’re settling in well. Need any help? Call into SSO. Lots to tell you today, so let’s get on with today’s news…
Toby Howard
Director of Undergraduate Studies
UG • SSO • Timetable • Handbook • Course Units • Year 1 • Year 2 • Year 3 • Year 4 • IT FAQ •
IT & Environs Support • Kilburn access • Have your say • MM • @csmcr • FB • SU • Mitigating Circumstances • Counselling Service
STAFF STUDENT COMMITTEE.
Represent your fellow students and make a difference. This is your chance to influence how the UG School is run. If you’d like to be a rep then email Paul Nutter by 17:00 TODAY Monday 5 Oct including a brief statement (max 50 words) about why you want to be a rep. Once all the nominations are in, there’ll be an online vote for students to elect this year’s reps – we’ll email out details.
COURSE UNIT CHOICES.
If you haven’t yet, please finalise and enter your Semester 1 Course Unit choices in MyManchester – deadline of 17:00 this coming Fri 9 Oct. In particular if you're going to drop any choices and change, please do so ASAP, because we’re running waiting lists on several units. Any issues, please contact SSO.
* IOS DEVELOPERS LAB. Did you know we have a dedicated iOS Developers Lab? It’s Kilburn Room LF17 and has 10 Mac-minis with 27” Thunderbolt displays, two wall-mounted HDMI TVs, and a projector. The lab is specifically intended for iOS/OS X development.
PASS2.
David Green (Y3, CMwIE) and Liam Breeze (Y3, CS4) write: PASS2 is back! This Friday 9 Oct at 13:00 in Collab 1 we'll be covering how to apply for industry placements, and explaining how we survived second year. Looking forward to seeing you all there!
WIN £50!
First year students, we have £50 Amazon vouchers for you to win – just take a few seconds to fill in our Applicant Experience Survey. We want your views. Deadline for entering is 17:00 this Friday 9 Oct.
LIFE AT GOOGLE.
If you missed the excellent talk by Todd Davies (Y3, CS) last week about his internship with Google, and how best to prepare for Google interviews, Todd’s made his slides available online, and is happy to answer any questions.
* ARM. It’s estimated that 60% the world’s population has a mobile device with an ARM chip inside. Our very own Professor Steve Furber, who teaches on COMP28512 Mobile Systems, is featured in the latest edition of BBC Radio 4’s Computing Britain, talking about his role as co-inventor of the ARM chip. Brilliant stuff.
GOOGLE TALKS TECH.
Manchester Entrepreneurs invites you to their Google Talks Tech Entrepreneurship event, organised in partnership with Dotforge. Next Weds 14 Oct at 18:00 in University Place (next to Kilburn). Register now.
CALLING ALL FOOTBALLERS.
Erkan Redzheb (Y2, CS) is organising trials for the CS Football team, this coming Sat 10 Oct at 18:30 in the Ardwick sport halls (please bring £4).
STUDENT AMBASSADORS.
Want to share your passion for Computer Science with secondary school/college kids who want to be Computer Scientists? Learn new skills, develop your CV, meet new people, and earn money too! Become a Computer Science Student Ambassador! Deadline for applications: 09:00 Friday 16 Oct.
* HACK DAY. This from Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE): Hi all, we hope you have settled in by now and are excited for the start of the new year. We're kicking off this year’s 'hacking' this coming Saturday 10 October with 12 hours of interesting workshops, including Introduction to Arduino Programming, SLAM and Image Processing, Network Security, Algorithms and Data Structures, an Introduction to Machine Learning, and much more! See the full schedule and register.
INDUSTRIAL MENTORING.
The Manchester Gold scheme provides information, advice and guidance about your future from a mentor. They could be doing the job you're aiming for, working in an area that interests you or have graduated from the same course as you. Sign up before this Friday 9 Oct.
* ADA EVENTS. 2015 marks the 200th birthday of Ada Lovelace, often called the world's first computer programmer, after she designed an algorithm to run on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, although that machine was never built. There are events around the UK, including some in Manchester, and one here in the School – the Women in Science Workshop and Wiki Edit-a-thon, on Weds 14 Oct. See full details of all events.
NIGHTLINE VOLUNTEERING.
Greater Manchester Nightline is a confidential listening and information telephone service run by student volunteers (the number is on the back of your student card). It’s a great opportunity to gain strong communication skills and make new friends, can count towards the Manchester Leadership Programme, and looks great on your CV. Get in touch if you’re interested.
EMBEDDED COMP.
Interested in embedded systems? The Embedded Systems Design 2015 competition is now open, with great prizes. Individual and group projects are eligible, deadline for applying 8 Nov.
CODE MESH.
The London Conference on Alternative Programming Languages, Code Mesh 2015, is looking for student volunteers to help run the event, in exchange for free tickets, refreshments and social events. It’s 3 & 4 Nov, which is during our Reading Week mid-semester break.
POSTGRADUATE STUDY.
The University is holding two Open Days for its taught masters and postgraduate research opportunities: the Postgraduate Research Open Day is Weds 21 Oct, and the Taught Masters Open Day: is Weds 25 Nov.
* DROPBOX PROMOTION. We’re not affiliated with Dropbox, but their Campus Cup scheme may be useful to some of you. “Participants can earn up to 25 GB per person for two years by rallying others at their school to join in. The more your school participates, the more space everyone earns”.
SCHOOL SEMINAR.
This week’s seminar is on Weds 7 Oct at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4, when Jenny Radcliffe will be talking about “Humans, heuristics and voluntary hibernation - How Social Engineering can still break security in the cyber age, and why you should care”. Promises to be fascinating. Everyone welcome.
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday.
Good morning UG! It’s Monday 28 September, and it’s Week 1A of Semester 1. Teaching starts today for all years. Throughout the semester we alternate Week A's and Week B's, with 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. OK, on with today’s news…
Toby Howard → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Essential links :: UG home | SSO | Timetable | Handbook | Course Units | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | IT FAQ | IT and Environment Support | Have your say | MM | @csmcr | FB | SU | Mitigating Circumstances | Counselling Service
FIRST YEARS.
First year students, I hope you enjoyed Welcome Week, and I hope you're settling in. We tried not to overwhelm you with information last week, and if you have any questions, just drop into our Student Support Office (SSO, next to lab LF31), contact your Personal Tutor, or see Y1 Tutor Sean Bechhofer ( → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~seanb ) – they’ll all be very happy to help.
COURSE UNIT CHOICES.
If you haven’t yet, please finalise and enter your Semester 1 Course Unit choices. Deadline 17:00 Friday 9 Oct → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/options.php
* LIFE AT GOOGLE. Todd Davies (Y3, CS) spent the summer working as a software engineer at Google in Munich, and he'll be talking about Life at Google, their application process and coding interviews. All students welcome, LT1.1 at 12:00 this Weds 30 Sept (this is running in place of the normal PASS session which starts next week, Week 2B) → @Todd__Davies
STAFF STUDENT COMMITTEE.
Represent your fellow students and make a difference. This is your chance to influence how the UG School is run. Nominations for student reps on the UG Staff Student Committee (SSC) are open. If you’d like to be a rep then email Paul Nutter ( → p.nutter@manchester.ac.uk ) by 12:00 next Monday 5 Oct including a brief statement (max 50 words) about why you want to be a rep. Once all the nominations are in, there’ll be an online vote for students to elect this year’s reps – details next week.
PRIZE WINNERS.
Every year the School awards prizes to UG students who have excelled academically or made significant contributions to the School. Below are the winners whose prizes were awarded last week by Professor Jim Miles, our Head of School. Clockwise from top left: Richard Hunt (Professors’ Prize for best second year student); Bayram Ahmadov, Seema Anwar, Batuhan Fidan (not pictured, out on his IE year) and Ben Ormos (IBM ThinkPad Challenge for the best second year group project); Andi Zhang (the Michael Jealous Memorial Prize for best first year student); Anuj Vaishnav, Paul-Adrian Gafton, Zhenzhong Xiao, Krzysztof Koch and Yazan Mehyar (Golden Anniversary Prizes for excellence in first year studies); Vlad Chitaru and Antonio Sanchez-Gomez (IBM ThinkPad Challenge, AY13) → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/assessment/prizes
QUICK SURVEY.
First year students, please take a few seconds to fill in our Applicant Experience and Website Survey. Win a £50 Amazon voucher! → http://tinyurl.com/nej4cxg
* PASS STARTS NEXT WEEK. First year students: please note that your PASS meetings start next week (Week 2B, Monday 5 Oct), not this week. What’s PASS? It’s “Peer-Assisted Study Sessions” – in other words, experienced students mentor newer students. It works fantastically well, so check it out.
CSSOC.
This from Computer Science Soc Co-chairs Sami Alabed (Y2, CSwIE) and Shane Booth (Y3, CS4) (pictured here): This Weds 30 Sept, CSSoc is holding its annual recruitment event, where you can join the committee and help run CSSoc. Come to Kilburn LF15 at 13:00 – there’s free pizza! And on the Weds evening, CSSoc is running a Burgers 'n' Bowling event at Great Northern Warehouse. Meet outside Kilburn at 17:30 and head for burgers at Almost Famous, or to skip the burgers and just come for the bowling, meet at All Star Lanes at 19:30. It looks to be a great night and it's a great way to meet people! → http://facebook.com/groups/CSSoc.man
HARDWARE LIBRARY.
Do you like to tinker with hardware? The School has a library of hardware components for you to borrow. We have Arduino boards and shields, Raspberry Pi components, Kinect sensors, robots, even drones, and much more → http://tinyurl.com/nj87ak3
BE AN AMBASSADOR.
David Rydeheard writes: why not become an Ambassador for Computer Science. It’s fun using your skills to promote the subject, good for your CV, and immensely worthwhile. You help the general public, and schoolchildren in particular, to appreciate and learn Computer Science. Lots of exciting things to do. To express interest (no commitment) → studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/volunteering.To learn more, come to the volunteering meeting at 14:30 this Weds 30 Sept in Kilburn IT407. Or contact me directly → david.rydeheard@manchester.ac.uk
MEET AUTOTRADER.
They’re are having an open evening in Manchester this Weds 30 Sept to showcase the technology they use at their new HQ. Free registration → https://goo.gl/us8yYo
* HACKATHON. Following on from last year's successful event @GreatUniHack, Sami Alabad (Y2, CSwIE) is organising another hackathon in Manchester on Saturday 10 October, in association with Major League Hacking. Sign up → http://goo.gl/UGXMTn
HACK MANCHESTER.
The 24 hour coding competition is back on 24 October. Tickets selling fast. Join a team or create your own → http://www.hackmanchester.com
SCHOOL RESEARCH SEMINAR.
Most weeks the School runs a research seminar, and all students are welcome. Come and get your mind stretched! This Weds 30 Sept at 14:00 in Kilburn LT1.4 Dr Laurie Tratt from Kings College London will talk about fine-grained language composition: “Programming languages are islands, each disconnected from the rest. Communicating between programs written in different languages is such a slow, arduous, task that we avoid doing it whenever possible. In this talk I will show how language composition can lower, and even remove, the barriers between languages”. Everyone welcome.
STUDY CHINA.
Live and learn in China for three weeks with the University’s exciting government-funded programme during Easter 2016. Find out more and apply → https://www.studychina.org.uk
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday → toby.howard@manchester.ac.uk
Good morning! It’s Monday 21 September, and a very warm welcome to you all, especially to students joining us for the first time. I'm Toby Howard, Director of Undergraduate Studies. and you are reading the Monday Mail – which I send to all undergraduates, every Monday during term-time – to keep you up-to-date with what's happening in the School. And there's always a lot happening! So have a great week, and on with today's news.
Toby Howard → http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby
Director of Undergraduate Studies
* WE'RE HERE TO HELP. Got any questions? Need any help? Call into the Student Support Office (aka SSO) open Mon-Fri 09:00-17:00 in Kilburn Room LF21, compsci-sso@listserv.manchester.ac.uk, 0161 306 8155. And there’s a Helpdesk in the main Lower First area of Kilburn on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. You’ll also see lots of students and staff around campus wearing ASK ME badges so… ask them things!
TIMETABLES.
This is Welcome Week, and the timetable for this week is special, with activities for students in all years. Year1 students have introductory activities; Year2 students have careers activities; Year3 students have Project activities; so please check your timetables and make sure you know what’s going on → http://goo.gl/sMVIIa
LOOKING FOR INFO ABOUT THE SCHOOL?
Bookmark the UG homepage → http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/ ...and check out the UG handbook, your one-stop source of information about the Undergraduate School. It tells you about student support, term dates and opening hours, course structures and assessment, how you progress between years, rules and regulations, and much more. Now wikified! → https://goo.gl/zgcCT6
STUDENT FEEDBACK.
This year the School scored a 91% satisfaction rating in the National Student Survey, voted by final year UG students. We take your student experience very seriously, and always want your feedback. We’ll soon be launching this year’s Staff-Student Committee. Details next week.
* ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. Congratulations to Ivan Kalchev (CS), who graduated this summer, on receiving one of the University’s prestigious Outstanding Academic Achievement Awards. Well done Ivan!
A MANCHESTER INVENTION.
You probably know that the world’s first stored program digital computer was designed and built here. It’s featured in Part 1 of the Radio 4 series “Computing Britain” → http://goo.gl/ne0it1
WIKI WORK.
Duncan Hull was recently interviewed by Nature magazine about the Wikipedian in Residence scheme at the Royal Society, which aims to improve the scientific content of Wikipedia → http://goo.gl/ucrFkV
* IN THE NEWS. Professor Steve Furber, who teaches on COMP28512, talked about the first mechanical mind which is expected to be seen in “decades, rather than centuries” in an article in Yahoo News → https://goo.gl/3nRtAW ...and hear Steve talk about his ground-breaking research in Episode 4 of the School’s podcast series → https://goo.gl/t5VDaP
HACKATHON.
Following on from last year's successful event @GreatUniHack, Sami Alabad (Y2, CSwIE) is organising another hackathon in Manchester on 10 October. Sign up → http://goo.gl/UGXMTn
* HACK MANCHESTER. The 24 hour coding competition is back on 24 October. Tickets selling fast. Join a team or create your own → http://www.hackmanchester.com
WUTHERING BYTES.
Check out this week-long festival of technology (26 Sept to 2 Oct) just 40 mins from Manchester by train in the heart of the Pennines. Lots of interesting technology and talks, including Professor Danielle George from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering → http://wutheringbytes.com/
ESSENTIAL LINKS.
UG → http://goo.gl/IbRnz5 | Handbook → https://goo.gl/zgcCT6 | Mit Circs → http://goo.gl/OPLjtC
SOMETHING TO SHARE?
Deadline for sending in Monday Mail items: 17:00 Friday → toby.howard@manchester.ac.uk