• Question: what do you mean fun things with computers

    Asked by eggmcmuffin to Duncan, Kiran, Paul, Sarah, Sharon on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Hi eggmcmuffin, I think this question was meant for Sarah. The only fun things I do with computers is talk to you guys on here!!!

    • Photo: Paul Stevenson

      Paul Stevenson answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      It’s Sarah who said that! But I do actually do fun things with computers too. I guess I just use them as a tool, but I like writing code on them to simulate the nuclear physics things that I’m interested in. Some of the calculations get pretty complicated, so I need to use a cluster of computers working together to solve them

    • Photo: Kiran Meekings

      Kiran Meekings answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Was this for one of the other scientists? I think one of them designs cool programs to use on computers but it’s not me!

    • Photo: Duncan Murdock

      Duncan Murdock answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      Well, I x-ray my fossils in a massive machine called a synchrotron. This gives me a big stack of images just as if you’d cut up the fossil into thin slices and piled them back on top of each other except it’s all done in a computer. I can then put these slices back together and build a 3d model of the fossil, which you can rotate, animate, cut-up in any way you like, and pull apart. It takes a while to do, but the results are great.

    • Photo: Sarah Mount

      Sarah Mount answered on 18 Mar 2010:

      Is this about how I would use the money?

      It might be easier to give you an example. If you’ve seen the film Minority Report, there’s a bit where Tom Cruise uses a computer to search for some criminals. The computer is like a vertical clear plastic screen and the character can “pick up” bits of video and move them around. This is a bit like the way the iPhone works, it’s a “multitouch” screen where you can touch more than one place on the screen at once (unlike a normal desktop where your mouse can only click on one thing at a time). This means you can do things like rotate 3d objects or play two player games on the same screen just by touching it.

      A colleague of mine is making a vertical multitouch screen like this and one of the things I do with students who come to our open days is to show them a much simpler way of making a multitouch mouse, using a cardboard box, some greaseproof paper and a webcam — a bit like Blue Peter!

      So, that’s one idea, but there are lots of other things that might be fun, like building some electronics, or creating a game, or something else. I’d be more interested to hear what you think would be a good idea though …

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