Rainstorm is a virtual version of Splash events, which were held at colleges around the country. At Rainstorm, students at some amazing universities (including Harvard, Columbia, UChicago, MIT, etc.) and even graduates teach classes lasting an hour to two hours over the course of a weekend. These classes can be about anything from quantum physics to Indian cooking to playwriting. So, no matter what your interests are, you can find something.
And Rainstorm is free. You can make an optional donation, but it’s not required. The students teaching the classes are volunteers.
I went to the Rainstorm that happened yesterday and today (May 16th). In my first class, I learned about different plans for Mars settlements, including how we can bring minimal equipment and build a large portion of the buildings from material contained on Mars. This class was taught by one of the leaders of the Mars Foundation, an organization that attempts to create feasible plans for the colonization of Mars.
Next, I explored the “Truth Behind e.” You know the one – that strange little constant that seems to turn up in everything from continuous interest to derivative rules. As it turns out, e is what you get when you multiply infinite numbers infinitely close to 1. That’s why it’s used in interest: at every point in time, you’re increasing your deposit by an infinitely small amount.
In “The Art of Guessing,” I got an in-depth explanation about Fermi estimates, which are named after a guy who got pretty close to guessing the power of an atomic bomb by watching a piece of paper move. Divided into groups, we made predictions about everything from the number of doctors in the US to the weight of a battleship, without actually Googling the answers (and no, we didn’t use Bing either).
I experienced mob programming and test-driven development. The class coded a solution to the “FizzBuzz” problem I described in my last post, moving through the problem step by step. Although it took us two hours to get a solution, it wasn’t the code that was the goal. Instead, the most fascinating part of that class was that we also designed tests for our program, progressively adding more and more cases to force ourselves into creating conditions in our code. It was fascinating to learn not only how to solve a problem, but to accurately create test cases that will make sure I have in fact solved that problem.
With today came even more classes. I studied electrical engineering in a course that I didn’t quite have the prerequisites for (I’d…heard of Ohm’s law before…). It was still really interesting. Even if I didn’t understand everything, I still got a lot out of it.
I went on, as the course blurb accurately described, a whirlwind tour on the use of i in quantum physics. By whirlwind, I mean the class went at 299,792,458 meters per second. Still, I came out of it with an appreciation for complex numbers and a vague understanding of what quantum field theory is.
My final class reignited my love of game theory in two hours. We analyzed an interesting game called Hackenbush, in which a drawing with red and blue lines is anchored to the ground with some number of lines. Red and blue take turns, each erasing one of their lines. When a line is not attached to the ground by any path, it disappears. If a player has no lines of their color left on their turn, they lose. Using game theory techniques, we were able to come up with a mathematical representation of how a slightly simplified game of Hackenbush could be represented in terms of its favorability to one player. Not only did we represent the game mathematically; we also represented mathematical expressions with Hackenbush games, including 1/3, pi, and infinity minus one.
(Image of the first Hackenbush design; Zeycus on the Wikimedia Commons)
Rainstorm was an amazing experience, and I learned a lot from attending the classes. It’s a great chance to explore various fields in short bursts. I highly recommend it to any junior high or high school students interested in…well, anything!
Would at least make a good April Fools…I need to think of some good secret messages, don’t I?
