Wednesday, December 26, 2007

K'Nex Computing

Building an adder out of K'Nex.

I never know what to make of these sorts of stories. While I admire the enthusiasm, is this really what gets these students (and others) excited about computing? Somehow, it seems like the equivalent of writing your own iambic pentameter poetry in Latin. The result should be worthwhile for a small, small number of people.

Yet here I am linking to it.

2 comments:

Peter said...

I think these serve as good examples that computer science is not just about computers. This helps the discipline appeal to more than those who have wanted to tinker with computers since they were very young.

Michael Mitzenmacher said...

Peter --

That's sort of my point -- I'm not really sure that K'Nex modeling appeals to a crowd outside of those who would otherwise tend towards computing. Medical applications, social networking apps, these I can see being good examples that computer science is not just about computers.

K'Nex modeling? Seems a bit geeky to me, while at the same time I can't help thinking it's kind of cool.