create Rotunda mosaic
detail of the mosaic created in David Evans new computer
science course by students. Evans challenged them to turn
Jeffersons Rotunda into a digital work of art.
By Joanna Gluckman
imitates art, but does art imitate computer science? Students
in David Evans new Computer Science 200 course used their
computer skills to turn Mr. Jeffersons Rotunda into a digital
work of art.
result is intriguing. From afar, the images appear to be photographs
of the Rotunda. But a closer look reveals a complex arrangement
of tiny photos patterned to create a new vision of the historic
students used divide-and-conquer, problem-solving techniques to
produce the artwork, developing computer programs to transform
digital images into a complex mosaic by matching the colors of
small photographs with the layout of a larger image.
do this, they used Scheme, an elegant, simple language,
according to Evans, that descended from LISP, a computer language
originally developed for artificial intelligence.
assignment gave students a chance to incorporate many concepts
of computer science in one project.
started with the photomosaic project, said Jacques Fournier,
a second-year major in economics and mathematics from Phoenix.
Then, we improved the program. We came up with a greedy
algorithm that would choose the pictures without using the
same ones over and over, which improved the look of the photomosaic.
for the first time this spring, CS 200 was developed with a University
Teaching Fellowship. The course is geared for students with no
prior background in computing, but, unlike CS 110, is not a computer
literacy course. Evans course introduces students to the
underlying principles of computer science and programming, and
exposes them to concepts useful in a range of disciplines.
has keyed into a conceptual method of instruction that not only
teaches programming skills, but also creates greater knowledge
of the fundamental concepts that drive computer science,
said Shawn OHargen, a fourth-year major in cognitive science
from The Woodlands, Texas.
believes that an understanding of computer science offers a broad
array of intellectual benefits.
science is a precise way of thinking about how to solve problems,
Evans said. Courses like CS 200 should be a staple of any
liberal arts education.