Fundraising

Summary Reports:


2023 Campaign - Love @ First Byte

Total raised: $13,593
Total spent: $13,100
Student research: $13,100
Number of projects: 5
Number of students supported: 16

Projects

Student Research

Love @ First Byte Campaign funds were used to extend spring, summer, and fall research project opportunities to students.

New feature in GatorGrader Spring 2023

$650: 2 students

https://github.com/GatorEducator/gatorgrade

GatorAdvisor Summer/Fall 2023

$6,200: 3 students, Summer 2023

$500: 2 students, Fall 2023

https://github.com/Allegheny-CMPSC-summer-2023/Advise-A-Gator

Gator Growth Gauge Fall 2023

$5,000: 6 students

https://github.com/allegheny-cis-curriculum-assessment

ROV Education Platform Fall 2023

$500: 2 students

https://github.com/Underwater-Robotic-System

Improvements to termworld documentation Fall 2023

$250: 1 student

https://github.com/term-world


2022 Campaign - Power Up Campaign

Total raised: $17,427
Total spent: $17,387
Equipment and hardware: $5,077
Software and open platform development: $12,310

Equipment and Hardware

Using some of the funds, the department was able to purchase wheeled robots, raspberry pis, various sensors and actuators, and robot arms. These were used in our Robotic Agents class in Fall 2022, Artificial Intelligence class in Spring 2023 and is continuously utilized by Allegheny students and faculty in the outreach activities they conduct in the local community.

Robots For Education

Penny's Ice Cream Shop Evelyn, Pallas, and Katie
Robot Keyboard Control with Music Makell and Gary
Shieldbot Gary and Trang

Robot Arm Manipulation

Manny the Manufacturer Katie, Pallas, Danny
Cup Stacking Arm Evelyn and Trang

Mapping And Navigation

Turtlebot Mapping and Navigation Katie, Peter, and Zack
Trudy The Turtle Pallas, Danny, and Rian

IoT Arduino

Valentine's Love in the Box Yanqiao
Speech Recognition Trang and Andre
Lie Detector Jacob, Jacob, and Stephen
Trash Bot Titus, Luke, and Jack
Sound Detection David and Maximillian

Software

Portions of the funds were used to design, implement, and test new software tools or to create new features and functionality in existing software tools. These tools were built by students and faculty and are either used or will be used by the department to "power up" our teaching. Additionally, these tools are open-source and available for anyone to use.

GatorGrade(r)

An automatic grading tool that can be used to check assignments through user-created checks

  1. Improvements to TUI
  2. Bug fixes to GatorGrade
  3. Deployment improvements
  4. JSON and Markdown export
  5. GitHub job summaries
  6. Github issue tracker
  7. Insights and trajectory tracking
  8. ALSO: new checks in GatorGrader!

NaviGator

A Discord bot that leverages Google Sheets to allow students to retrieve commonly requested course information

  1. Discord bot
  2. OpenStack deployment
  3. Grade reporting
  4. Course details
  5. Interation tracking
  6. User auth, privacy ensured
Plan to use this tool in all CMPSC courses

AFLuent

An automated fault localization tool that is triggered when one or more test cases fail

  1. Pinpoint defects in program
  2. Coverage profile collection
  3. Statistical fault localization
  4. Multiplte AFL equations
  5. Integration with Pytest
Plan to use this tool in CMPSC 101, 102, and 203

Discover (Knockout Mutation)

Tools to help discover test coverage and effectiveness

  1. Assess quality of test suite
  2. Give feedback to students on poor test assertions
  3. Run locally and in CI
  4. Pip-installable tool
  5. TUI-based browser
Plan to use this tool in CMPSC 101 and CMPSC 203

Executable Examinations

Delivering exams that are programming focused and are automatically executed

  1. Integration layer on top of GatorGrade and GatorGrader
  2. Programming-centric examinations used in 101/102
  3. Security-conscious implementation for grading in CI
  4. Focus on working prototype for Spring 2023
  5. Refactor implementation and generalize for Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
Plan to use this tool in all CMPSC courses

GradeAlert

An automated gradebook utility for teachers written in Python

  1. Creates markdown files from the instructor's grade spreadsheet
  2. Grade files may be diffused to students via GitHub repositories
  3. Allows students to get feedback on class performance with minimal instructor effort
  4. Successfully tested in eight classes
  5. Also being used by other instructors in academia

Open Course Platforms

While collaborating with students, faculty led the development of open source course platforms in most courses taught in 2022. Each course below provides an online platform with easy access to the course materials including project and lab assignments, class activities, course flow, and slides. Solution repositories to all assignments can be provided upon request.

term-world Doug Luman

Learning-by-doing curriculum focused on using real-world objects and processes to teach computer science.

https://www.github.com/term-world

Proactive Programmers Greg Kapfhammer

Putting the PRO in Programmer with projects for students in Data Abstraction and Discrete Structures.

https://github.com/ProactiveProgrammers

Operating Systems Sketch Greg Kapfhammer

Exploring operating systems ... one sketch at a time!

https://github.com/OS-Sketch

Ready, Set, Research! Greg Kapfhammer

Comprehensive undergraduate research project: design research project, develop a computational artifact, write undergraduate thesis and present results of the scholarly activity

https://github.com/ReadyResearchers

Robotic Agents Janyl Jumadinova

Hands-on introduction to robotics via exploration of multiple robot platforms

https://github.com/RoboticAgents

Crafting Software Janyl Jumadinova

Team-focused project-based introduction to software engineering concepts and skills

https://github.com/CraftingSoftware

Junior Seminar Oliver Bonham-Carter

Research preparation: cultivate ideas, determine scope and feasibility, create prototypes and deliver proposals for potential research projects.

https://github.com/Devising-Research

Bioinformatics Oliver Bonham-Carter

An introduction to computational bioinformatics to explore and gain skill at the intersection of biology and computer science

https://github.com/Computational-Bioinformatics