Gizmodo Australia » college

Computer Science Majors Get Laid More Than Any Other Kind of Geek

Matt Buchanan — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Or they lie a lot more than any other geek. This chart shows the percentage of virgins by major at US women’s college Wellesley. I always knew there was a reason I liked art chicks. [Forwardon via Geekologie]

Electronic Beer Pong Table Probably a Big Hit at the Engineering Frat House

Gizmodo US Edition — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:30:55 +0000

Giz reader and beer pong enthusiast Dan Dayon constructed a beer pong table with glowing LEDs, cup sensors, and a wireless module. It’s one of the most advanced tables you could ever puke on.

The DIY project is powered by five microcontrollers and features 120 RGB LEDs, five per cup. The lights pulse and change colour depending on the arrangement of ~~(presumably) classic red plastic cups~~ see-through plastic cups, and is equipped with a wireless module to let it communicate with a scoreboard to be constructed later. The LEDs are under a sheet of glass to protect them from the cheap beer of choice. [Thanks, Dan!]

Sex Alert Announces When You’re Having Sex, Which is Never

Adam Frucci — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Everybody had a method in college to warn their roommates to stay the hell away when you were lucky enough to con someone into coming home with you. Be it a sock on the doorknob, shoes outside the door or a gigantic X on your whiteboard, it had to be clear enough to get the message across without looking sleazy to your new friend. This Sex Alarm doesn’t aim for such subtlety. You hang it on your doorknob, and if anyone approaches it yells out that someone is having sex inside. Which you then won’t be, you creep. Way to screw it up in the home stretch. [Product Page via Nerd Approved]

College Student Arrested After Installing Webcam Spy Software On Woman’s Laptop

Matt Hickey — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:30:03 +0000

A 23-year-old student named Craig Feigin is facing possible felony charges in Florida for allegedly putting spyware of the worst kind on up to 10 women’s laptop computers. The programs, which he apparently wrote himself, would cause the integrated webcams on the laptops take snapshots at certain times when a person was close and upload them to a server on the Internet, where he would be able to browse them at will. This included several photos of at least one woman in various states of undress. The moral of the story: Make sure you trust your computer repair geek, or at least keep an eye on what they’re doing to your machines. [Ars]

The Most Ridiculous Beer Pong Table Ever Automatically Washes Your Balls

Adam Frucci — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:30:00 +0000

A group of electrical engineering students at West Virginia University has built the most insane beer pong table ever. It’s got lights all around that react to the music playing as well as a pair of built-in swirling ball washers. It’s incredible. They’re taking orders for them now if you want one of your own, but be warned: this first one cost them US$1,000 and 400 hours of work to complete, so it won’t be cheap. Hit the jump for a video of it in action, and be sure to skip to 2:30 unless you think still photos of electrical engineering majors and circuit boards are suddenly cool when set to Linkin Park.

[Geekologie]

Guitar Hero Robot Shows Just How Much Its Creators Love Achievements

Jason Chen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:00:00 +0000

These Electrical Engineering students at Texas A&M love Guitar Hero so much that they made a “robot,” which is actually just some levers and switches and a circuit board set up on top of a Guitar Hero guitar, and a system that analyzes the video signal to determine when and where to hit the notes. The end result is a bot that can get a very respectable 96% on some hard- arse songs, negating the need for a human player to get all the crazy achievements in Guitar Hero 3. We would have suggested these college kids go get drunk and laid instead of spending their time building a Guitar Hero robot, but then we remembered that they’re Electrical Engineering majors. [Slashbot]

Georgia Tech to Launch First Interdisciplinary Robotics Ph.D Program

Adrian Covert — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:00:17 +0000

Georgia Tech is going to create the nation’s interdisciplinary Ph.D program in Robotics, pulling from various engineering (mechanical, electrical, biomedical, aerospace) and computer science disciplines to form a more focused program. Other schools tend to offer a concentrated look at one area of robotics. The idea behind Georgia Tech’s program is to get students to think about robots holistically, rather than only focusing on one aspect of a bot with minimal knowledge of the rest.

The university will begin the program with 15 students, eventually bolstering it to 60, and currently have 30 faculty working in robotics. This announcement goes hand in hand with the launch of Georgia Tech’s new centre specifically designated for robotics. Maybe Carnegie Mellon should worry about their distinction as the robotics school. [Gizmag]