Alan Turing was a man of startling intellect and one of the founding fathers of computer science. After his work at Bletchley, Alan Turing went on to make significant contributions to the development of ACE (Automatic 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Engine) at National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and later on the Manchester Mark 1 at Manchester University. Turing was a mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, computer scientist, mathematical biologist, and also a marathon and ultra-distance runner (all qualities to which I can only aspire and fail to measure up on every count). Of course, the tragedy of his life is how he was persecuted and prosecuted for his sexuality, which ultimately led to him taking his own life. This injustice was eventually recognised by the British Government in 2012, leading to a posthumous pardon by HM Queen Elizabeth in 2013. To this day Alan Turing remains one of the most notable figures in the development of 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 in the UK.

As an undergraduate at King’s College Cambridge, Alan Turing studied mathematics. It was during this time he did his seminal work on computation. Turing devised a methodology of describing hypothetical abstract machines, and demonstrated such machines are capable of performing any mathematical computation if it could be represented as an algorithm. Turing machines are a central object of study in the theory of computation. Building on this earlier work in 1949 Turing proposed an experiment, the Turing test. In this test Turing attempted to understand and define the basis of machine “intelligence”. Turing’s assertion was that a computational device could be said to be “intelligent” if a human interrogator could not distinguish between the responses from the machine and that of another human being, through conversation alone. To this day the Turing test continues to spark debate around the meaning of artificial intelligence, so in homage of his work we’ve created an educational resource – a whole scheme of work for KS2 and KS3 – for teachers to explore the Turing experiment.

At Bletchley, Turing had a bit of a reputation. He was nicknamed “The Prof” in recognition of his curious mannerism, his intellect and his understanding of computation. Here at Pi Towers, we are keen on all things 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费, and we are always looking for ways to grow the next generation of Turings, so in conjunction with ARM Holdings and Oxford University we are proud to support and sponsor the UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge.

The Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge is open to all schools in the UK, for pupils from Year 2 to Year 13, and runs during the week beginning November 10. The challenge is free to enter, takes about 40 minutes and is completed online. If you are not sure what to expect, you can have a go at questions from previous year’s competitions here, but if you are interested in taking part in this year’s competition your school must register by October 31. Not in the UK ? Don’t worry, this is only the UK chapter of an international competition, so you can find out your national organising body at the Bebras site under countries.

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This week, Dr Sam Aaron released the much anticipated final version of Sonic Pi v2.0. It will be replacing Sonic Pi v1 on Raspbian very soon, and you will be able to get it via our Downloads page (we will let you know when). In the meantime, you can follow the instructions at the bottom of this post to download and install it. The latest version of Sonic Pi brings music creation and performance to the forefront with live coding capabilities, parameter modification, samples and much more!

To celebrate, we have launched the first ever Sonic Pi Competition to find some of the best space-themed music, coded with Sonic Pi v2.0 by school children in the UK. The Sonic Pi Competition is designed to encourage school students aged between 6 and 16 years old to use their creativity and coding knowledge to create a unique and original two-minute piece of music on a 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pi device.

Entries need to include an audio file of what the music sounds like, the code used to create it, a short written description, and a cover art file.

All entries will be put into a hat to win a 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pi and SD card at random. Semi-finalists will win a Sonic Pi half-day workshop with Sam Aaron and Juneau Projects for their school, and a custom Sonic Pi Pibow case. Overall winners in each category will win a Sonic Pi classroom kit containing 25 x 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pis and peripherals for their school and a Minirig speaker, as well as a Sonic Pi Competition trophy designed by artists Juneau Projects.

The final will take place at the Cambridge Junction on 4th November 2014 as part of the Sonic Pi Live & Coding Summit, with the 12 semi-finalists (four in each category) introducing and playing their music on a 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pi to the audience in front of an expert panel of judges.

You can find everything you need know, including some lesson plans to get your students started, in this new Sonic Pi Competition Resource. You’ll find the entry form here.

The deadline for entries is 13th October 2014, so get creative with your code, and become the next big thing in music!

Sonic Pi v2.0 can be downloaded right now by typing the following from the command line or LXTerminal window:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sonic-pi

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You met Lance Howarth, the CEO of the 我解开了岳的乳奶水 (this means he heads up our charitable giving), when he joined us earlier in the autumn. Today Lance has some news for you – and a very silly hat.

Lance says:

Ho Ho Ho!

He’s leaving presents under the tree, not stealing them. Honest.

Here at Pi Towers we are getting into the festive spirit, and we’ve been thinking how best to pay back the goodwill our community has shown us over the last year. So, in support of “Hour of Code”  as part of Computer Science Education week, we got together with our friends from Google and we are going to give away Pis for Christmas. That’s right: we’re giving away up to 2000 Google 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pis to anyone under the age of 18 in the United Kingdom. To qualify for a free Pi you need to do one of two things. Either:

• Get your school to do an “Hour of Code” between now and the end of term and we’ll send a Pi for every participant to your school (up to a maximum of 20), or
• Design a “My Pi Project” poster and send it to us here at Pi Towers, and we’ll send you your own 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pi.

You can get more information on Hour of Code week from our friends at Code.org. They have lots of great ideas of what you can do for the Hour Of Code. If you are a member of Code Club, how about getting your class to have a go at their festive project Christmas Capers? To qualify for your Google Pi, just ask your teacher to register here. At the end of next week we’ll take the first thousand 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pis and start shipping them out on a first come, first served basis, so the Pis should be waiting for you when you come back to school in January.

Not everyone is going to get the opportunity participate in the Hour of Code week, but don’t worry, you can still get a free Google Pi. All you need to do is design a poster showing us what you think would be a cool 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pi project. This might be something to do with your pet, like an automatic cat flap or feeder; something to do with photography, like looking at the thermal image of your house; or something festive like controlling the Christmas lights so they flash along to music. If fact, anything will do, we are just looking to see how imaginative you can be and to learn what you think would be a cool project. Once you have designed your poster you need to get your parent to print this form out, fill it in, and then send it with your poster to us by post at:

Poster Competition
我解开了岳的乳奶水
Mount Pleasant House
Huntingdon Road
Cambridge
CB3 0RN

You can also send us a scan of your poster and completed form by email at postercompetition@哺乳期xxxx视频.org.

Your poster needs to be with us by the 8th of January, so you’ll have plenty of time to get this done over the Christmas break. So get thinking!

Please note that we cannot accept entries that do not have parent/guardian contact details and signature.

Who ate all the Pis? Santa, of course!

A couple of notes: this promotion is only open to schools and kids in the UK (this requirement is placed on us by our partners at Google UK). You’ll receive Google Pi kits, which include a cased Model B 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pi, an SD card, a power supply, a copy of The MagPi, some projects recipe cards and a Getting Started guide. If you are a teacher and you send us a successful application, we will be getting in touch later in 2014 to talk about what you’re doing with the 巨人族的新娘免费动漫全集免费 Pis.

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