null action - Slashdot User

Submission + - Try your programming skills in space: DARPA Satellite Programming Challenge (gigaom.com)

Submitted by null action on Wednesday March 07, 2012 @10:33AM

null action writes: Want to have your code run on a satellite in space? Take a look at this. MIT Space Systems Laboratory and TopCoder are hosting a DARPA competition to create the best algorithm for capturing a randomly tumbling space object. Contestants in the Zero Robotics Autonomous Space Capture Challenge will compete in online simulations, and four finalists will have their algorithms tested aboard the International Space Station on small satellites called SPHERES. “In this challenge, you have no advance knowledge of how it will be rotating. We’re pushing the limits of what we can do with SPHERES and we hope to break new ground with this challenge,” said Jake Katz of MIT.

Comment Scratch (Score 1) 430

by null action on Friday September 02, 2011 @12:46AM (#37282818) Attached to: How Do You Explain Software Development To 2nd Graders?

I suggest showing them some simple programs in Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu). It's like turtle, but with a block programming interface, and a built-in graphics editor. You could bring in a computer with a projector to show them basic commands and what the commands do. Kids that age are able to understand it, and have fun making a simple animation or game. Our elementary school has a computer lab; if yours does you could bring the kids there after your demonstration for some hands-on work. If there isn't a room with a lot of computers, you may be able to ask a few parents to bring in laptops so that the kids can try it.

Submission + - DARPA Funds Hacking Projects to Fight Cyberthreats

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Friday August 05, 2011 @12:44PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Fahmida Y. Rashid reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will fund new cyber-security proposals under the new Cyber-Fast Track project intended to cut red tape for hackers to apply for funding for projects that would help the Defense Department secure computer networks, says Peiter Zatko, a hacker known as Mudge who was one of the seven L0pht members who testified before a Senate committee in 1998 that they could bring down the Internet in 30 minutes and is now a program manager for the agency's information innovation office. Anything that could help the military will be considered, including bug-hunting exercises, commodity high-end computing and open software tools and projects with the potential to "reduce attack surface areas, reverse current asymmetries" are of particular interest. Under the Cyber-Fast Track initiative, DARPA will fund between 20 to 100 projects annually. Open to anybody, researchers can pitch DARPA with ideas and have a project approved and funded within 14 days of the application. Developers will retain intellectual property rights while DARPA will operate under government use rights. "It's time to start funding hacker spaces, labs and boutique security companies to make it easier to compete with large government contractors.""

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