Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN)

Shouting at Memory: Where Did My Write Go? Image by 13smok from Pixabay modified by CS4FN How can computer scientists improve computer memory, ensuring saving things is more secure? If Vasileios Klimis of Queen Mary, University of London’s …

Shouting at Memory: Where did my write go
How can computer scientists improve computer memory, ensuring saving things is more secure? If Vasileios Klimis of QMUL’s Theory research group has his way, they will be learning from bats. Find out more in the new CS4FN blog post
cs4fn.blog/2025/10/18/s...

Natural Language Processing Click on the cover to download the magazines Words mean nothing to me… It may seem odd to the uninitiated but language – that most human of inventions – is also a core topic of computer scien…

AI now talks to us...Find out more about research on natural language processing tools past and present on our CS4FN portal
cs4fn.blog/natural-lang...
@qmuleecs.bsky.social

AI owes us an explanation Image by Chen from Pixabay by Erhan Pisirir and Evangelia Kyrimi, Queen Mary University of London From the moment we start talking, we ask why. A three-year-old may ask fifty “whys” a day. ‘Why sho…

AI owes us an explanation
Erhan Pisirir and Evangelia Kyrimi of @qmuleecs.bsky.social explain why AI tools need to explain why.
cs4fn.blog/2025/10/16/a...

The women are (still) here Click on the magazine cover to get a pdf copy of the magazine. Too important to be left to men Women have been at the forefront of computer science and electronic engineering from the outset. Does …

It is Ada Lovelace Day
Read about Women in Computer Science (lots of them) here
cs4fn.blog/the-women-ar...

Perceptrons and the AI winter A perceptron winter: Winter image by Image by Nicky ❤️🌿🐞🌿❤️ from Pixabay. Perceptron and all other image by CS4FN. Back in the 1960s there was an AI winter…after lots of hype about how Artifi…

A simple, but misunderstood, theoretical result about a little gadget called a perceptron that is now the basis of machine learning tools, led to the AI winter that set back AI development decades. Find out about perceptrons and went wrong in the latest CS4FN blog post: cs4fn.blog/2025/10/12/p...

Hallowe’en Zine An activity for children, for Hallowe’en. Mostly just for fun (colouring in and puzzle solving) but as always we have sneaked in a bit of computational thinking ideas too.

If you have / teach children you might enjoy our free Hallowe'en Spooky Zine, from @cs4fn.bsky.social at @qmuleecs.bsky.social.

There are puzzles to solve and pictures to colour in, then fold into a cute booklet.
Bonus info: classroom links with computational thinking.
cs4fn.blog/halloweenzine/

Marc Hannah and the graphics pipeline Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay What do a Nintendo games console and the films Jurassic Park, Beauty and the Beast and Terminator II have in common? They all used Marc Hannah’s chips and l…

It is #BlackHistoryMonth
Read about Marc Hannah, a founder of Silicon Graphics, the original company pioneering fast graphics computers, and behind graphics pipelines that allowed realistic CGI in games and films.
cs4fn.blog/2024/10/31/m...

Student asks about researching physical diseases and how you run simulations on a computer. Chloe replies that she works with the data that people who do lab work generate. She uses command line tools, R and python.

Unlock STEM career awareness - without leaving the classroom!

The Summer 2025 term feedback survey reported that 87% of teachers found the I'm a... activity to be extremely or very effective in raising students awareness of STEM careers.

imascientist.org.uk/book-activity

Cyber Security Adapted purple lock image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay CS4FN Issue 24 – Keep Out Be aware of cyber security risks October each year is Cyber Security Awareness month, though really every mon…

October is cyber security awareness month though every month needs to be really. Read about the CS4FN take on cyber security at
cs4fn.blog/cyber-securi...
including cyber security at the movies and more...

Free computing diversity role model posters for UK schools

Lego Computer Science: Algorithms and computational agents Image by Thomas G. from Pixabay The idea of an algorithm is core to computer science. So what is an algorithm? If you have ever used the instructions from some Lego set for building a Lego building…

Lego Computer Science...Algorithms are core to computer science. So what is an algorithm? If you have ever used the instructions from a Lego set then you have followed algorithms for fun yourself and you have been a computational agent.
Find out more ...
cs4fn.blog/2025/09/26/l...

Edie Schlain Windsor and same sex marriage Edie Schlain Windsor was a senior systems programmer at IBM. There is more to life than computing though. She led the landmark US Supreme Court Case that was a milestone for the rights of same-sex …

#ComputingByAllForAll - TODAY
September 12 2017
Edie Schlain Windsor died. She was a senior systems engineer at IBM who led the case that made gay marriage legal in the US
cs4fn.blog/2023/02/19/e...

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Sorry to bug you: Grace Hopper by Peter W McOwan and Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London (from the archive) In the 2003 film The Matrix Reloaded, Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and crew continue their battle with the machines t…

#ComputingByAllForAll - YESTERDAY
September 9 1947
Grace Hopper discovered the first computer bug (a moth)
cs4fn.blog/2023/01/01/s...

Cognitive crash dummies Mathematical, digital and physical models can help us design things better (and more safely!)

#ComputingByAllForAll - TODAY
September 10, 1955
Bonnie E. John born
Human Computer Interaction expert
Read about Cognitive Crash Test Dummies
cs4fn.blog/2023/01/30/c...

Using the LCT Semantic Plane to Reflect on Teaching Programming | Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on UK and Ireland Computing Education Research

My 2nd new strand of work using Maton's LCT @lctcentre.bsky.social presented at #UKICER2025 on the problem of teaching skills (graduate, workplace, practical) with theory, visualising using the semantic plane, suggests should integrate with waves between theory and skills
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Foregrounding the `Rules’ of Learning to Program with the LCT Epistemic Plane | Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on UK and Ireland Computing Education Research

Today I presented 2 posters on new strands of work using Maton's LCT @lctcentre.bsky.social at #UKICER2025. The first was on the problem of ensuring students understand the 'rules of the game' in learning to program are (code quality matters) using the epistemic plane.
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Mary and Eliza Edwards: the mother and daughter human computers Lines of Longitude. Image from wikimedia, Public Domain. Mary Edwards was a computer, a human computer. Even more surprisingly for the time (the 1700s), she was a female computer (and so was her da…

#ComputingByAllForAll - September 2 1815
Mary Edward dies
Mary and Eliza Edwards: the mother and daughter human computers who helped sailors navigate at sea with their work over 50 years for the nautical almanac.
Read about them at
cs4fn.blog/2025/09/03/m...

Freddie Figgers – the abandoned baby who became a runaway telecom tech star Freddie Figgers’ parents encouraged him to fix things – he now owns the first Black-owned telecommunications company in the US. #BlackHistoryMonth

#ComputingByAllForAll
September is World Alzheimer’s month
Freddie Figgers invented a GPS tracker shoe for those with Alzheimer’s disease.
cs4fn.blog/2022/10/12/f...

Computer Science at Sea Machines getting wet… We think of computers and electronics generally as machines that must stay dry (not least because you can electrocute yourself …don’t do this at home!) but t…

Computer Science at Sea
We think of computers and electronics generally as machines that must stay dry (not least because you can electrocute yourself ...don't do this at home!) but there are lots of ways that computer science is of help at, on, watching over or under the sea...
cs4fn.blog/the-sea/

The Digital Seabed: Data in Augmented Reality A globe (North Atlantic visible) showing ocean depth information, with the path of HMS Challenger shown in red. Image by Daniel Gill. For many of us, the deep sea is a bit of a mystery. But an exci…

For many of us, the deep sea is a bit of a mystery. But an exciting interactive digital tool at the National Museum of the Royal Navy brings the seabed to life! Find out about their augmented reality sandbox and its link to the voyage of HMS Challenger - by Daniel Gill
cs4fn.blog/2025/08/18/t...

An experiment in buoyancy Here is a little science experiment anyone can do to help understand the physics of marine animals and their buoyancy. It helps give insight into how animals such as ancient ammonites and now cuttl…

Here is a neat little science experiment to do at home cs4fn.blog/2025/08/11/a... demonstrated at a family science workshop by the Dorset Wildlife Trusts to understand marine buoyancy - and how researchers can now use robots to understand ammonite (now fossils) life from 350 million years ago.

Ammonite propulsion of underwater robots Image by M W from Pixabay Intending to make a marine robot that will operate under the ocean? Time to start learning, not just engineering and computing, but the physics of marine biology! And, it …

If you were designing an underwater robot, what might you learn from the long extinct ammonite fossils and why might you need to program an ammonite brain?
cs4fn.blog/2025/08/10/a...

Film Futures: The Lord of the Rings Image by Ondřej Neduchal from Pixabay What if there was Computer Science in Middle Earth?…Computer Scientists and digital artists are behind the fabulous special effects and computer generate…

Film Futures: how might movie plots change with Computer Science...
Just for fun, The Lord of the Rings if there was Computer Science in Middle Earth (and then the serious reality on our Earth)
cs4fn.blog/2025/08/04/f...

Why do we still have lighthouses? Image by Tom from Pixabay In an age of satellite navigation when all ships have high-tech navigation systems that can tell them exactly where they are to the metre, on accurate charts that show exa…

In an age of satellite navigation when ships have high-tech navigation systems that tell them exactly where they are, on accurate charts that show exactly where dangers lurk, why do we still keep working lighthouses? Because it makes for a more dependable system...
cs4fn.blog/2025/08/02/w...

Screenshot showing 3 computing puzzle books and 5 mini computing magazines, part of the primary resources that are free to download.

Free computing mini magazines to read and puzzles to solve for primary-aged children (roughtly 8-12 yo) from @cs4fn.bsky.social - get your PDFs here :)
cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/primary/
- there are also printable certificates for puzzle book attempters and completers.

Didn't know this! Love a bit of internet history :)

The first Internet concert Severe Tire Damage. Image by Strubin, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Which band was the first to stream a concert live over the Internet? The Rolling Stones decided, in 1994, it should be them.…

#ComputingByAllForAll - TODAY
July 23 1952
Mark Weiser was born
visionary proponent of calm and ubiquitous computing
(and drummer for the first band to livestream over the Internet)
cs4fn.blog/2025/07/23/t...

Let the brain take the strain Image by Michi S from Pixabay Whenever humans have complicated, repetitive jobs to do, designers set to work making computer systems that do those jobs automatically. Autopilot systems in airplanes…

Let the brain take the strain
Is it always better to hand complicated jobs over completely to computers or can it make things more dangerous? How should you divide up work between human and computer is not always an easy question to answer.
cs4fn.blog/2025/07/22/l...

Calculating Pi for Pi Day Today is Pi Day (14 March: 3.14) so we should look at how on earth you compute a number like Pi (3.1.4159….). It has an infinite number of digits containing no repeating pattern so you can ne…

#ComputingByAllForAll - TODAY
22 July is a UK Pi Day
Mādhava of Sangamagrāma calculated Pi to 10 dp
(Showing 22/7 does not accurately compute Pi!)
cs4fn.blog/2024/03/14/c...