Math with Bad Drawings

Math with Bad Drawings
Author: Ben Orlin
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
Total Pages: 556
Release: 2018-09-18
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0316509027

A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world. In Math With Bad Drawings, Ben Orlin reveals to us what math actually is; its myriad uses, its strange symbols, and the wild leaps of logic and faith that define the usually impenetrable work of the mathematician. Truth and knowledge come in multiple forms: colorful drawings, encouraging jokes, and the stories and insights of an empathetic teacher who believes that math should belong to everyone. Orlin shows us how to think like a mathematician by teaching us a brand-new game of tic-tac-toe, how to understand an economic crises by rolling a pair of dice, and the mathematical headache that ensues when attempting to build a spherical Death Star. Every discussion in the book is illustrated with Orlin's trademark "bad drawings," which convey his message and insights with perfect pitch and clarity. With 24 chapters covering topics from the electoral college to human genetics to the reasons not to trust statistics, Math with Bad Drawings is a life-changing book for the math-estranged and math-enamored alike.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor Activity Book

The LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor Activity Book
Author: Daniele Benedettelli
Publisher: No Starch Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2021-09-21
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
ISBN: 171850182X

An introduction to the LEGO Mindstorms Robot Inventor Kit through seven engaging projects. With its amazing assortment of bricks, motors, and smart sensors, the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Robot Inventor set opens the door to a physical-meets-digital world. The LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor Activity Book expands that world into an entire universe of incredibly fun, uniquely interactive robotic creations! Using the Robot Inventor set and a device that can run the companion app, you’ll learn how to build bots beyond your imagination—from a magical monster that gobbles up paper and answers written questions, to a remote-controlled transformer car that you can drive, steer, and shape-shift into a walking humanoid robot at the press of a button. Author and MINDSTORMS master Daniele Benedettelli, a robotics expert, takes a project-based approach as he leads you through an increasingly sophisticated collection of his most captivating robot models, chapter by chapter. Each project features illustrated step-by-step building instructions, as well as detailed explanations on programming your robots through the MINDSTORMS App—no coding experience required. As you build and program an adorable pet turtle, an electric guitar that lets you shred out solos, a fully functional, whiz-bang pinball machine and more, you’ll discover dozens of cool building and programming techniques to apply to your own LEGO creations, from working with gears and motors, to smoothing out sensor measurement errors, storing data in variables and lists, and beyond. By the end of this book, you’ll have all the tools, talent and inspiration you need to invent your own LEGO MINDSTORMS robots.

Project Kid

Project Kid
Author: Amanda Kingloff
Publisher: Artisan
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
ISBN: 1579656137

Perfect for crafty parents who are eager to get their kids excited about DIY, ProjectKid is everything you could want in a craft book: 100(!) stylish, inventive projects; step-by-step photographs; tips for the novice crafter; easy-to-follow instructions; and a fresh, modern look. What really sets these projects apart are the unexpected, ingenious ways Kingloff uses everyday objects and materials. (Did you ever think a body-wash bottle would make a perfect rocket ship?) And these are projects for things kids want to make—and keep—from a juice-box owl to a pirate ship to a curio cabinet for displaying all of their treasures, plus games, jewelry, and more. Also included in the book are basic crafting lessons (such as pom-pom making and weaving) to help children of all ages build a DIY arsenal, a handy guide to must-have tools and materials, and a source directory.

Learning React Native

Learning React Native
Author: Bonnie Eisenman
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2017-10-23
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1491989092

Get a practical introduction to React Native, the JavaScript framework for writing and deploying fully featured mobile apps that render natively. The second edition of this hands-on guide shows you how to build applications that target iOS, Android, and other mobile platforms instead of browsers—apps that can access platform features such as the camera, user location, and local storage. Through code examples and step-by-step instructions, web developers and frontend engineers familiar with React will learn how to build and style interfaces, use mobile components, and debug and deploy apps. You’ll learn how to extend React Native using third-party libraries or your own Java and Objective-C libraries. Understand how React Native works under the hood with native UI components Examine how React Native’s mobile-based components compare to basic HTML elements Create and style your own React Native components and applications Take advantage of platform-specific APIs, as well as modules from the framework’s community Incorporate platform-specific components into cross-platform apps Learn common pitfalls of React Native development, and tools for dealing with them Combine a large application’s many screens into a cohesive UX Handle state management in a large app with the Redux library

Game Design Foundations

Game Design Foundations
Author: Roger Pedersen
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2009-06-23
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1449663923

Game Design Foundations, Second Edition covers how to design the game from the important opening sentence, the “One Pager” document, the Executive Summary and Game Proposal, the Character Document to the Game Design Document. The book describes game genres, where game ideas come from, game research, innovation in gaming, important gaming principles such as game mechanics, game balancing, AI, path finding and game tiers. The basics of programming, level designing, and film scriptwriting are explained by example. Each chapter has exercises to hone in on the newly learned designer skills that will display your work as a game designer and your knowledge in the game industry.

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 4th Edition

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 4th Edition
Author: Al Sweigart
Publisher: No Starch Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2016-12-16
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1593277954

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python will teach you how to make computer games using the popular Python programming language—even if you’ve never programmed before! Begin by building classic games like Hangman, Guess the Number, and Tic-Tac-Toe, and then work your way up to more advanced games, like a text-based treasure hunting game and an animated collision-dodging game with sound effects. Along the way, you’ll learn key programming and math concepts that will help you take your game programming to the next level. Learn how to: –Combine loops, variables, and flow control statements into real working programs –Choose the right data structures for the job, such as lists, dictionaries, and tuples –Add graphics and animation to your games with the pygame module –Handle keyboard and mouse input –Program simple artificial intelligence so you can play against the computer –Use cryptography to convert text messages into secret code –Debug your programs and find common errors As you work through each game, you’ll build a solid foundation in Python and an understanding of computer science fundamentals. What new game will you create with the power of Python? The projects in this book are compatible with Python 3.

Reinforcement Learning, second edition

Reinforcement Learning, second edition
Author: Richard S. Sutton
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 549
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0262352702

The significantly expanded and updated new edition of a widely used text on reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence. Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach to learning whereby an agent tries to maximize the total amount of reward it receives while interacting with a complex, uncertain environment. In Reinforcement Learning, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the field's key ideas and algorithms. This second edition has been significantly expanded and updated, presenting new topics and updating coverage of other topics. Like the first edition, this second edition focuses on core online learning algorithms, with the more mathematical material set off in shaded boxes. Part I covers as much of reinforcement learning as possible without going beyond the tabular case for which exact solutions can be found. Many algorithms presented in this part are new to the second edition, including UCB, Expected Sarsa, and Double Learning. Part II extends these ideas to function approximation, with new sections on such topics as artificial neural networks and the Fourier basis, and offers expanded treatment of off-policy learning and policy-gradient methods. Part III has new chapters on reinforcement learning's relationships to psychology and neuroscience, as well as an updated case-studies chapter including AlphaGo and AlphaGo Zero, Atari game playing, and IBM Watson's wagering strategy. The final chapter discusses the future societal impacts of reinforcement learning.

Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12

Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12
Author: Peter Liljedahl
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1544374844

A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.

We Forgot Brock!

We Forgot Brock!
Author: Carter Goodrich
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2015-08-25
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1442480904

Phillip and Brock are best friends. Everyone can see Phillip, but only Phillip can see Brock.

The Pattern On The Stone

The Pattern On The Stone
Author: W. Daniel Hillis
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2014-12-09
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0465066879

Most people are baffled by how computers work and assume that they will never understand them. What they don't realize -- and what Daniel Hillis's short book brilliantly demonstrates -- is that computers' seemingly complex operations can be broken down into a few simple parts that perform the same simple procedures over and over again. Computer wizard Hillis offers an easy-to-follow explanation of how data is processed that makes the operations of a computer seem as straightforward as those of a bicycle. Avoiding technobabble or discussions of advanced hardware, the lucid explanations and colorful anecdotes in The Pattern on the Stone go straight to the heart of what computers really do. Hillis proceeds from an outline of basic logic to clear descriptions of programming languages, algorithms, and memory. He then takes readers in simple steps up to the most exciting developments in computing today -- quantum computing, parallel computing, neural networks, and self-organizing systems. Written clearly and succinctly by one of the world's leading computer scientists, The Pattern on the Stone is an indispensable guide to understanding the workings of that most ubiquitous and important of machines: the computer.