ACM Creates Community Space for All Students Interested in Computer Science

A new chapter of Association Computing Machinery (ACM) has opened at Lewis & Clark. The club is meant to unite the various computer science-related clubs to create a space for coding and community building.

“We can interconnect with each other and make sure that ideas and events are overlapping with one another as we collaborate to make them more fun, make the appeal even broader, and with more resources, there’s really limitless things we could do,” Ahmed Gedi ’19 said.

ACM holds weekly student-led workshops. These workshops explore the intersections of technology and art. Previous workshops have featured topics such as photogrammetry (a program that detects and measures 2D and 3D photography), git (which tracks code development) and its auxiliary; github.

Keegan Millbern ’19 commented on his photogrammetry presentation.

“I’ve been making 3D models out of drone photos for our IT department,” he said. “It was really awesome being able to share the stuff I’ve been working on with other students who are interested in what I’m doing.”

The student-led workshops are designed to showcase projects that students are working on outside of the classroom.

“We want to spend time highlighting all the cool stuff that people do and make sure that everyone knows about the great things that other people are doing,” Ben Glick ’20 said.

ACM also hosts a weekly event called the Computational Co-op, or “C²,” in which anyone interested in computer science can get help with homework, brainstorm projects or find out more about coding.

“I think in any program at a college, it can be a little bit intimidating to kind of get your feet wet as far as meeting other majors goes,” said Ryan Crim ’20. “Wanting to be interested in something that has to do with this a department, but not knowing exactly how to get involved, can be very cliquey. I think that’s been my favorite part about (ACM), trying to make it accessible to the broader student population. Because I think it’s really important, and I think computer science should be shared.”

The ACM club is also planning several future events to include both majors and non-majors interested in computer science.

“We’re working on a colloquium series, which will be bringing people in from off-campus, and we’re working on putting together a sort of mini peer review journal where we have students submit two- to four-page papers and peer review them,” Glick said. ” We want to allow students who run workshops to have a modest budget for equipment and things like that and support cool student projects.”