This was CS50
Put a whole lot of undergraduates who've spent 20 hours a week on problem sets in one room and you're bound to get, well, awesomeness.
At least that's what FlyBy thought when we descended upon Northwest Labs Tuesday to take a look the CS50 Fair, which easily fielded about 200 people at any given moment in a techno-playing, popcorn-scented technological bonanza.
Find out about some of the projects we saw, including ISawYouHarvard.com, after the jump.
What took the show in pre-fair publicity was I Saw You Harvard, a missed connections Web site created by Tej A. Toor '10 named after the larger site isawyou.com.
"I didn't expect it to be so popular," she said. "I submitted my project at 11 and expected to be done with it, but I ended up staying up and working on it."
Since Monday, the site's accumulated over 500 posts. Sorting through and moderating the posts have been a chore, said Toor, who said she's "trying to keep it clean and keep it well-intentioned."
Her favorite post? This one from the Mather Dining Hall Tuesday at 2:43 p.m.: "I saw you...wearing a cookie monster hat with your big glasses. you are the cutest guy [I] have ever seen."
"This is the sort of thing the Web site should be about," she said.
But I Saw You Harvard was not the only project on display. Projects ranged from tools to test musical frequencies to a service by Julia S. Howland '12 that sends you realtime sports information. Text "gocrim" followed by a sport to 41411 (the same number as ShuttleBoy) and you'll get information on latest scores and times.
Meanwhile, Randy J. Miller '13 made an iPhone app that contains a course catalog, a map of Harvard buildings, and a collection of Harvard-related RSS feeds. It still has bugs, he says, but he's hoping to work on it over J-term and expand it to include ShuttleBoy, a Harvard directory, a list of WiFi spots, and a way to check your Crimson cash. Whether that catalog app will be ready in time for spring shopping period, though, is doubtful, but, he adds, it's not his fault.
"Apple sucks, man," he said.