LINEAR ALGEBRA
We usually meet on Saturday 4pm Eastern over Zoom for meetings and discussions on topics, including Linear Algebra, coding, computer graphics, computer vision, 3D math, and creating games. These meetings are for anyone who would like to get a good overview of Linear Algebra in a relatively short amount of time. Colab notebooks with all code in Python, PyTorch, PyGame, PlotOptiX, PyOpenGL, and NumPy will be provided. We are not going to collect any data from participants in these meetings and discussions; however, all our Zoom meetings will be recorded. These meetings and discussions are totally seperate from our summer programs and PD workshops. Our summer programs and PD workshops are for educational research purposes and each participant gets a stipend for attending our educational research; and because of that, we collect data for educational research only in our summer programs and PD workshops. During June 2024, 47 high school students from the Knoxville-Oak Ridge area participated in our summer program; and each of them got a stipend of $1,200 for attending our 3-week Planet+AI program (with 2 exceptions). Only US Citizens are eligible for our summer programs and PD workshops.
What is Linear Algebra?
Linear Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations, linear maps, and their representations in vector spaces and through matrices (citing from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_algebra).
Broadly speaking, Linear Algebra is about translating something residing in an m-dimensional space into a corresponding shape in an n-dimensional space- from three to two dimensions, from two to three dimensions, or from two to the same two dimensions, etc.
TEXTBOOKS
We will use the following books:
REGISTRATION LINK
Here’s the registration link: https://tennessee.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lfu2vqzgiHtzCj0wExSu9AjZH7NjtJIP1
NSF GAME MAKER AWARDS
The U.S. National Science Foundation Game Maker Awards is an exciting opportunity for students in grades K-12 to showcase their creativity, technical skills and passion for game design. The NSF Game Maker Awards is a video game design competition for K-12 students with the theme “Life in 2100”. Here’s the webpage for the competition:
https://new.nsf.gov/75years/game-maker-awards
Vectors, matrices, and linear transformations are fundamental math concepts which are extremely useful for game design, including creating visual effects. For example, a vertex’s position is the fundamental thing and it can be represented through vectors. We will introduce some basic ideas and concepts on ray tracing and how ray tracing works through vectors, matrices, and linear transformation in Linear Algebra.
COLABS