Hello all,

This week Ensoft will be joining us for a talk on cloud-scale data centres. Next week, in a CompSoc first*, we'll be hosting a programming competition. For those of you that have never tried competitive programming before this will be a great opportunity to brush up your problem solving skills and see what the competitions are like. Meanwhile, for those that have competed before (and maybe you're even on this list http://stats.ioinformatics.org/results/2016), we hope that the problems will be of intermediate difficulty.

As I'm sure many of you are aware we've seen really great demand for Learn to Code, and I would once again like to thank all the volunteers that have assisted us with running the sessions. The materials from all the sessions will now be made available via GitHub https://github.com/oxcompsoc/learntocode (hint: if you want to see where future sessions are going, take a look at the |future| branch).

Have a great week :)

Thomas and the rest of the committee

* I'm not sure if this is strictly true, but it is certainly the first time under this committee...

Events

Ensoft Tech Talk: How to build a 300 acre computer https://www.facebook.com/events/675360745957957/

*Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Wednesday (5th week)*

Cloud-scale data centers are the biggest computing machines ever built, and warp the very structure of the Internet. This talk gives an accessible view into these creations, including how networking is evolving to enable them.

Bio: Simon Chatterjee is Director & CTO of Ensoft, whose experience includes helping to bring into existence the Guinness Book of Records' "World's Highest Capacity Internet Router".

Pizza will also be provided.

Learn to Code https://www.facebook.com/events/1296752107035202/

*Lecture Theatre A, Room 051, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Thursday (4th week)*

In the fourth session we'll take a look at basic data structures in Python like lists and dictionaries, and explore how these data structures can be used to solve common programming problems. Like the previous sessions, much of the session will require you to work on a laptop, so we highly recommend taking one.

We do expect demand to be very high for this course, so please try to arrive before the advertised start time as we need to register everyone (for fire regulations). You'll need to enter via the back door on Parks Road; there are CompSoc signs up at the department.

If you're a CS student with a little spare time and enthusiasm, please consider volunteering by contacting the committee.

Geek Night 5 https://www.facebook.com/events/1336359586421973/

*Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Saturday (5th week)*

Join us for an evening of relaxing, chatting, games, coding, and the usual selection of food and drinks.

We will also have an Adafruit IoT starterkit and a BBC micro:bit if you are interested in learning some embedded programming.

Competitive Programming https://www.facebook.com/events/408464376168242/

*Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Wednesday (6th week)*

We're going to host a programming competition! We'll have a selection of ten programming problems to solve with points awarded for correct solutions submitted in as little time as possible. You can use any programming language you like, but we recommend C++, Java, or Python. You can compete individually or in teams of up to three people.

For those of you that have never done competitive programming before, we recommend taking a look at websites like HackerRank and Kattis for sample problems. Make sure you drag you friends along too, as teams can work on more than one problem at once. If you have competed before, the level of difficulty should be similar to early rounds of ACM-ICPC.

Pizza and drinks will be served after the event.

Other notices

Facebook London Hackathon http://www.fb.me/LonHack17

*Facebook London, 10 Brock Street, NW1 3 London - 11th & 12th March*

Here at Facebook, we believe that every engineer possesses amazing ideas and creativity. Hackathons are a longstanding tradition at Facebook where our engineers stay up all night to create a working product or prototype from scratch. Remember- done is better than perfect.

*Please note - all members of your team must register individually for the opportunity to attend*

Register here https://fblonhack17.splashthat.com/

Join Facebook in London as we stay up all night hacking, learning and having a some fun! Start brainstorming ideas & forming teams (of up to 4 people). We'll supply the food, fun diversions, prizes, and some expert guidance in the form of our engineers. We'll also provide reimbursement for public transportation. You bring your laptop, appetite, skills and ideas.

The winning team will get the chance to compete against teams from other Hackathons at the Hackathon Finals and be judged by our executives- held at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, California in November!

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The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc, Twitter https://twitter.com/oxcompsoc, or visit our website https://ox.compsoc.net for more information about the society.