1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,900 [MUSIC PLAYING] 2 00:00:02,900 --> 00:00:05,030 SPEAKER: This is CS50. 3 00:00:05,030 --> 00:00:07,427 4 00:00:07,427 --> 00:00:08,510 DAVID MALAN: Hello, world. 5 00:00:08,510 --> 00:00:10,070 This is the CS50 podcast. 6 00:00:10,070 --> 00:00:11,120 My name is David Malan. 7 00:00:11,120 --> 00:00:12,260 BRIAN YU: My name is Brian Yu. 8 00:00:12,260 --> 00:00:15,218 And today, we thought we'd talk a little bit about the CS50 Fair, which 9 00:00:15,218 --> 00:00:17,390 takes place at the end of CS50 every semester, 10 00:00:17,390 --> 00:00:20,300 an opportunity for students to show off their final projects. 11 00:00:20,300 --> 00:00:23,362 I've been to, what is it now, five CS50 Fairs, I think. 12 00:00:23,362 --> 00:00:25,070 Now, how many CS50 Fairs have there been? 13 00:00:25,070 --> 00:00:27,410 DAVID MALAN: There have been 12, and I have been to all 12 of them. 14 00:00:27,410 --> 00:00:27,620 BRIAN YU: All right. 15 00:00:27,620 --> 00:00:28,790 What was the first one like? 16 00:00:28,790 --> 00:00:32,930 DAVID MALAN: The first one was similar in spirit to what you see now, 17 00:00:32,930 --> 00:00:36,440 if any of you listening online have seen any of the photographs or video footage 18 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:37,040 from them. 19 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:38,340 But it was smaller scale. 20 00:00:38,340 --> 00:00:40,400 BRIAN YU: Was this the first year that you taught the class, 21 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:41,270 or does it come about later? 22 00:00:41,270 --> 00:00:42,687 DAVID MALAN: This was second year. 23 00:00:42,687 --> 00:00:48,120 So this was in 2008, when we had 287 students in the class. 24 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:49,580 So it was a smaller scale event. 25 00:00:49,580 --> 00:00:53,330 We divided it into just a couple-- two or three shifts of students, 26 00:00:53,330 --> 00:00:56,360 with maybe 100 or so students, give or take, 27 00:00:56,360 --> 00:00:58,963 presenting their final projects at any one time. 28 00:00:58,963 --> 00:01:01,880 But it was in our original space on campus, the building of a basement 29 00:01:01,880 --> 00:01:04,963 called Northwest Science, which is one of the science buildings on campus, 30 00:01:04,963 --> 00:01:08,688 with a big concrete floor area, lots of tall ceilings and pillars 31 00:01:08,688 --> 00:01:10,730 that we were able to set up a whole lot of tables 32 00:01:10,730 --> 00:01:12,818 on for students to present their final projects. 33 00:01:12,818 --> 00:01:15,110 BRIAN YU: And the CS50 Fair now-- especially for people 34 00:01:15,110 --> 00:01:17,770 who've seen it online, probably have seen photos of what it looks like now. 35 00:01:17,770 --> 00:01:18,428 It's fancy. 36 00:01:18,428 --> 00:01:19,220 There are balloons. 37 00:01:19,220 --> 00:01:22,190 There's high tables with nice tablecloths all over it. 38 00:01:22,190 --> 00:01:26,060 Was it like that from the beginning, or what was the first CS50 Fair 39 00:01:26,060 --> 00:01:26,930 like visually? 40 00:01:26,930 --> 00:01:30,770 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, it was actually-- so the whole intent of the CS50 Fair, 41 00:01:30,770 --> 00:01:35,780 for those unfamiliar, is to be a course-wide and campus-wide exhibition, 42 00:01:35,780 --> 00:01:39,080 if not celebration of students' final projects in the course. 43 00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:41,360 In a nutshell, for CS50, our undergraduate course 44 00:01:41,360 --> 00:01:43,490 in computer science, students can implement most 45 00:01:43,490 --> 00:01:46,640 any software-based project of interest to them at the end of the semester. 46 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:49,130 And the goal of the CS50 Fair was to provide a vehicle 47 00:01:49,130 --> 00:01:51,213 at the end of the semester for students to present 48 00:01:51,213 --> 00:01:54,470 their work to classmates, to staff, and to students, faculty, and staff 49 00:01:54,470 --> 00:01:56,370 from across campus. 50 00:01:56,370 --> 00:01:59,930 So yes, I worked with one of our earliest assistant head 51 00:01:59,930 --> 00:02:04,370 teaching fellows, Yuki Yamashita, who was a junior or senior at the time. 52 00:02:04,370 --> 00:02:08,180 And he and I pretty much spent winter break 53 00:02:08,180 --> 00:02:12,380 over the phone and email planning the very first CS50 Fair. 54 00:02:12,380 --> 00:02:14,950 At the time, Harvard's exams were after the break, 55 00:02:14,950 --> 00:02:17,240 so the very first CS50 Fair was actually in January, 56 00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:20,990 not in December, which it now is, when the course was closer to concluding. 57 00:02:20,990 --> 00:02:24,230 And we pretty much knew the dimensions of the space-- 58 00:02:24,230 --> 00:02:27,440 the basement space of Northwest Science, big concrete floor and pillars-- 59 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:29,990 and we knew the distance between all of those pillars. 60 00:02:29,990 --> 00:02:33,320 And so we essentially came up with all of these estimations and models 61 00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:36,153 using Photoshop or some other such tool to mock up the space. 62 00:02:36,153 --> 00:02:37,820 And we knew we wanted bar-height tables. 63 00:02:37,820 --> 00:02:40,970 We wanted students, and staff, and faculty to be able to walk by 64 00:02:40,970 --> 00:02:43,430 and not have people seated or crouching over. 65 00:02:43,430 --> 00:02:46,730 We got just very simple tablecloths to cover everything to the floor. 66 00:02:46,730 --> 00:02:49,910 And then we realized we wanted to decorate the space. 67 00:02:49,910 --> 00:02:52,970 And the easiest way to decorate a space, especially with tall ceilings, 68 00:02:52,970 --> 00:02:56,570 is just to put some balloons with helium on string. 69 00:02:56,570 --> 00:02:59,825 And so that's what we did early on to adorn the space. 70 00:02:59,825 --> 00:03:01,910 BRIAN YU: And how did you figure out where 71 00:03:01,910 --> 00:03:06,260 to get enough tables to have 300 people present 72 00:03:06,260 --> 00:03:09,590 their projects and enough balloons to fill an entire basement of a building? 73 00:03:09,590 --> 00:03:12,840 It feels like there's a lot of just upfront logistics 74 00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:14,840 to figure out in terms of how to make this work. 75 00:03:14,840 --> 00:03:17,150 And now we can just rely on, oh, let's do what we do last year. 76 00:03:17,150 --> 00:03:19,010 But the first time must have been much tougher. 77 00:03:19,010 --> 00:03:21,200 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, no, we had to envision everything 78 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:22,250 off the top of our heads. 79 00:03:22,250 --> 00:03:24,830 And when we-- I'm guessing we asked someone at the time, 80 00:03:24,830 --> 00:03:27,590 hey, where can we get a 100 bar-height tables? 81 00:03:27,590 --> 00:03:30,680 Well, Harvard doesn't have its own supply of those, 82 00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:33,920 and so there's a local place that we ultimately had to rent them from. 83 00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:35,360 The tablecloths as well. 84 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,560 We knew way too much about the per-unit cost of tablecloths and tables 85 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:40,250 at the time. 86 00:03:40,250 --> 00:03:43,520 But we also, from that same vendor, for instance, got a few popcorn machines. 87 00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:45,350 We wanted to make it kind of like a fair, 88 00:03:45,350 --> 00:03:48,990 really, like a carnival of sorts, albeit academically oriented. 89 00:03:48,990 --> 00:03:51,395 So we got two or three popcorn machines, the idea 90 00:03:51,395 --> 00:03:54,020 being that the teaching fellows and the staff running the event 91 00:03:54,020 --> 00:03:56,780 could pop some popcorn, and it would be a nice way to say hello to people 92 00:03:56,780 --> 00:03:58,190 and greet them on the way in. 93 00:03:58,190 --> 00:04:00,200 I think not the first year-- eventually, we 94 00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:02,960 tried cotton candy machines, which is so much fun to make, 95 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:06,080 because you finally understand how it works by putting a little paper cone 96 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:07,850 'round and 'round in the sugar. 97 00:04:07,850 --> 00:04:09,800 But oh my god, what a mess it makes. 98 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:13,370 You don't really want free-flowing sugar in the air, 99 00:04:13,370 --> 00:04:14,750 so we killed that after a while. 100 00:04:14,750 --> 00:04:16,917 BRIAN YU: The popcorn machines aren't easy to use. 101 00:04:16,917 --> 00:04:20,209 I remember struggling to figure out how to actually make popcorn in the popcorn 102 00:04:20,209 --> 00:04:22,760 machine the very first time, because I'd never actually used 103 00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:23,900 a popcorn machine before. 104 00:04:23,900 --> 00:04:24,817 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, no. 105 00:04:24,817 --> 00:04:27,770 There's the big carnival-style ones or that you'd get from a vendor 106 00:04:27,770 --> 00:04:29,000 off the street. 107 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:32,340 So secretly, in recent years, we've started pre-buying the popcorn 108 00:04:32,340 --> 00:04:33,215 in really big boxes-- 109 00:04:33,215 --> 00:04:34,520 BRIAN YU: [CHUCKLES] Makes things a lot easier. 110 00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:36,478 DAVID MALAN: --just like the movie theaters do, 111 00:04:36,478 --> 00:04:38,810 but we put it out on display in boxes. 112 00:04:38,810 --> 00:04:41,630 But we actually really did very nitpickily think 113 00:04:41,630 --> 00:04:43,400 about all of the low-level details. 114 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:47,445 We had-- even the popcorn boxes, we wanted to make sure that they were flat 115 00:04:47,445 --> 00:04:49,820 and weren't just paper things, because we wanted students 116 00:04:49,820 --> 00:04:52,153 to be able to put them down, and passersby put them down 117 00:04:52,153 --> 00:04:53,990 while interacting with students' laptops. 118 00:04:53,990 --> 00:04:58,190 I think we even had water machines, like dispensing water. 119 00:04:58,190 --> 00:05:00,590 We deliberately got those conical cups that 120 00:05:00,590 --> 00:05:03,470 come to a triangular point as opposed to flat bottom ones 121 00:05:03,470 --> 00:05:07,690 because we wanted people literally to finish any water they had in their cup 122 00:05:07,690 --> 00:05:10,660 so as to minimize the risk that someone was going to put a cup of water 123 00:05:10,660 --> 00:05:12,970 down near a student's laptop and spill. 124 00:05:12,970 --> 00:05:15,768 So we were even obsessing to that level of detail early on. 125 00:05:15,768 --> 00:05:17,560 And while we didn't do this the first year, 126 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:20,980 we actually realized quickly that in such a large group of people, 127 00:05:20,980 --> 00:05:24,310 the balloons that we first got for the first year or more of the fair 128 00:05:24,310 --> 00:05:25,070 were latex. 129 00:05:25,070 --> 00:05:28,070 And unfortunately, too many people are allergic to latex, potentially, 130 00:05:28,070 --> 00:05:30,945 especially when you have hundreds of them floating around in the air. 131 00:05:30,945 --> 00:05:35,650 So after one or more years, we switched to foil balloons, 132 00:05:35,650 --> 00:05:38,860 Mylar balloons instead, which unfortunately are more expensive, 133 00:05:38,860 --> 00:05:40,463 but they don't have the allergens. 134 00:05:40,463 --> 00:05:42,880 BRIAN YU: Huh, that never would have ever crossed my mind. 135 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:44,800 Were there any other surprises, things you 136 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:48,460 weren't expecting that suddenly came up during the process of planning 137 00:05:48,460 --> 00:05:49,990 and executing that very first fair? 138 00:05:49,990 --> 00:05:51,490 DAVID MALAN: That was certainly one. 139 00:05:51,490 --> 00:05:54,730 Not so many surprises, otherwise-- we eventually 140 00:05:54,730 --> 00:05:58,223 realized that we don't need to worry too much about conical-shaped cups. 141 00:05:58,223 --> 00:05:59,890 We eventually got flattened bottom cups. 142 00:05:59,890 --> 00:06:04,420 And knock on wood, nothing bad has happened to any laptops with water. 143 00:06:04,420 --> 00:06:05,770 No, I think we-- 144 00:06:05,770 --> 00:06:10,480 and Yuki was great at this event planning, and envisioning designs. 145 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:14,500 We introduced some very deliberate design decisions, like we had-- 146 00:06:14,500 --> 00:06:18,610 we wanted to invite some industry friends, and alumni, 147 00:06:18,610 --> 00:06:21,527 and recruiters, really, from companies, popular tech companies that we 148 00:06:21,527 --> 00:06:24,318 knew students might have an interest in working for over the summer 149 00:06:24,318 --> 00:06:24,980 or full-time. 150 00:06:24,980 --> 00:06:28,240 So we actually invited eight or so such folks from industry that year, 151 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:31,252 but we very deliberately put them at the back of the room. 152 00:06:31,252 --> 00:06:33,710 One, we didn't want companies to be the focus of the event. 153 00:06:33,710 --> 00:06:35,680 It was obviously supposed to be focused on the students, 154 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:38,020 and so a supermajority of the tables were indeed 155 00:06:38,020 --> 00:06:40,420 allocated to students' laptops and their projects. 156 00:06:40,420 --> 00:06:43,600 But we also very deliberately, when people came into this large space, 157 00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:45,920 wanted to pull them through the whole space. 158 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:49,030 So even those upperclassmen, or say, juniors and seniors 159 00:06:49,030 --> 00:06:53,890 who might be there primarily to look into job opportunities, but secondarily 160 00:06:53,890 --> 00:06:57,190 wouldn't mind chatting with friends and seeing their projects and so forth. 161 00:06:57,190 --> 00:07:00,875 We wanted to compel them to go through the space, see all of the projects 162 00:07:00,875 --> 00:07:02,500 before they actually reached the table. 163 00:07:02,500 --> 00:07:05,008 So we tried to think about details like that. 164 00:07:05,008 --> 00:07:08,050 And then we did introduce the first year-- oh, yeah, this was unforeseen. 165 00:07:08,050 --> 00:07:11,840 We got stress balls, which are just these squishy spherical things that 166 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:16,580 say CS50 on them, or CS50 stress ball, literally, nowadays. 167 00:07:16,580 --> 00:07:19,670 And we wanted the TFs to hand them out as people came into this space, 168 00:07:19,670 --> 00:07:22,420 and descended this beautiful staircase that leads into this space. 169 00:07:22,420 --> 00:07:25,210 What we didn't expect was that the TFs would start throwing the stress 170 00:07:25,210 --> 00:07:27,550 balls at attendees, which was actually kind of an issue, 171 00:07:27,550 --> 00:07:30,880 because they don't hurt, and it's not a danger like that, 172 00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:33,340 but when you're throwing the stress balls up a stairwell 173 00:07:33,340 --> 00:07:35,620 and you don't necessarily have good aim, then 174 00:07:35,620 --> 00:07:39,460 do the balls come back down thanks to gravity and knock things over. 175 00:07:39,460 --> 00:07:42,028 So it's been hard to put downward pressure on that tradition, 176 00:07:42,028 --> 00:07:43,570 but I think we finally killed it off. 177 00:07:43,570 --> 00:07:46,840 BRIAN YU: Yeah, well, we've moved-- so Northwest was the original location. 178 00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:49,300 That basement was the original location for the first fair. 179 00:07:49,300 --> 00:07:51,207 And you stayed there for 10 years. 180 00:07:51,207 --> 00:07:51,790 Is that right? 181 00:07:51,790 --> 00:07:53,200 DAVID MALAN: Oh, let's call it-- 182 00:07:53,200 --> 00:07:53,770 10 years. 183 00:07:53,770 --> 00:07:56,460 Yeah, 10 years, and then two years now in a different place. 184 00:07:56,460 --> 00:07:58,930 BRIAN YU: Yeah, and so this new location, how did that come about? 185 00:07:58,930 --> 00:08:00,763 So we just-- in the last two years, switched 186 00:08:00,763 --> 00:08:05,290 to holding the CS50 Fair in the Smith Center, this newly-renovated part 187 00:08:05,290 --> 00:08:06,790 of Harvard's campus. 188 00:08:06,790 --> 00:08:09,880 Did you know immediately that's where you wanted to move the fair to, 189 00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:10,690 or how did that come about? 190 00:08:10,690 --> 00:08:11,440 DAVID MALAN: Yeah. 191 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:15,142 So Harvard recently renovated a building that was once called the Holyoke Center 192 00:08:15,142 --> 00:08:16,600 and is now called the Smith Center. 193 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:18,475 And it's more of a community space on campus. 194 00:08:18,475 --> 00:08:21,957 They gutted the first couple of floors, enlarged the ceilings, 195 00:08:21,957 --> 00:08:24,790 and made this beautiful big open space called Harvard Commons, which 196 00:08:24,790 --> 00:08:29,260 is a glassed-in area that has chairs, and tables, and a little stage, 197 00:08:29,260 --> 00:08:30,640 and just a lot of big open space. 198 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:35,049 And the best feature of it is that it's 100% central in Harvard Square, which 199 00:08:35,049 --> 00:08:37,400 is the heart of the area right next to Harvard Yard, 200 00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:40,150 and whereas Northwest Science was one of these buildings on campus 201 00:08:40,150 --> 00:08:42,483 that really was on the periphery, so it's a destination. 202 00:08:42,483 --> 00:08:45,190 Like, you have to intend to go to the CS50 Fair, 203 00:08:45,190 --> 00:08:48,070 and therefore, there's that non-zero activation energy to just get 204 00:08:48,070 --> 00:08:50,028 attendees to come chat with folks. 205 00:08:50,028 --> 00:08:51,820 So the fact that it's now in Harvard Square 206 00:08:51,820 --> 00:08:54,490 is great, because we have all the more passersby, even tourists, 207 00:08:54,490 --> 00:08:57,850 people who are just poking their head in to see what goes on at a university, 208 00:08:57,850 --> 00:08:59,290 and what our students have accomplished. 209 00:08:59,290 --> 00:09:01,415 And the upside of that is that there's all the more 210 00:09:01,415 --> 00:09:04,090 attendees to chat up our own students and ask 211 00:09:04,090 --> 00:09:05,460 them to show off their projects. 212 00:09:05,460 --> 00:09:07,150 So hopefully, it's a win-win for everyone. 213 00:09:07,150 --> 00:09:08,740 BRIAN YU: Yeah, that sounds like a huge advantage. 214 00:09:08,740 --> 00:09:11,948 Because Northwest-- if you're unfamiliar with the layout of Harvard's campus, 215 00:09:11,948 --> 00:09:13,720 if you look at a map of Harvard's campus, 216 00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:16,060 Northwest is in like the far corner of the campus. 217 00:09:16,060 --> 00:09:18,050 And on some maps, it's just cut off altogether. 218 00:09:18,050 --> 00:09:19,270 You can't even see it. 219 00:09:19,270 --> 00:09:22,900 So it is-- you do have to journey a little bit in order to get there. 220 00:09:22,900 --> 00:09:25,600 What did you do in the very first year before people 221 00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:28,600 knew what the CS50 Fair was like to get faculty and other students to be 222 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:31,350 able to show up in order to talk to students about their projects? 223 00:09:31,350 --> 00:09:33,700 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, a lot of hoping that very first year. 224 00:09:33,700 --> 00:09:34,960 It was one of those things where-- 225 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:36,710 I know it's kind of a dated reference now, 226 00:09:36,710 --> 00:09:39,820 but if you ever saw the movie Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner, 227 00:09:39,820 --> 00:09:40,870 there's a line in it. 228 00:09:40,870 --> 00:09:43,900 If you build it, they will come, or he will come. 229 00:09:43,900 --> 00:09:45,400 And we sort of likened-- 230 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:48,250 I liken this to this experience, where we were putting together 231 00:09:48,250 --> 00:09:50,620 this pretty large-scale event for 300-plus students, 232 00:09:50,620 --> 00:09:54,160 and we hoped, hoped, hoped, hoped that people would actually come. 233 00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:55,990 So spoiler, they did, and it's wonderful, 234 00:09:55,990 --> 00:09:59,000 and we've done 11 more since then. 235 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,210 But there was just a lot of straightforward publicity 236 00:10:01,210 --> 00:10:05,010 with postering on campus, and emails, and word of mouth, 237 00:10:05,010 --> 00:10:07,097 encouraging students to invite people they knew. 238 00:10:07,097 --> 00:10:09,180 But we also introduced a couple of other elements. 239 00:10:09,180 --> 00:10:11,490 And this, I do think, was a very last-minute decision. 240 00:10:11,490 --> 00:10:16,170 And I don't recall where it came from, but we decided-- 241 00:10:16,170 --> 00:10:19,500 starting with the very first CS50 Fair-- to have a raffle, as you know now, 242 00:10:19,500 --> 00:10:24,030 where we would give every attendee a printed program, a brochure 243 00:10:24,030 --> 00:10:27,850 that explained the event and had a map of the space and a few other things. 244 00:10:27,850 --> 00:10:31,290 But it also had like 10 or 12 spots for smiley face stickers 245 00:10:31,290 --> 00:10:32,520 that were initially blank. 246 00:10:32,520 --> 00:10:35,700 And we then gave to all of the students presenting their work 247 00:10:35,700 --> 00:10:38,190 10 or 12 smiley face stickers. 248 00:10:38,190 --> 00:10:42,150 And the instructions to attendees were, for any student 249 00:10:42,150 --> 00:10:46,080 who you chat up and ask them about their project, like hey, what did you do, 250 00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:48,780 or hey, can I see a demo, the student was then 251 00:10:48,780 --> 00:10:53,910 authorized to give you a smiley face sticker for your printed program, which 252 00:10:53,910 --> 00:10:56,100 took the dual role of a raffle card. 253 00:10:56,100 --> 00:10:58,620 So if you chatted with as many as 10 or 12 students 254 00:10:58,620 --> 00:11:01,890 over the course of the fair, you could accumulate up to 10 or 12 stickers, 255 00:11:01,890 --> 00:11:04,200 each one of which represented, indeed, an entry 256 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:06,860 into a raffle with fabulous prizes. 257 00:11:06,860 --> 00:11:08,160 And they were kind of fabulous. 258 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:14,730 We did procure and had donated to us for students things like an Xbox, 259 00:11:14,730 --> 00:11:18,270 and a Wii, and all the fun toys that-- 260 00:11:18,270 --> 00:11:21,210 especially electronic-- that people might like these days. 261 00:11:21,210 --> 00:11:25,110 But it was just another way of trying to get attendees to come, ultimately 262 00:11:25,110 --> 00:11:27,480 for the projects, and for the students in the class, 263 00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:30,858 but also help grease the social friction to give them yet another reason 264 00:11:30,858 --> 00:11:32,400 to come see their friend or roommate. 265 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:34,708 Heck, you could win an Xbox along the way. 266 00:11:34,708 --> 00:11:37,000 BRIAN YU: I think that's been a great part of the fair, 267 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:40,170 because it just means that constantly-- so anyone who's there at the fair 268 00:11:40,170 --> 00:11:42,930 is talking to people, and is asking people questions, 269 00:11:42,930 --> 00:11:45,732 and it really always feels like people are engaged, and curious, 270 00:11:45,732 --> 00:11:46,565 and they're talking. 271 00:11:46,565 --> 00:11:49,500 [INAUDIBLE] a little bit of that extra impetus to do so. 272 00:11:49,500 --> 00:11:50,250 DAVID MALAN: Yeah. 273 00:11:50,250 --> 00:11:51,917 Hopefully it just breaks the ice, right? 274 00:11:51,917 --> 00:11:54,990 Because you would like to think that every attendee would be comfortable 275 00:11:54,990 --> 00:11:57,948 coming up to you and say, hey, Brian, what did you do for your project? 276 00:11:57,948 --> 00:12:00,745 But if you can kind of couch it in like, hey, Brian, 277 00:12:00,745 --> 00:12:03,870 what did you do for your project, when you're really there for the sticker, 278 00:12:03,870 --> 00:12:07,650 but you would certainly benefit from and enjoy hearing about something neat 279 00:12:07,650 --> 00:12:11,760 that the student worked on, it kind of helps break the social ice, we hope. 280 00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:14,235 And so we've kept it for now 12 years, 12 stickers. 281 00:12:14,235 --> 00:12:16,320 BRIAN YU: So you now, over 12 fairs, have 282 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:18,870 talked to a lot of students about a lot of projects. 283 00:12:18,870 --> 00:12:20,720 Any that particularly stand out to you? 284 00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:23,597 Any really memorable projects that you remember from past fairs? 285 00:12:23,597 --> 00:12:25,680 DAVID MALAN: There are, and this is hands down one 286 00:12:25,680 --> 00:12:28,380 of the biggest FAQs of CS50 itself. 287 00:12:28,380 --> 00:12:33,120 The official answer is that I love them all equally, as you know. 288 00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:36,540 And honestly, it's hard to even have favorites. 289 00:12:36,540 --> 00:12:39,570 Because we have so many students-- like 800 this most recent semester-- 290 00:12:39,570 --> 00:12:43,470 you see so many projects, and there's such a range. 291 00:12:43,470 --> 00:12:45,540 I really don't tend to have favorites. 292 00:12:45,540 --> 00:12:48,660 The ones that do stick in my mind often, only because they 293 00:12:48,660 --> 00:12:50,880 are different from a lot of the projects, 294 00:12:50,880 --> 00:12:55,530 is anyone that integrates some piece of hardware with their project, 295 00:12:55,530 --> 00:12:59,310 or any kind of tool or technology that we didn't teach in the class. 296 00:12:59,310 --> 00:13:01,830 And this is characteristic of a lot of students' projects. 297 00:13:01,830 --> 00:13:06,855 Some projects are absolutely inspired by things like CS50 finance problem 298 00:13:06,855 --> 00:13:08,730 set, where you build a stock trading website, 299 00:13:08,730 --> 00:13:12,560 so you can see elements of Bootstrap, and Flask, and SQLite, 300 00:13:12,560 --> 00:13:15,060 and these elements that students use in the course's problem 301 00:13:15,060 --> 00:13:16,710 sets that they then use in their final project. 302 00:13:16,710 --> 00:13:19,080 And that is totally the point of the final project-- 303 00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:22,170 to take the new-found knowledge of programming 304 00:13:22,170 --> 00:13:24,300 up for a spin and design something of their own. 305 00:13:24,300 --> 00:13:29,310 But I'm always so impressed and amazed how many students 306 00:13:29,310 --> 00:13:33,430 and how many projects implement something that we did not taught them. 307 00:13:33,430 --> 00:13:36,180 And I've come to realize, this is the biggest compliment, I think, 308 00:13:36,180 --> 00:13:40,260 as just being part of the class and its instruction, that students now 309 00:13:40,260 --> 00:13:44,790 are so empowered as to not just apply lessons learned in the class 310 00:13:44,790 --> 00:13:47,550 explicitly, but to go off on their own and feel sufficiently 311 00:13:47,550 --> 00:13:50,670 comfortable and sufficiently capable of figuring out 312 00:13:50,670 --> 00:13:53,160 some new tool, or some library, or some language, 313 00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:56,910 and then applying it to a project of their own. 314 00:13:56,910 --> 00:13:58,720 That is by far the coolest thing. 315 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:00,892 And it makes me think and hope that we're 316 00:14:00,892 --> 00:14:02,850 doing something right that so many students are 317 00:14:02,850 --> 00:14:07,600 able to do that after only three months of a CS course, their first ever. 318 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:11,010 BRIAN YU: Yeah, it's always amazing to just see that delta of students 319 00:14:11,010 --> 00:14:14,550 at the beginning of the class having not ever written a line of code, 320 00:14:14,550 --> 00:14:19,470 and just making Mario's pyramid appear with one or two or three or four rows, 321 00:14:19,470 --> 00:14:21,570 and then just a couple months later, they're 322 00:14:21,570 --> 00:14:23,903 building all sorts of really interesting and cool stuff. 323 00:14:23,903 --> 00:14:25,278 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, no, I mean it. 324 00:14:25,278 --> 00:14:28,380 At the end of the semester, I usually send a congratulatory email of sorts 325 00:14:28,380 --> 00:14:29,190 to all students. 326 00:14:29,190 --> 00:14:34,470 And I encourage them to think back on how, some 12 weeks prior, mario.c 327 00:14:34,470 --> 00:14:38,310 was hard, where we asked them in that problem set just a printer 328 00:14:38,310 --> 00:14:41,100 a hierarchical pyramid of hashtags on the screen. 329 00:14:41,100 --> 00:14:44,310 And it is hard, certainly if it's your first time programming 330 00:14:44,310 --> 00:14:46,548 with C, let alone any language. 331 00:14:46,548 --> 00:14:48,840 But my god, they come so far by the end of the semester 332 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:52,665 to be building their own web-based database-backed application, that's 333 00:14:52,665 --> 00:14:53,975 a pretty remarkable thing. 334 00:14:53,975 --> 00:14:54,600 BRIAN YU: Yeah. 335 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:57,433 And one nice thing about just the ability to showcase these projects 336 00:14:57,433 --> 00:15:01,110 is not only are they showcasing them now to other students and other attendees 337 00:15:01,110 --> 00:15:04,018 at the fair, but because of what the production team has now done, 338 00:15:04,018 --> 00:15:06,060 there's also now this live stream in recent years 339 00:15:06,060 --> 00:15:08,912 where students can showcase their projects to the world, 340 00:15:08,912 --> 00:15:11,370 and people are interviewing them and asking them questions, 341 00:15:11,370 --> 00:15:14,710 and anyone online can go and see what projects people are doing. 342 00:15:14,710 --> 00:15:15,750 How long has that been around, and what's the process for that like? 343 00:15:15,750 --> 00:15:17,900 DAVID MALAN: Oh, that's a really good question. 344 00:15:17,900 --> 00:15:21,570 We've certainly been capturing on video and camera, still shots, 345 00:15:21,570 --> 00:15:24,330 memories of the fair from early on. 346 00:15:24,330 --> 00:15:29,550 But in the past, let's say three or four years, maybe, have we indeed 347 00:15:29,550 --> 00:15:32,640 started live streaming the whole event and turning it 348 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:35,370 into something akin to the Olympics, where 349 00:15:35,370 --> 00:15:38,790 you have roaming reporters interviewing the athletes, 350 00:15:38,790 --> 00:15:42,210 and in our case, the computer scientists about their project on the floor. 351 00:15:42,210 --> 00:15:45,660 And sort of multiplexing, toggling among all of the different cameras and views. 352 00:15:45,660 --> 00:15:48,530 It's typically hosted by one or more members of the staff. 353 00:15:48,530 --> 00:15:51,270 Colton Ogden, Veronica Nutting, this most recent year, 354 00:15:51,270 --> 00:15:54,780 and last year as well, who kind of anchor the whole show. 355 00:15:54,780 --> 00:15:58,170 And it's such fun to flip through and watch 356 00:15:58,170 --> 00:16:01,590 so many different angles of the fair that you missed at the time. 357 00:16:01,590 --> 00:16:05,212 We're talking an event now that draws, amazingly, some 2,000-plus attendees, 358 00:16:05,212 --> 00:16:07,920 typically, every year, not to mention our own students presenting 359 00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:08,820 their projects. 360 00:16:08,820 --> 00:16:11,280 So even you as a human attendee at this event 361 00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:14,165 only barely scratch the surface of everything that's going on, 362 00:16:14,165 --> 00:16:17,040 and all the projects that are there, and the conversations and demos. 363 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:19,350 So being able to re-experience it on video, 364 00:16:19,350 --> 00:16:21,960 or to be able to experience it at all virtually 365 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:25,260 from wherever you are in the world via the live streams on YouTube 366 00:16:25,260 --> 00:16:28,090 and Facebook and the like is really such a fun thing. 367 00:16:28,090 --> 00:16:30,660 And it just gets prettier, and better, and more and more 368 00:16:30,660 --> 00:16:33,060 interactive thanks to CS50's amazing team. 369 00:16:33,060 --> 00:16:34,860 But it really is the student's interviews 370 00:16:34,860 --> 00:16:37,800 on these, and the demos on their screens that really pop. 371 00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:40,050 And actually, one thing we did start doing a few years 372 00:16:40,050 --> 00:16:42,900 prior to that was that we're expecting of students, when they submit 373 00:16:42,900 --> 00:16:47,740 their final projects, not just their code and their documentation 374 00:16:47,740 --> 00:16:51,030 and so forth, but also a two- to five-minute video 375 00:16:51,030 --> 00:16:54,720 that we asked them to upload unlistedly to YouTube so that we then 376 00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:56,315 have a visual demonstration. 377 00:16:56,315 --> 00:16:58,440 And we ask students, of course, if they want to opt 378 00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:00,480 into allowing us to share these online. 379 00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:04,560 So usually, most students allow us to publish them in a gallery of sorts 380 00:17:04,560 --> 00:17:05,380 online too. 381 00:17:05,380 --> 00:17:07,380 And that's been fun too to build up all the more 382 00:17:07,380 --> 00:17:10,290 of this repository of now hundreds-- thousands, really-- 383 00:17:10,290 --> 00:17:11,534 of students' final projects. 384 00:17:11,534 --> 00:17:13,349 BRIAN YU: Yeah, that's always great to see, especially 385 00:17:13,349 --> 00:17:15,230 because the fair is relatively short. 386 00:17:15,230 --> 00:17:17,022 It's a couple of hours long, and so there's 387 00:17:17,022 --> 00:17:20,518 no way you'd be able to have a complete conversation with 800-plus students 388 00:17:20,518 --> 00:17:22,560 that are all presenting their projects during it. 389 00:17:22,560 --> 00:17:24,210 So I always go back, and I look at the video, 390 00:17:24,210 --> 00:17:25,800 and sometimes there's a project that's like, oh, wow, I 391 00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,095 wish I had been able to go see that one in more detail, 392 00:17:28,095 --> 00:17:30,720 because there are just so many cool and interesting things that 393 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:31,620 are happening there. 394 00:17:31,620 --> 00:17:34,162 DAVID MALAN: Though I feel, on behalf of our production team, 395 00:17:34,162 --> 00:17:36,450 I should emphasize it's not really couple of hours. 396 00:17:36,450 --> 00:17:38,310 It's been at least four hours most years, 397 00:17:38,310 --> 00:17:40,600 and some years it's probably been five or more. 398 00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:42,767 But that too has been a design detail that we've had 399 00:17:42,767 --> 00:17:45,630 to figure out experimentally over time. 400 00:17:45,630 --> 00:17:49,200 Even the first one was probably three or four hours but broken into shifts. 401 00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:52,770 I think we probably had students presenting in groups of roughly 100 402 00:17:52,770 --> 00:17:57,430 out of the 287 students, and presenting for about 90 minutes at a time. 403 00:17:57,430 --> 00:17:58,680 And we've changed that number. 404 00:17:58,680 --> 00:18:00,060 Sometimes it's 90 minutes. 405 00:18:00,060 --> 00:18:03,408 Sometimes it's been 80, or 60 minutes, or 75. 406 00:18:03,408 --> 00:18:05,700 At Yale, too, we played with these numbers really based 407 00:18:05,700 --> 00:18:09,810 on the hours during which we want to run the event and the total numbers 408 00:18:09,810 --> 00:18:10,708 of students. 409 00:18:10,708 --> 00:18:12,750 But that helps us accommodate even more students, 410 00:18:12,750 --> 00:18:15,030 because we can't have 800 students all at once, 411 00:18:15,030 --> 00:18:17,613 and I'm not sure we would want to have everyone there at once. 412 00:18:17,613 --> 00:18:21,720 You want attendees not presenting their projects to chat up those presenting. 413 00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:24,840 So playing with those numbers has helped as well. 414 00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:26,970 And there too, like even fine-tuning things. 415 00:18:26,970 --> 00:18:29,250 We've sometimes started at 11:00 AM, or noon, 416 00:18:29,250 --> 00:18:31,410 but of course, then you clobber lunch. 417 00:18:31,410 --> 00:18:34,980 We've ended at like 4:30, or 4:00 PM, and then people 418 00:18:34,980 --> 00:18:36,930 start to check out at the end of the day. 419 00:18:36,930 --> 00:18:39,347 So we're trying to find the sweet spot, and it's something 420 00:18:39,347 --> 00:18:41,375 in the range of 11:00 to 4:00 seems to be best, 421 00:18:41,375 --> 00:18:42,750 if not wrapping a little earlier. 422 00:18:42,750 --> 00:18:44,070 We get critical mass. 423 00:18:44,070 --> 00:18:46,020 BRIAN YU: And you mentioned Yale as well. 424 00:18:46,020 --> 00:18:48,060 So CS50 has been at Yale now for-- 425 00:18:48,060 --> 00:18:51,270 I think this is just its fifth year at Yale that CS50's been offered there, 426 00:18:51,270 --> 00:18:54,100 and we had a fair every single year. 427 00:18:54,100 --> 00:18:57,080 How has the organizing the fair there been different? 428 00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:59,700 Because it's been interesting to see how we've taken the fair, 429 00:18:59,700 --> 00:19:02,340 which used to just exist for this course, and now Yale does it. 430 00:19:02,340 --> 00:19:06,570 And then [INAUDIBLE] CS50 teachers who are teaching CS50 AP, like high school 431 00:19:06,570 --> 00:19:08,760 versions of the class, that have had their own fairs 432 00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:10,770 at their own high schools with their high school students 433 00:19:10,770 --> 00:19:13,603 all presenting their projects to other students, and other teachers, 434 00:19:13,603 --> 00:19:15,220 and members of their communities. 435 00:19:15,220 --> 00:19:19,080 So what does that look like, and what goes into making 436 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:20,533 another fair other than our own? 437 00:19:20,533 --> 00:19:22,200 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, really good question. 438 00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:24,660 Fortunately, we essentially had a playbook for Yale 439 00:19:24,660 --> 00:19:29,690 in that we knew how to run a fair and what knobs we could turn. 440 00:19:29,690 --> 00:19:34,038 So it was mostly execution of that kind of template, thanks to Jason Hirschhorn 441 00:19:34,038 --> 00:19:36,330 early on with our very first fair in a building at Yale 442 00:19:36,330 --> 00:19:39,720 called Commons, which is this beautiful space even grander 443 00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:44,190 than Harvard's Annenberg Hall where students would take meals. 444 00:19:44,190 --> 00:19:47,190 Very Harry Potter-like, if you're familiar with Hogwarts. 445 00:19:47,190 --> 00:19:49,132 So we use that space and set up tables. 446 00:19:49,132 --> 00:19:51,090 The tables were not bar height there because we 447 00:19:51,090 --> 00:19:54,660 had these old school beautiful wooden tables that were normal height, 448 00:19:54,660 --> 00:19:56,367 and we felt, OK, reasonable compromise. 449 00:19:56,367 --> 00:19:58,200 Not everything needs to be exactly the same. 450 00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,780 We don't need to go rent tables when we have tables here. 451 00:20:00,780 --> 00:20:04,620 But we similarly invited some alumni, and recruiters, and industry friends 452 00:20:04,620 --> 00:20:07,080 to table for students there too. 453 00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:09,360 Because of various dining constraints there, 454 00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:12,270 we haven't typically had the same food. 455 00:20:12,270 --> 00:20:14,903 Instead of popcorn and cotton candy in recent years, 456 00:20:14,903 --> 00:20:17,820 we have cookies instead, so the cuisine is a little different than New 457 00:20:17,820 --> 00:20:19,207 Haven than Cambridge. 458 00:20:19,207 --> 00:20:22,290 But for the most part, the structure of the event is pretty much the same. 459 00:20:22,290 --> 00:20:24,123 And in fact, we bring a photo booth to Yale, 460 00:20:24,123 --> 00:20:27,570 just like we have here, to allow students to take memories home 461 00:20:27,570 --> 00:20:28,073 with them. 462 00:20:28,073 --> 00:20:30,240 And at the end of the day, the most important detail 463 00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:33,700 is just that the students are there, and that there's 464 00:20:33,700 --> 00:20:34,950 someone for them to chat with. 465 00:20:34,950 --> 00:20:37,570 And so one thing that has worked out well in recent years-- 466 00:20:37,570 --> 00:20:40,740 both in Cambridge at Harvard and in New Haven at Yale-- 467 00:20:40,740 --> 00:20:44,720 is we've started inviting CS50's high school audience, a.k.a. 468 00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:46,020 CS50 AP. 469 00:20:46,020 --> 00:20:48,802 So both at Harvard and Yale do we have a few busloads 470 00:20:48,802 --> 00:20:50,760 of high school or middle school students coming 471 00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:52,890 on field trips with their teachers and parents 472 00:20:52,890 --> 00:20:55,450 to come see our undergraduates' final projects. 473 00:20:55,450 --> 00:20:58,770 And that's been great too, because it literally increases significantly 474 00:20:58,770 --> 00:21:02,100 the number of people who are there to chat up our own students. 475 00:21:02,100 --> 00:21:04,470 The younger students are often quite interested in what 476 00:21:04,470 --> 00:21:07,530 they might do in college, let alone in a place like Harvard or Yale. 477 00:21:07,530 --> 00:21:10,170 So it's just all the better, we hope, for our own students, 478 00:21:10,170 --> 00:21:12,870 who then have all the more of a genuine interest among passersby 479 00:21:12,870 --> 00:21:13,620 in their projects. 480 00:21:13,620 --> 00:21:16,245 BRIAN YU: Yeah, and some of the high school students recently-- 481 00:21:16,245 --> 00:21:18,750 I remember in this most recent CS50 Fair at Yale, 482 00:21:18,750 --> 00:21:20,610 some of the high school students had projects of their own 483 00:21:20,610 --> 00:21:22,380 that they were showing off and talking to people about. 484 00:21:22,380 --> 00:21:25,297 And it was really cool to see the kinds of stuff that they were doing. 485 00:21:25,297 --> 00:21:28,530 I unfortunately never got to see the Yale fair at the Commons, which 486 00:21:28,530 --> 00:21:29,788 sounds like a beautiful space. 487 00:21:29,788 --> 00:21:31,330 The first Yale fair that I remember-- 488 00:21:31,330 --> 00:21:34,140 I forget which year it was-- was at like a museum or something. 489 00:21:34,140 --> 00:21:36,425 And I remember the photobooth had dinosaurs in the background, 490 00:21:36,425 --> 00:21:39,640 and we were walking through these museum exhibits and seeing projects. 491 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:41,650 And that was a fun space, just something a little bit different-- 492 00:21:41,650 --> 00:21:42,940 DAVID MALAN: It was very weird, though. 493 00:21:42,940 --> 00:21:43,590 BRIAN YU: Yeah, it was different. 494 00:21:43,590 --> 00:21:45,840 DAVID MALAN: This was their museum of natural history, 495 00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:48,750 and there really were literal dinosaur bones in the photographs 496 00:21:48,750 --> 00:21:50,460 with the laptops and YouTube videos. 497 00:21:50,460 --> 00:21:53,100 And it was this weird collision of worlds between thousands 498 00:21:53,100 --> 00:21:55,890 of years ago and modernity now, so. 499 00:21:55,890 --> 00:21:58,140 But it was a beautiful space, so that worked out well. 500 00:21:58,140 --> 00:22:02,250 However, not unlike Northwest Science at Harvard, that building-- the museum 501 00:22:02,250 --> 00:22:04,380 was pretty far off campus. 502 00:22:04,380 --> 00:22:05,612 So we've used the library. 503 00:22:05,612 --> 00:22:07,320 We've used another event space on campus. 504 00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:10,330 But we're hoping this fall that Commons will reopen. 505 00:22:10,330 --> 00:22:12,372 It's been undergoing renovations for a few years. 506 00:22:12,372 --> 00:22:14,788 Don't know what it's going to look like yet on the inside. 507 00:22:14,788 --> 00:22:16,990 But we're hoping we can return to a grander space, 508 00:22:16,990 --> 00:22:19,448 especially now that we have some 200-plus students at Yale, 509 00:22:19,448 --> 00:22:22,570 so we kind of need the room to grow. 510 00:22:22,570 --> 00:22:27,780 But as you say, even more amazing, besides New Haven and Cambridge alike, 511 00:22:27,780 --> 00:22:29,370 some of our communities online. 512 00:22:29,370 --> 00:22:32,820 CS50x, so to speak, has been building up their own CS50 fairs, 513 00:22:32,820 --> 00:22:34,710 sometimes with advice and direction from us, 514 00:22:34,710 --> 00:22:37,710 but even more often, they're just inspired by the photographs 515 00:22:37,710 --> 00:22:41,550 that we've been posting from CS50 Fairs at Harvard and Yale. 516 00:22:41,550 --> 00:22:45,390 So most recently did some of our friends and students in Iraq 517 00:22:45,390 --> 00:22:50,370 have their own CS50x Iraq fair, I think the first ever. 518 00:22:50,370 --> 00:22:53,310 And they even duplicated down to the level 519 00:22:53,310 --> 00:22:58,350 of detail of getting the same emoji balloons that we had here in Cambridge 520 00:22:58,350 --> 00:23:00,070 that we have flying in the space. 521 00:23:00,070 --> 00:23:02,520 So it was fascinating seeing this parallel world 522 00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:06,013 where students, who were similarly proud of and had accomplished 523 00:23:06,013 --> 00:23:09,180 their final projects, were showing them off in a space very similar to ours, 524 00:23:09,180 --> 00:23:13,590 with balloons very similar to ours, with popcorn very similar to ours. 525 00:23:13,590 --> 00:23:16,140 And it was quite flattering, and just remarkable 526 00:23:16,140 --> 00:23:20,503 to see what the students there who were running this did with that vision 527 00:23:20,503 --> 00:23:21,420 and made it their own. 528 00:23:21,420 --> 00:23:23,610 BRIAN YU: Yeah, I remember you sharing some of the photos 529 00:23:23,610 --> 00:23:26,485 from that fair with me, and I remember looking at some of the photos, 530 00:23:26,485 --> 00:23:28,290 and for a split second, almost thinking it 531 00:23:28,290 --> 00:23:31,580 was our fair, because you see a bunch of tables and a bunch of emoji balloons. 532 00:23:31,580 --> 00:23:34,330 I'm like, I've never seen that anywhere else other than CS50 Fair. 533 00:23:34,330 --> 00:23:36,000 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, for sure. 534 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,060 But I should emphasize too, balloons are relatively easy to procure, 535 00:23:39,060 --> 00:23:41,730 though the helium element isn't ideal, but of course, that's 536 00:23:41,730 --> 00:23:44,610 what helps it fill the space literally, vertically. 537 00:23:44,610 --> 00:23:47,340 But the origins of the fair itself, I should emphasize, really 538 00:23:47,340 --> 00:23:49,260 were much, much more modest. 539 00:23:49,260 --> 00:23:53,010 2007 of CS50, there was no fair. 540 00:23:53,010 --> 00:23:56,070 And there was instead more traditional final project presentations. 541 00:23:56,070 --> 00:24:02,753 So before your time, we had that year some 200, 300 students as well. 542 00:24:02,753 --> 00:24:04,920 And in fact, it might have been 287 that first year, 543 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:09,430 and then like 332 the second year, but same order of magnitude. 544 00:24:09,430 --> 00:24:13,710 And we had reserved a whole bunch of small rooms on campus, 545 00:24:13,710 --> 00:24:15,990 and all of our teaching fellows, or TFs, would 546 00:24:15,990 --> 00:24:19,860 lead their sections or recitations of 10 to 20 students 547 00:24:19,860 --> 00:24:21,690 through a tour of everyone's final project. 548 00:24:21,690 --> 00:24:24,630 So you, if you were a student, would stand up for maybe five minutes 549 00:24:24,630 --> 00:24:27,838 and present your final project, then the next student, then the next student. 550 00:24:27,838 --> 00:24:30,810 And I as the instructor that year tried to bounce around these rooms 551 00:24:30,810 --> 00:24:34,140 as best I could, but I physically and temporally could not 552 00:24:34,140 --> 00:24:36,060 visit all of the rooms. 553 00:24:36,060 --> 00:24:38,520 And even the students and the TFs who were there, 554 00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,590 I don't think they were all very inspired. 555 00:24:40,590 --> 00:24:41,790 It was kind of boring. 556 00:24:41,790 --> 00:24:45,783 It was kind of a rote requirement that you be there, listen to your classmates 557 00:24:45,783 --> 00:24:46,950 present their final project. 558 00:24:46,950 --> 00:24:50,760 Ans while I'm sure there was some inspiration, there was no uptempo. 559 00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:52,170 There was no inspiration. 560 00:24:52,170 --> 00:24:53,500 There was no casual chitchat. 561 00:24:53,500 --> 00:24:55,140 It really was formal. 562 00:24:55,140 --> 00:24:57,960 And so that's what we tore down in 2008. 563 00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,410 We got rid of what no one really wanted to do-- everyone was really just going 564 00:25:01,410 --> 00:25:03,660 through these motions to present their final project-- 565 00:25:03,660 --> 00:25:05,585 and tried to turn it into something fun. 566 00:25:05,585 --> 00:25:07,710 I myself never tended a middle school science fair, 567 00:25:07,710 --> 00:25:11,670 but we turned it into what I assumed a middle school science fair was like, 568 00:25:11,670 --> 00:25:13,890 with everyone presenting their work at some sort, 569 00:25:13,890 --> 00:25:16,773 and we definitely added our own elements. 570 00:25:16,773 --> 00:25:17,940 But that was the motivation. 571 00:25:17,940 --> 00:25:21,930 But we beta tested the CS50 Fair in some form at Harvard Extension School. 572 00:25:21,930 --> 00:25:25,410 So I, and now you, have been teaching at Harvard Extension School for some time, 573 00:25:25,410 --> 00:25:27,013 our Continuing Ed program. 574 00:25:27,013 --> 00:25:30,180 And for a couple of our software-based classes that also culminated in final 575 00:25:30,180 --> 00:25:34,080 projects, we introduced a mini CS50 Fair very early on-- 576 00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:38,040 I believe before our 2008 CS50 Fair-- 577 00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,670 that just brought the students together, those who were local to Cambridge, 578 00:25:41,670 --> 00:25:42,960 in a small room on campus. 579 00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:47,190 But we didn't do it with formal presentations, like in 2007. 580 00:25:47,190 --> 00:25:51,020 We instead went to CVS, local convenience store and pharmacy, 581 00:25:51,020 --> 00:25:52,770 picked up some Entenmann's cake, which are 582 00:25:52,770 --> 00:25:56,220 these boxed-up cakes that you can get in some supermarkets and some convenience 583 00:25:56,220 --> 00:25:56,720 stores. 584 00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:00,330 And we got some plastic knives, and I think we got milk. 585 00:26:00,330 --> 00:26:03,720 We got some cups with milk for some delicious chocolate cake. 586 00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:05,057 And just turned on some music. 587 00:26:05,057 --> 00:26:07,140 And we laid out the tables, got rid of the chairs, 588 00:26:07,140 --> 00:26:10,080 and just invited the students-- our extension students those terms-- 589 00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:13,200 to come in, set up their laptops with power cords, wherever, 590 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:14,940 and just kind of roam about a room. 591 00:26:14,940 --> 00:26:18,210 And honestly, that had a different vibe to be sure. 592 00:26:18,210 --> 00:26:24,120 Much smaller scale, but no less proud, and no less accomplished. 593 00:26:24,120 --> 00:26:26,040 Just bringing people together more casually 594 00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,100 to delight in what they've done and what each other had done 595 00:26:29,100 --> 00:26:30,480 is all it really takes. 596 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:34,020 So truly, the lower bound here for a very successful CS50-like Fair 597 00:26:34,020 --> 00:26:35,700 is just some Entenmann's cakes. 598 00:26:35,700 --> 00:26:37,890 I don't think you even need the milk, because we've nixed that since. 599 00:26:37,890 --> 00:26:39,960 And some music too, I think, to fill in the gaps 600 00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,200 and grease the social context with some music is a good thing too. 601 00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:44,790 Uptempo, not something somber. 602 00:26:44,790 --> 00:26:47,460 BRIAN YU: So yeah, I was about to ask about that, the music. 603 00:26:47,460 --> 00:26:48,477 Who picks the playlist? 604 00:26:48,477 --> 00:26:49,810 I've always wondered about that. 605 00:26:49,810 --> 00:26:52,460 So I know there is like a CS50 Fair playlist, 606 00:26:52,460 --> 00:26:54,923 and someone presses play on that playlist. 607 00:26:54,923 --> 00:26:56,340 Where'd all those songs come from? 608 00:26:56,340 --> 00:26:59,520 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, so a friend of mine who gives me haircuts 609 00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:04,140 actually had, in his own salon many years ago, 610 00:27:04,140 --> 00:27:09,352 some really cool uptempo hip fashion-like music playing. 611 00:27:09,352 --> 00:27:11,310 And I think this was before the days of Shazam, 612 00:27:11,310 --> 00:27:13,977 so I couldn't just take out my phone and figure out what it was. 613 00:27:13,977 --> 00:27:15,310 So I asked him what it was. 614 00:27:15,310 --> 00:27:20,580 And he and his husband kindly put together a mix CD of music 615 00:27:20,580 --> 00:27:24,030 that we then played in MP3 format or something 616 00:27:24,030 --> 00:27:25,678 like that at the first CS50 Fair. 617 00:27:25,678 --> 00:27:27,720 And what was characteristic of it was that it was 618 00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,600 music that didn't really have lyrics. 619 00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:34,200 It was mostly just sounds and a lot of uptempo beats 620 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:38,040 that really was conducive to keeping the blood pumping, 621 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,273 and the conversations going, and just keeping the energy level up. 622 00:27:42,273 --> 00:27:44,940 And so for a couple of years, I think we used those soundtracks. 623 00:27:44,940 --> 00:27:48,930 I think sometime after that, I was at a conference or an event-- 624 00:27:48,930 --> 00:27:52,320 Google I/O, I think, which is Google's annual input output 625 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,690 conference for techies. 626 00:27:54,690 --> 00:27:57,727 And they had played really cool music that one year when 627 00:27:57,727 --> 00:27:59,310 everyone would come up onto the stage. 628 00:27:59,310 --> 00:28:02,220 And so I actually went and chatted with the AV technicians, 629 00:28:02,220 --> 00:28:04,860 figured out who their DJ was, and he kindly 630 00:28:04,860 --> 00:28:07,980 sent me a copy of the very music they had used for their own conference. 631 00:28:07,980 --> 00:28:11,040 So we used that music for a year or two since. 632 00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,970 Since then, Spotify came into existence, and so did 633 00:28:13,970 --> 00:28:16,450 Colton Ogden, formerly of this podcast. 634 00:28:16,450 --> 00:28:19,770 And he would DJ and pick songs out from Spotify. 635 00:28:19,770 --> 00:28:21,770 And most recently, this year, I think I-- 636 00:28:21,770 --> 00:28:23,520 I always describe the kind of music that I 637 00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,150 like for the event as fashion show music, or the kind of music 638 00:28:27,150 --> 00:28:31,202 you'd see in a cool clothing store, really, and that's just playing 639 00:28:31,202 --> 00:28:32,910 and you feel like you're in a cool place. 640 00:28:32,910 --> 00:28:35,400 So I think I literally just searched on Spotify this year 641 00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:36,390 for fashion show music. 642 00:28:36,390 --> 00:28:39,140 And sure enough, there's this massive playlist that you could use. 643 00:28:39,140 --> 00:28:39,665 So that's what we used-- 644 00:28:39,665 --> 00:28:41,640 BRIAN YU: There's Spotify playlists for just about anything. 645 00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,375 You search up any occasion, any genre, any mood you want, 646 00:28:44,375 --> 00:28:47,000 and there's a Spotify playlist that someone's compiled for you. 647 00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:49,290 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, and you know, because we've shared with our own CS50 648 00:28:49,290 --> 00:28:52,915 account some of our own playlists, you can probably search for CS50 Fair music 649 00:28:52,915 --> 00:28:56,040 and even find an answer to that question now too, though of course, someone 650 00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:57,392 needs to put it there, so. 651 00:28:57,392 --> 00:28:58,260 BRIAN YU: Yeah, that's good to know. 652 00:28:58,260 --> 00:28:59,968 And I really do think the music does have 653 00:28:59,968 --> 00:29:03,550 the effect of keeping the energy up and really encouraging these conversations. 654 00:29:03,550 --> 00:29:05,425 And I think that's the distinguishing feature 655 00:29:05,425 --> 00:29:09,370 of the CS50 Fair from the 2007-style presentations you were talking about. 656 00:29:09,370 --> 00:29:11,380 This is just much more conversational. 657 00:29:11,380 --> 00:29:14,307 It's all about just getting students to talk about their projects 658 00:29:14,307 --> 00:29:16,140 with other people that are interested in it, 659 00:29:16,140 --> 00:29:17,790 and having the opportunity to share that, 660 00:29:17,790 --> 00:29:21,030 and talk about the work they've done in just a semester of time in the class. 661 00:29:21,030 --> 00:29:23,310 DAVID MALAN: Yeah, yeah, it really isn't a resource question 662 00:29:23,310 --> 00:29:25,227 to this day with our Extension School courses, 663 00:29:25,227 --> 00:29:28,140 which are smaller scale in terms of numbers of students. 664 00:29:28,140 --> 00:29:31,260 We still just pick up some Entenmann's cakes, like literally , 665 00:29:31,260 --> 00:29:35,430 from CVS or the like, and get people together with some nice music, no milk, 666 00:29:35,430 --> 00:29:38,853 but just some tables and invite students to bring their laptops. 667 00:29:38,853 --> 00:29:40,770 And those are just as successful, so it really 668 00:29:40,770 --> 00:29:43,698 doesn't take all of the balloons and spectacle. 669 00:29:43,698 --> 00:29:45,990 It really just takes the people, at the end of the day. 670 00:29:45,990 --> 00:29:52,290 And again, making it more of a community social inspirational event, 671 00:29:52,290 --> 00:29:54,927 and not a presentational event, I think is the key distinction. 672 00:29:54,927 --> 00:29:57,010 BRIAN YU: Yeah, I think that's worked really well, 673 00:29:57,010 --> 00:29:59,080 and it's been a lot of fun for me as a staff member, 674 00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:00,990 and I think for students as well, just to be 675 00:30:00,990 --> 00:30:03,407 a part of that kind of experience, because it's definitely 676 00:30:03,407 --> 00:30:04,440 a memorable one. 677 00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,690 DAVID MALAN: That, then, is the CS50 Fair, and this was the CS50 podcast. 678 00:30:07,690 --> 00:30:08,680 My name is David Malan. 679 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:09,550 BRIAN YU: My name is Brian Yu. 680 00:30:09,550 --> 00:30:10,720 DAVID MALAN: And if you'd like to reach out 681 00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:13,750 with any suggestions or requests for future podcast episodes, 682 00:30:13,750 --> 00:30:17,940 do as always email us at podcast@cs50.harvard.edu. 683 00:30:17,940 --> 00:30:20,210 BRIAN YU: Talk to you next time.