Getting Started
Wow. What a great start to SWITCH 2021. We kicked off with the CSTAR(Computer Science Teaching at Rice) conference during the prior week, which was an awesome opportunity to meet other K-12 educators passionate about implementing Computer Science concepts in their classrooms with a focus on cross-discipline implementation. It was my first exposure to MicroBit, which I could see myself using next year in introductory CS classes as a first glance at microcontroller programming using block programming and python. I believe this community established through CSTAR could benefit education in Texas through sharing resources and ideas to vertically align Computer Science education and offer students exposure to these concepts at an earlier age.
Presentations
Dr. Zach Ballard from UCLA gave a very enlightening description on his work with developing technology for point-of-care sensing of specific molecules and biomarkers using smart phones and machine learning. He also developed Vertical Flow Assays from detecting multiple different molecules with a single sample and testing for the same molecule multiple times in the same multiplexed manner. This can yield significantly more robust and reliable data from a single test while also reducing costs and making testing more widely available through utilizing low cost and widely available technologies. I found Dr. Ballard’s work to be quite extraordinary and am very interested to see the impacts on the future of healthcare.
On Wednesday we had a fantastic presentation from Mr.Gerard L. Cote from Texas A&M, Director of the PATHS-UP Executive Committee, who talked to us about the idea of having financially accessible, wearable, reliable tech devices that can take biometric readings from patients or utilize embedded devices to monitor specific metrics, such as blood sugar or cardiovascular health markers, which can inform patients and doctors in areas that are underserved and/or economically disadvantaged. These technologies, I think, will be vital in the future to maintain adequate levels of health management, both for individuals as well as for the U.S. healthcare system as a whole.
Independent work
I spent a large portion of my independent research time this week setting up a virtual python environment in Visual Studio Code, downloading many packages including matplotlib, numpy, and SciKit Learn, as well as setting up the Git integration in VS Code so that if any technical problems arise using version control I can revert to previous builds of my code. I then set out working through examples implementing SciKit Learn functions on some example datasets and running through some KNN classification using a dataset representing cars, with features such as “buying”, “maintenance”, and “safety” with the goal of becoming more comfortable with the workflows in training and testing a model from scratch. I am excited to continue increasing my knowledge of machine learning and the ability to apply the concepts to real world data as we move through the SWITCH program assignments this summer.
Credit: towarddatascience.com
