Splash Spring 2022
Course Catalog

Calling all Kpop fans! Whether you love Kpop songs, have always wanted to do a Kpop cover, or spend hours on Youtube everyday staring at Kpop boys...this class is for you! An hour will be dedicated to learning the choreography from one of your favorite Kpop groups. No experience necessary! This is a class for true beginners who want to try Kpop choreography.

Wanna learn how to dance? How bout breakdance! This beginner friendly workshop is open to everybody. You don't need any prior experience at all. All you need is a willingness to learn, clothes you can move in, and some water! Pull up and we'll give you the foundation you need to break it down!

Step is an incredible form of dance and performance using claps, stomps, and your body as percussion. This class is open to people with all different levels of experience!

Tap is an amazing and unique style of dance that makes music by rhythmically striking the floor. This workshop is open to all, regardless of dance experience. All you need is an interest in making your own rhythm to dance to!

Learn the basics of improv and play fun games!

Have you ever wanted to write a story but not known where to start? Do magical, incredible (or even seemingly mediocre) ideas come to life inside your head that you want to bring to life? Then this class is for you! We will cover the basics of character and world building for creative writing and hopefully you will leave class with the foundations of what you need to start writing stories in your very own fictional world!

Come and try out the art of Chinese Calligraphy! Brushes, ink, and paper will be provided. All you need is an eagerness to explore this creative, meditative, ancient art form. No prior knowledge of Chinese is required. By the end of the session, you'll leave with an understanding of the basic principles of Chinese calligraphy, as well as a few sample calligraphy pieces of your own to keep and display.

Have you ever looked at bridges, buildings, or cantilevers and wondered how they were built or why they were designed a certain way? This is the perfect class for you! In this introductory course we will discuss the different concepts behind the flow of forces in various structures, ending with a physical demonstration of different bridge designs and their ability to hold certain loads. This will be a great time, and you will learn a lot about the structures in our everyday urban environments!


Prerequisites
Introductory physics, specifically a basic understanding of vectors and forces.

Do you want to be a pilot? Have you ever wondered what the signs say on a runway? What does "November 3-2-1 Charlie Tango" mean anyways? Come and learn the basics of aviation (safely on the ground). We'll go over the basics of flight, how to talk to pilots on the radio, how to navigate with aviation maps, and much more!


Prerequisites
An enthusiasm for flight!

Guam, where's that? Learn about the U.S. territory Guam from a native of the island. Beyond its strategic location as a military base, what more do you know about Guam's history, people, and culture? This class provides an overview of Guam history and will fast forward to talk about the most pressing issues of the current administration. We'll hear about Guam's 60,000 stray dog problem, talk about village fiestas, and see some pictures of beaches.


Prerequisites
None

Delve deep in to the fascinating quantum realm of very small particles that seem to defy intuition, and learn about their use in doing exponentially fast computations, provably secure cryptography, and much more!

This class will give you a great and accurate starting intuition for quantum particles, quantum computers, and what a future quantum internet may look like.

Find out what the "quantum multiverse" really is, why you can't just look at quantum particles under a microscope, and how Einstein was wrong about the nature of quantum information!


Prerequisites
Familiarity with vectors and matrices is useful for getting the most out of the class.

This course will introduce some of the most common sorting algorithms used in computer science. We will cover insertion, selection, and merge sort, with an emphasis on investigating the efficiency of the algorithms. We will be covering the theory behind the algorithms as opposed to the code; therefore, no previous coding experience is required. Although the course will be primarily lecture based, we will try to provide as many opportunities for student engagement as is possible. The course will culminate in a sorting challenge, where students will be tasked with identifying various sorting algorithms through various pieces of information about an array that is being sorted.

You probably have heard of the statement/proof tables and after that point never wanted to touch geometry again. My goal is to make you like geometry 10% more. We'll touch on some of the gems in geometry -- convex separation, incidence theory, Ramsey theory, Helly's theorem, and possibly more as time permits. We'll focus on statements/questions/ideas, not on proofs. Come prepared to learn something new.


Prerequisites
An interest to learn something new.

Knots appear everywhere, from art and religion to medicine. In this class, we will see how mathematics can (surprisingly!) help us distinguish between different kinds of knots. Topics include the Reidemeister moves, tricolorability, and the Alexander polynomial. Be ready to draw lots of pictures!


Prerequisites
High school algebra (specifically polynomials), but no proof experience needed :)

We'll be trying to "run" a hotel with infinitely many rooms. It turns out that having infinitely many rooms has some interesting consequences...


Prerequisites
Interest in math! It may also be useful to have taken algebra.

Are you tired of hearing about the amazing advances of "machine learning", or how "neural networks" will revolutionize the world as we know it, and not really understanding what any of these terms mean? Come to this class to learn the basics about the closest humans have come to achieving some sort of artificial intelligence. You will learn how computer scientists and engineers have combined insight from calculus and other areas of math to achieve major progress in areas like computer vision. This is a very cool topic, and it'll be fun!


Prerequisites
High school math, preferably some exposure to calculus

A giant Asteroid named Asteroid (Astronomers thought it was a boring asteroid, so they didn't bother naming it) suddenly changes trajectory and smashes onto Earth. But you are a smart person, with a spaceship available to go to space (how? because you are a billionaire). Now you must hunt for a habitable exoplanet using your resources to save humanity (perhaps), but most importantly, your cat. Join us for a fun session where we dive into various exoplanetary systems, learn how they differ from ours, and hopefully find (detect) a likable planet.

What is an alternative to Newtonian mechanics, which seem to be the only formalism in classical mechanics we learn in school? This course will introduce you to the wonderful world of variational mechanics (which I find to be much more elegant than Newtonian physics), covering Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, Noether's theorem, and how to derive principles of Newtonian mechanics. If we have time I will go through some problems and applications.


Prerequisites
Calculus and Newtonian mechanics

How does moving at a constant speed change how you view the world? We will be covering time dilation, length contraction, and loss of simultaneity, and derive the Lorentz transformations and present it with 4-vectors. We will compare these with the Galilean transformation and see how it reduces to classical mechanics if you suppose an infinite speed of light. Time permitting, we will work through some common problems and its roots in electromagnetism.


Prerequisites
None

From the study of the very smallest organisms to the very largest, we can use a wide variety of mathematical and computational tools to study all sorts of biological phenomenon. Come learn a bit about networks, dynamical systems, and more.


Prerequisites
Comfort with arithmetic, algebra (i.e. writing equations with variables), trigonometry (cosine, sine), exponents/logarithms, and pre-calc tools (e.g. graphing a function, rates of change, probability).

An introduction to the fundamentals of biochemistry through examples from skincare. Topics will include organic chemistry and biological signalling, and everything will be developed from the ground-up. Already a biochemistry ninja? Come for the skincare!

For all genders and identities.


Prerequisites
At least one chemistry class

Have you ever wondered what’s going on inside your dog’s head? Is she really gazing up at you with love and admiration, or does she just want the piece of food in your hand? How did dogs go from wolves to “man’s best friend”? This class will explore where dogs came from, why we’re so close with them, what they perceive about us and our world, and what that all means for our relationship with them.

Credit scores and credit cards can seem confusing.
This course aims to teach you some of credit scores most common myths and break down its importance using the company's own descriptions.

Ever kept a goldfish or a betta and heard people say "They die easily". Yeah...they aren't supposed to do that. This course introduces you to the things necessary to get started as a fish keeper, including the vital parts of a fish tank, the importance of research, and miscellaneous things like fish compatibility.

Learn about ways to take care of your everyday mental health! We will cover topics about grounding, coping strategies, and proper and improper mental wellness techniques!

Learn the exciting art of Hanabi, a collaborative card game that will hone your deduction skills.

A chill jog around Princeton campus - we'll take you on a tour you'll never be able to get from Orange Key! Chat with other students, quack back at ducks, and enjoy the fresh spring air.


Prerequisites
Bring appropriate clothing and shoes! We'll go slow but it will be long.

we will learn about the flags of the world, the countries (or territories!) they represent, and the meanings they hold.


Prerequisites
none

Want to learn new, strategy based card games? Normal playing cards are mostly used for casino games in the US, but in Japan, card games are meant to be played with friends and family. Learn games like 大貧民 (Daihinmin) and ページワン (Page One) to introduce to your friends!