Splash Spring 2022
Course Catalog

For all skill levels: an explanation of basic portrait drawing techniques followed by a workshop with one-on-one assistance from instructor. You'll create your own self portrait to take home at the end of the class! You can bring your own sketchpad and drawing pencils (number two is good too!), or use provided.


Class Style
Activity

How many times have you had a question about periods, sex, hormones, or any other topic in reproductive health - but you didn’t know who to ask, or how? This class is your opportunity to empower yourself with knowledge about how your body works and skills to advocate for your reproductive health. This isn’t your typical sex ed: we’ll dive into the history of gynecology, explain reproductive anatomy that is sometimes only taught in medical school, and answer all of your pressing questions.

We will mainly cover female reproductive health in this class, but anyone of any sex or gender identity is welcomed (and encouraged) to join.


Class Style
Discussion

Prerequisites
None! No matter what prior education you have received on reproductive health, we’ll make sure you’ll learn something new.

Have you ever wondered what you can do to activate change to make your community a healthier place for everyone? In this class, you will learn about citizen science and the community-level factors that impact health. You will also become a citizen scientist yourself using a cool app! Be part of a larger conversation of how technology can be used to make healthier, more engaged communities.


Class Style
Discussion

Did you know that there are as many coronavirus particles in an infected person
as the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy? Yet, all the coronavirus
produced in the past year weighs less than a gallon of water! Life on Earth is
described by vastly different scales than our own. In this class we will come
to grips with these scales by making comparisons to things more familiar to
ourselves: How many movies could be stored in your genome? How much space in a cell does your genome occupy? What organisms produce most of the oxygen on Earth? In the process,
we’ll gain humbling new perspectives about life and its evolution on Earth.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Understanding and manipulating exponents; familiarity with basic molecular biology (DNA, RNA, proteins) useful but not essential

As we zoom in to smaller and smaller scales, the universe starts behaving very differently, completely defying our intuition about how things work. But what does this have to do with cats, black holes, and comptuers?


Class Style
Seminar

Come learn the fundamentals of chemistry using your favorite candies! Learn how Skittles, chocolate, and other treats can teach us about polarity, density, and solubility.


Class Style
Activity

Prerequisites
Please note that the candies used in these experiments may contain common allergens, such as nuts, milk, and wheat.

Have you ever wondered how your clothes get to be colored? In this course we will seek to answer this question and more as we explore how different types of dyes can interact with fabrics in diverse ways. The course will consist of a demonstration with a "magic" dye bath followed by a lecture/discussion.


Class Style
Seminar

Prerequisites
Basic chemistry knowledge

Come learn chemical reactions by playing with molecules in our real-time interactive computer simulations using virtual reality headsets and controllers!


Class Style
Activity

Prerequisites
Have taken or enrolled in a high-school chemistry course. Basic understanding of atoms and bonds.

We will build a website from scratch and publish it to the web for anyone in the world to see! We will use Python’s Flask framework for our backend server and HTML/CSS to style our website’s frontend. We will host our website for free using Heroku.

The class will cover the following topics in sequence:

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1. Basic overview of how websites work (what “clients” and “servers” are, the difference between “frontend” and “backend” development, and how your browser communicates with websites).

2. Explanation of how Python’s Flask framework fits into this paradigm, what problem it solves, and the various elements of a basic Flask app.

3. Live coding! I’ll mirror my screen to a projector and walk you through every step of getting your own Flask website up-and-running from scratch. Time permitting, we’ll aim to cover how to…
a. Run your Flask server and view your website in a browser
b. Create a single page with HTML and CSS
c. Support multiple pages with URL routing
d. Create dynamic pages with Jinja templating
e. Allow users to submit data through forms
f. Authenticate users with a login/signup flow

4. Once we finish our website, we’ll upload it to Heroku (a free and easy-to-use hosting provider) so that anyone in the world can view our website!


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
The formatting appears weird here, so please visit this Google Doc to view the prerequisites for this course: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PcqEuVE4gDGDxqqsPSqUbxke99M_6S72r3SMTHCy0oo/edit?usp=sharing

Ever wondered how the heck can your laptop or phone even function? What the hell is binary and how does your operating system send these signals to your GPU to render the latest PC Game in 4K or to your speaker to play the newest Olivia Rodrigo song?

It turns out all these complex systems merge remarkably to create all sorts of fascinating applications. In this class we're explore the origins of computing, how processors and GPUs work, their differences and similarities, and how they merge with your operating system to create your modern smartphone or computer.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
No hard prerequisites but some programming experience and general algebra might be helpful.

You may have heard of the amazing AI machines that are able to beat any player in the world in Chess...but is that all AI can do? The answer is definitively no! In fact, AI has already started to teach humans strategies we have never considered before. In this class, we'll dive into the latest kinds of AI, and what they can offer us. We'll see how they can generate essays from scratch (with great power comes great responsibility!), paint realistic landscapes in the blink of an eye, and come up with world record-setting strategies for all your favorite games (yes, even Starcraft 2)! We'll also see how they're opening up amazing possibilities with groundbreaking applications, from finding new breakthrough medicines to growing food better and faster.


Class Style
Activity

Have you ever wondered "why are mathematicians and computer scientists so romantically successful?" What are the chances you find your soulmate? In this class, learn about some mathematical and computational approaches to the elusive search for love! We will introduce various ideas in computer science from randomization to stable matchings to the P vs NP problem through the lens of romance… all the while dishing out real life dating advice!


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Exposure to algebra and basic algorithms will be helpful. No coding experience necessary!

Virtual and Augmented Reality have been all the buzz over the past few months, but most demos we've seen have been confined to the world around us. But what would an AR interface for space travel look like? Join Stanford's ARROW team in building an Augmented Reality interface for Lunar exploration, and learn about the challenges involved.


Class Style
Activity

How do you work the levers of product-led growth?

And how can you sell SaaS to your first customers... and get to $1MM annual recurring revenue (ARR) – eventually raising a Series A?

Here's what this class will cover 👇

1️⃣ Bring an entrepreneurial bent to your CS skills and optimize *what you can learn* from people using your software.

2️⃣ Build a go-to-market (GTM) plan

- how do you design sprints to get engineering work done
- how do you quickly get customers *most important*
- how do you close deals and show results

3️⃣ Know when you have product market fit & should raise a Series A

From Stanford’s AI Lab to the world of cold calling, bring your startup ideas and hear stories of funny last min engineering failures... and success!


Class Style
Seminar

There exists a fundamental connection between computer programs and mathematical proofs. In fact, the types and values of a computer program may be seen as another side of the same coin of the logical statements of a formal proof. We will give a simple introduction to the connection between these two ideas, and arrive at conclusions about how we can use this connection.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Having written a computer program and/or a formal proof may be helpful, is not required.

How do you train a dolphin or a killer whale? And what can AI learn from it? Take a dive into the surprising connections between animal training and cutting-edge artificial intelligence algorithms. From Stanford’s robot labs to the wet n’ wild world of orca trainers, hear stories of frustration, innovation, and triumph.

In this class you will learn the basics of animal training and reinforcement learning. We will look at how these two seemingly disjoint fields share many of the same insights. To round it all out, we will look at how behavior techniques can be used to improve your interpersonal skills!


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
A cursory knowledge of algebra / precalculus

Climate change is the defining challenge of our century and the green movement has already begun. This course aims to help students understand the largest sources of carbon emissions today, learn about the stakeholders across the public and private sectors leading the transition to a sustainable future, and provide direction to find a role within the climate movement.


Class Style
Seminar

Want to take photos like NASA? You've come to the right place! In this class, you will learn the basics of astrophotography – the art of taking pictures of space objects like galaxies, nebulae, and planets.

We will discuss the entire process, from picking a target to processing the final image. Topics covered include telescopes, general astronomy, manual camera settings, tips for taking night-time photos, image processing, and more!


Class Style
Lecture

In this class we will dive into why our planet is getting warmer and how it is effecting our lives and the ecosystems of the world. We will also talk about what the future of the world looks like with respect to climate change as well as what we can individually do to help stop climate change.


Class Style
Seminar

Prerequisites
n/a

Students will learn about muscles and how they enable human movement; applications to sport, medicine, and robotics; and how biomechanists analyze these things. Students will get first hand experience as a biomechanist in analyzing jumping.


Class Style
Lecture

It's a bad day when your phone screen cracks or your car tire pops, but imagine your entire cargo ship splitting in two! Join us for this demo-filled extravaganza where we examine materials in extreme environments and how it leads to their untimely demise!


Class Style
Activity

Have you ever wondered what makes electric vehicles go? Curious about the insides of a battery from an actual Tesla Model S? Join us in this workshop as we will explore how batteries are engineered for technologies such as electric vehicles, flashlights, and hearing aids. You’ll get hands-on experience with the components used in real batteries and learn about how they work together to power our world.


Class Style
Activity

When driving across a bridge or stepping into a building, have you ever thought about what went into its design? Have you ever considered what may happen if these designs fail? In this class, we will introduce the basics of structural engineering design. Then, we will discuss large structural design failures and why they occurred. The class will begin with a lecture for introductory information, but will become more interactive when we discuss the failures.


Class Style
Discussion

Batteries have become an essential piece of in our life. In this short course, we will explain the basics of Li ion batteries.
The first part of the session will cover the basics of batteries: By performing "the battery dance" and making our own lemon cells, we will learn how batteries run.

In the second part we will transfer our knowledge to Li ion batteries. What makes them special? What can we do to run them more efficiently? What could be the future of Li ion batteries?


Class Style
Activity

Prerequisites
Basic knowledge in chemistry and physics: What are ions, what are electrons? What is potential energy?

Want to learn about some of the materials that had the biggest impacts on the world? We'll discuss chocolate, concrete, vitamin C, energy materials and more - all materials that had a huge impact on the world we live in!


Class Style
Lecture

Ever since its inception in the 8th century, chess has constantly fascinated us, but even after computers achieved superhuman performance, the game is still flourishing.

Join us as we embark on a journey where we will uncover some beautiful checkmating patterns, tactics, and strategies, and cultivate a deeper appreciation for the game.


Class Style
Discussion

Prerequisites
Basic familiarity with chess, though not strictly required.

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is responsible for some crazy cool inventions — like the internet and radar. But what happens when ambitious scientists get a liiitttle too much creative freedom?

Join this class to learn about U.S. defense projects that nobody knows about — ones that could have ended the world and ones that could’ve saved it.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
None

Do you think you're smarter than the average person? Do you think your brain operates at a higher function than most? Put those skills to the test in a lecture that is designed to bend your brain's perception through optical illusions while teaching psychological phenomena behind these illusions, helping you to better know your brain.


Class Style
Lecture

Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in the late Neolithic period and left very little archaeological evidence. But we do know very specific things about them—their patrilineal society, their focus on animal husbandry, their lack of understanding of silver smelting. How? Their words. No one speaks their language today, but we do have reconstructions of their words based on languages that descended from Proto-Indo-European—languages as diverse as Bengali, Armenian, and English. Archaeology’s not just digging in the dirt. Come explore how old words can be put together to make discoveries, and how regular sound changes can tell us what words people were using thousands of years ago. We will reconstruct ancient words and show how they can be adapted to fit other languages. You'll learn how different languages have different sets of sounds, and how we can use these sounds to plumb the depths of the past. We'll talk about the history of individual words and languages, as well as general patterns of change.


Class Style
Seminar

Prerequisites
An interest in linguistics/language/history would probably increase your enjoyment of this class!

Learn how to debate in a friendly atmosphere. Learn the difference between an informal argument and a structured debate. Learn debate strategy, and have some fun debating whatever topics come to your mind. Instructor is an experienced high school and Stanford debater, and loves talking about whatever comes to your mind.


Class Style
Discussion

Come by for calming music and a gentle meditation to facilitate inner peace, social harmony, and joy.


Class Style
Activity

Enjoy a break for lunch with your friends! Please register for at least one lunch period on each day of the program.

Enjoy a break for lunch with your friends! Please register for at least one lunch period on each day of the program.

Do you have an idea to better your community? Have you ever dreamed of starting an organization, project, or initiative for social good? In this workshop, you will get to hear from founders of organizations who will be sharing their secrets! We will cover everything from forming your mission statement to how to create engaging social media pages. We’ll talk about community partnerships, mentorships, and resources that made our organizations come to life.


Class Style
Discussion

What is the nature of light? How and where does light go? We will explore how we can control light to achieve fascinating phenomena, using only a simple concept: refractive index. There will be videos and demonstrations. After this class, you will begin to see how everyday objects can manipulate light!


Class Style
Lecture

Have you ever wondered how chemistry can play a role in providing energy for our daily life?

In this seminar, we will introduce you to two forms of energy carriers, battery and chemical fuels, and teach you how they can power our future vehicles in a clean manner. We will start by giving you a historical perspective of energy chemistry powering our human society during the past decades, and we will talk about why Li-ion battery is an important invention that wins the Nobel Prize! Moreover, we will prepare some exciting demonstrations to help you understand how energy can be easily stored and transferred in/between battery and chemical fuels.


Class Style
Seminar

Why won't my souffle rise?
Why did this sauce split?
Why did my soda fizz over?

If you've ever cooked, you know chefs are subject to the whims of physics. This class will serve as an introduction to the world of fluid mechanics through the lens of culinary science. We'll perform experiments about various fluid phenomena experienced in foods, and have discussions about the underlying physical and chemical mechanisms at play.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Physics & algebra. Calculus is a plus but not required.

How do snow crystals form in the atmosphere? To make sense of this phenomenon, we will apply fundamental materials science concepts ranging from heterogeneous nucleation to Fick's laws of diffusion. Using these concepts and their associated equations, we will derive the rate at which snow crystals nucleate and grow.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Recommended (but not required): high school chemistry and calculus.

In this class we will take a dive into one of the most exciting advances in physics in the past 150 years: Einstein's special relativity. It sounds intimidating, but the basics of special relativity can actually be done with a bit of algebra and two important assumptions. Take this class and see that space and time aren't exactly what they seem...


Class Style
Seminar

Prerequisites
Good algebra skills and basic physics exposure is a plus

Dimensional analysis is a very powerful technique in physics which allows us to obtain answers to complicated problems by what seems like magic. For example, physicist GI Taylor used it to estimate the energy yield of the Trinity nuclear test, simply based on a photo of the explosion! We will discuss how dimensional analysis works and work through many examples from the frequency of a pendulum to the energy spectrum of turbulence. We will also talk about when it breaks down, which leads into one of the biggest developments in the physics of the 20th century: the renormalization group. We will discuss the conceptual basis of the renormalization group, which is used to study systems poised at the critical threshold between two states: for example water vapor just as it is condensing to liquid. Time permitting, we will work out a brief example.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Algebra, basic physics

Why are electronics so small? Have you ever thought how you can make your phone faster and less power-hungry?

Join us as we discuss the technologies that can enable energy-efficient computing inside the devices we use every day! Tuning the fundamental properties of nanomaterials is crucial, and we will show the connection between materials science and nanoscale devices that drives such energy-efficiency.

We will also provide a tour of experimental facilities so you can see this first-hand!


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Just show up!

What is color? What happens when you add the colors of the rainbow? Come play with lights and paint to understand the science of colors and how we perceive them!


Class Style
Activity

Prerequisites
None required. We will use some simple algebra.

Have you ever wondered how cupcake batter transforms into a fluffy, delicious treat?

In this class, we'll explore the chemical processes that are all around us - including in our kitchens. From the decomposition reaction of baking soda to the caramelization of glucose, we'll give you the chemist's perspective on cooking. And, yes, there will be cupcakes.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
No prior chemistry knowledge is expected! We'll provide all the background (and ingredients) you need.

Stop by to learn about issues in Asian-Pacific Islander health issues ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ

Presented by members of Stanford Pre-Med APAMSA (Asian Pacific American Medical Student Assoc.)


Class Style
Discussion

Ever seen something zip across the sky that's definitely not a bird, plane, or Superman? In this course, we'll take a look at some solid evidence released by the U.S. Navy and other world governments showing UAPs (formerly known as UFOs) in action. We'll dive into records that used to be top secret until a few years ago, analyze the key features of the amazing things these UAPs are able to do, and talk about the ways in which they don't seem to play by the textbook rules of physics we know and love. While this may leave you with more questions than answers, it will certainly broaden your imagination of what could be out there, even on our home planet Earth!


Class Style
Seminar

One of the greatest wonders of the natural world is the sheer diversity found in the forms and functions of life on planet earth. While much of this is easily seen by the naked eye, the vast majority is hidden in the microscopic world right under our noses, in the kingdom of bacteria. The goal of this class will be to introduce our students to the amazing diversity of bacteria living right under- and maybe in- our noses. We will explore different bacteria that can glow, conduct electricity and even sense the earth’s magnetic field.


Class Style
Lecture

What makes lasers so special and useful in research and life? How is laser light different than a light bulb? How do you make a laser?

In this class we'll start off lecture style and learn about the history of lasers and how they are used. Then we'll do an interactive simulation where you get to build your own laser to better understand how they work. Finally, we'll use lasers to do an experiment where we measure the diameter of our hair!


Class Style
Activity

Ever wonder what makes glow sticks and highlighers so bright? What do they have to do with jellyfish and Tomales Bay kayaking?

Find out in this hands-on class!


Class Style
Activity

Time travel: it’s not just for the big screen anymore! From blue boxes to black holes, society is as obsessed as it's ever been with cracking the chronological code. This class will cover both the scientific theory and fictional representations of time travel throughout popular culture (yes, including Doctor Who). We’ll discuss film, debate the primary theories and tropes (is it possible to rewrite history? Could a time loop really happen?), become special relativity experts, and even attempt a little time travel of our own.


Class Style
Lecture

From the outside, science may appear to be a unified field of study in which nothing but cold hard facts are listened to. However, digging deeper reveals a much more chaotic truth! From debates between molecular versus systems biologists, universe versus multiverse cosmologists, and theoretical versus experimental physicists, there are times when scientists just don't get along. What happens then? How does this affect what concepts are studied, what working in a laboratory is like, and who ends up being "right," if anyone? Come find out the tea and how scientists throw shade!

Familiarity with the aforementioned concepts, among others to be discussed, is not necessary and will be provided in class!


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Some high school level science will be helpful!

Presidential or parliamentary systems? First-past-the-post? Proportional representation? The electoral college? There are many ways to design a democratic political system that will have various effects on who gets elected, who is represented, and much more.
In a democracy, people typically demand representative and accountable government. Many also wish for their government to be efficient and for their political system to maintain peace. However, some of these demands may come into conflict with each other. It is difficult for a democratic system to satisfy all these demands.
Through examining different ways to design a democracy, this seminar will function as an introduction to comparative politics. We will be thinking about different factors that may influence how the "ideal" democracy looks and how we can evaluate outcomes across the world.


Class Style
Seminar

This course is an introduction to Microeconomics, or the study of how individuals and firms make decisions to allocate scarce resources. Students will learn to develop an *intuition for economics*, rather than only a mechanical understanding. To do so, we will explore the mathematical intuition underlying microeconomic concepts. We will study and derive concepts like supply and demand, diminishing returns, opportunity cost, and their real-life applications (among others!).

Economics can be intimidating! This course makes microeconomics accessible to all students and teaches them how to think analytically about economics.


Class Style
Lecture

Prerequisites
Algebra 1 is helpful, but all that's required is a desire to learn!

Working on your college application essays or want to get a head start? Sign up for tips and practice exercises as you approach those identity-probing questions. The primary learning objective of this class is to improve your ability to express your authentic self through your writing; and to come away with ideas about how to present your most formative experiences in your outstanding personal essays.


Class Style
Seminar

Prerequisites
Optional: printed draft of your personal essay (if applicable). Required: A willingness to explore your aspirations and express your best possible self through writing. Bring something to write on and something to write with, preferably pen and paper.