Club goals, activites and why you should join!
Table of Contents
Introduction #
Node is a club first and foremost for humans. Any human who is anything from slightly interested to passionate to “bored and looking for something different” can join Node as long as they don’t look completely out of place in a high school club. Node will be a fun and easy way to explore the wild world of mathematics and programming that is simply outside the scope of the school curriculum, all while befriending smart and interesting people. You can all information of this page in a Google Doc.
Club goals #
- Grow interest, encourage learning, and enrich activities in mathematics and programming.
- Provide a taste for academic challenges outside normal school curriculum through competition and collaboration.
- Build a friendly and helpful community of like-minded people.
Club activities #
- Share and gain knowledge in relevant disciplines with classes, lectures, problems, projects, etc.
- Compete with a healthy mindset.
- Collaborate on interesting projects.
Why you should join #
- Intellectually challenge yourself in a very different (and much more difficult) way from school academics.
- Network with new and interesting people.
- Learn to think logically, mathematically and algorithmically.
- If you like what you see, consider joining by filling up this form or you can DM us on any of our social medias.
Mathematics #
Maths is quite fun. And fortunately We’re not talking about what we’re taught in school. Maths can be much more fun than that. It can be much more interesting and so much more challenging. And perhaps, it’s the only “science” subject which is somehow even beautiful.
What is this new kind of maths we’re talking about? Well it’s simply the kind where you don’t know how to solve a problem before solving it. That’s all really. The fun and interesting and challenging and beautiful maths happens when instead of remembering how to solve a problem or writing the solution down immediately after digesting the problem, you try to come up with a solution. And Node will try to be a gentle (and friendly) portal into this new world.
A1: Sharing and gaining knowledge #
To make sure we’re nice and intelligent, classes and lectures can and probably will be conducted in the club. The classes and lectures will not have a specific structure like a syllabus or routine, instead it’ll be like a torrent market where people leech and seed as they please. Here is some basic information:
- Anyone can take a class as long as they try to share something interesting. It might not even be a certain topic. It can even be a single problem as even 1 problem can contain many neat techniques.
- A few planned classes: basic geometry, basic number theory, basic graph theory, a few interesting problems like relating pascal’s triangle and binomial coefficients, a nice mathematical puzzle, etc.
- Obviously it goes without saying that you’ll be able to discuss problems and solutions with other (possibly many) members of the club.
A2: Compete #
Competition is not for everyone (but so isn’t maths) but it’s a pretty fun way to explore a new field. There are a lot of maths competitions all over Bangladesh and they’re a great way to meet cool new problems and cool new people. The biggest of these is obviously the national mathematics olympiad, BdMO. We also hope to host competitions in Node.
A3: Collaborate #
We currently don’t really know how you would collaborate in mathematics. Maybe prove theorems together? That might be a fun thing to do but I’ve (the author) never tried it. But what you can try is to collaborate in more applied mathematics, like mathematical modelling. Or maybe write a book, collaboratively.
Programming #
In 2022 everyone and their cousins are getting into CSE in some university. But a nice thing about programming and computer science is that you don’t have to wait for university, you can start now! But it might be a little daunting… But Node will try to make experiencing this world less daunting and more fun!
A1: Sharing and gaining knowledge #
Similar to the programming section, classes and lectures can and probably will be conducted in the club to make sure we’re all nice and intelligent. The classes and lectures will not have a specific structure like a syllabus or routine, instead it’ll be like a torrent market where people leech and seed as they please. Here is some basic information:
- Anyone can take a class as long as they try to share something interesting. It might not even be a certain topic. It can even be a single problem as even 1 problem can contain many neat techniques.
- Unlike the maths section, there’s lots of classes planned for this. But most of those are not “programming”. This is because it’s a little hard to teach someone who can write proper code something new which he cannot teach himself. Planned programming only classes: basic Python, basic C++, possibly basic Rust. Planned CS classes:
- Algorithms: greedy algorithms, divide and conquer algorithms, dynamic programming algorithms, graph algorithms, probabilistic algorithms, etc.
- Data structures: fenwick trees, segment trees, sparse tables, trie, etc.
- Interesting problems and applications of above.
- Obviously it goes without saying that you’ll be able to discuss problems and solutions with other (possibly many) members of the club.
A2: Compete #
Competitive programming isn’t for everyone (but so isn’t programming) but it’s a great way to apply and develop algorithmic thinking. This algorithmic thinking can go a long way and some even say it helps in real developer jobs. There are lots of programming competitions in Bangladesh, the most relevant for school students among those is BdOI. These competitions are a very nice place to meet cool new problems and cool new people.
A3: Collaborate #
Intuitively, there’s lots to collaborate on with programming. Projects can range from making a simple discord bot to raising a startup to analysing real world phenomena with scientific computing. You might find like-minded people in Node to collaborate with you on your next big thing. There’s lots of possibilities. And you can always write a book, collaboratively.