The Τέχνη Project

Τέχνη is the Greek word for art.  It is also the root of the Greek and English words for technology. The objective of the Τέχνη project is to develop a new and revitalized approach to undergraduate education in computing that is based upon a strong connection between the arts and sciences. The Τέχνη approach employs problem based learning with semester-long problems taken from the domain of computer generated visual media. Course materials, publications, presentations and student images resulting from the project may are included on this web site. The Τέχνη project was originally supported by the National Science Foundation under grant Τέχνη: A New Approach to the B.A. Degree in Computer Science, award number 0305318.

The present project includes partners Clemson University, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Western Carolina University. It is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant CPATH EAE: Τέχνη - Evaluation, Adoption and Extension, award number 0722313. The investigators gratefully acknowledge this support without which the project not have been possible.  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in the material contained in these pages are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

For additional information on all NSF CPATH projects please also visit the CPATH Community Website.

Reviewed publications resulting from the Τέχνη project may be found here.

Course materials developed during the course of the project will also be made available by the Co-PIs through this web site. Parties interested in obtaining additional information or materials are encouraged to contact the Τέχνη Co-PI's directly.

Course materials developed at Clemson are available here:

Activities at partner institutions -

A summary of the activities undertaken at Western Carolina University may be found here.

A description of the Algoritharium developed at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington may be found here.

2010 REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) -

The Τέχνη project sponsored two REU projects during the summer of 2010.

At Clemson University, PI's Geist and Westall supervised 2^nd year undergraduate C.J. Corsi in a project that encompassed elements of both research in computer graphics and undergraduate curriculum development. Given an OpenCL lattice-Boltzmann generator of height fields modeling the behavior of deep water ocean waves that was developed by PI Geist , REU student Corsi developed an OpenCL raytracing system that was capable of real-time photo realistic rendering of the water surface. A paper resulting from this work was published in the Proceedings of the 6^th International Symposium on Visual Computing and was presented at the conference by Mr. Corsi. A short video may be found here. Results of this project are currently being applied in a new course in GPU programming that is being offered by PI Geist in Spring 2011.

At Western Carolina University PI Holliday worked with REU Chris Blades and Assistant Professor Andy Dalton to develop a new course in which students will write programs for mobile phone applications and test them on Motorola Droid phones. PI Holliday obtained a donation to WCU of 15 of the phones by Google. This project was publicized both by WCU in this article and which also appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper.