CMU CS to be on Reality Television
Sue and I took some of the assistant professors and their significant others out to dinner a few weeks ago. This is something we do every once in a while, just for fun. With good food and lots of wine, I usually learn some great things, because our faculty always seem to have an incredible variety of cool new projects in the works.
In this case, the one project that impressed me most was the creation of a new reality television show, called “Project Runtime,” starring our very own Dean Randy Bryant as a kind of host/commentator. The fact that our faculty could muster up the time, energy, and Hollywood connections to make this all happen is pretty amazing. I am also happy to see the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council, the Image of Computing Task Force, and our very own Women@SCS committee supporting this project.
For his part, Randy Bryant has really enjoyed doing the show (the first couple of episodes have been taped already) and sees it as a way to promote his textbook and the DISC concept. There is a belief that television can be used to encourage more young people to enter the field of computer science. As he remarked to me recently, “I think a lot of kids watch reality TV, and so a show where a bunch of smart people have to design, say, cool new Hadoop applications in order to win the opportunity to get them demonstrated in the next Star Trek movie sequel, could really make an impact.” One requirement of the job is that Randy has had to undergo a makeover in his appearance and dress. Here are a couple of before-and-after photos:
Looking good, eh? For non-disclosure reasons we aren’t allowed to reveal too much about what happens on the show, but one tidbit that is worth revealing is that he uses the tag line, “Make it work.”
Peter Lee @ April 1, 2008