Fundraising
Consider giving to this year's campaign, Sustain. Attain. Train.
Summary Reports:
2024 Campaign - In For Tech Excellence
Projects
In For Tech Excellence funds were used to support transformative tech projects that empower Allegheny students to thrive in the evolving tech landscape and engage in their community.
big-iron
big-iron is a student–faculty research effort developing a vendor-neutral cloud development environment that streamlines modern software workflows. This summer, the team expanded its infrastructure to support smoother remote development through improved container orchestration, terminal session management, and secure authentication. Their progress sets the stage for broader deployment and future additions like collaborative coding and instructional tools.Code with Chompers
Over the summer, Professor Janyl Jumadinova and Allegheny student, Ainslee Plesko, strengthened the program's infrastructure—updating materials, refining lessons, and preparing for expanded collaboration with local districts. This fall, eight Allegheny Outreach Fellows have been delivering hands-on introductory computing, cybersecurity and AI lessons to K–4 students across four Crawford Central elementary schools, reaching nearly 120 children and advancing early computer science education in the Meadville community.HSCoded
https://github.com/HS-Coded-Spring2025
During Spring and Fall 2025, students and faculty successfully deployed the previously developed High School Curriculum platform—funded through the Reboot campaign—to two cohorts of high school learners. The Code, Conquer, and Escape! course immersed High School students in a game-based Python adventure that introduced programming, API use, and core software engineering practices. The platform supported mission-based learning, documentation, and teamwork, demonstrating its readiness for scalable high school CS instruction.2023 Campaign - Reboot
Projects
Reboot Campaign funds were used to develop education platforms for High School students with a goal of broadening engagement in computing. The funding supported collaborative work of 12 students with three faculty in the creation of engaging lessons for High School students and delivery of that curriculum in our local school district.
High School Curriculum Platforms
https://github.com/Code-With-Chompers
2023 Campaign - Love @ First Byte
Projects
Student Research
Love @ First Byte Campaign funds were used to extend spring, summer, and fall research project opportunities to students.
New feature in GatorGrader Spring 2023
$650: 2 students
https://github.com/GatorEducator/gatorgrade
GatorAdvisor Summer/Fall 2023
$6,200: 3 students, Summer 2023
$500: 2 students, Fall 2023
https://github.com/Allegheny-CMPSC-summer-2023/Advise-A-Gator
Gator Growth Gauge Fall 2023
$5,000: 6 students
https://github.com/allegheny-cis-curriculum-assessment
ROV Education Platform Fall 2023
$500: 2 students
https://github.com/Underwater-Robotic-System
Improvements to termworld documentation Fall 2023
$250: 1 student
2022 Campaign - Power Up Campaign
Equipment and Hardware
Using some of the funds, the department was able to purchase wheeled robots, raspberry pis, various sensors and actuators, and robot arms. These were used in our Robotic Agents class in Fall 2022, Artificial Intelligence class in Spring 2023 and is continuously utilized by Allegheny students and faculty in the outreach activities they conduct in the local community.
Robots For Education
| Penny's Ice Cream Shop | Evelyn, Pallas, and Katie |
| Robot Keyboard Control with Music | Makell and Gary |
| Shieldbot | Gary and Trang |
Robot Arm Manipulation
| Manny the Manufacturer | Katie, Pallas, Danny |
| Cup Stacking Arm | Evelyn and Trang |
Mapping And Navigation
| Turtlebot Mapping and Navigation | Katie, Peter, and Zack |
| Trudy The Turtle | Pallas, Danny, and Rian |
IoT Arduino
| Valentine's Love in the Box | Yanqiao |
| Speech Recognition | Trang and Andre |
| Lie Detector | Jacob, Jacob, and Stephen |
| Trash Bot | Titus, Luke, and Jack |
| Sound Detection | David and Maximillian |
Software
Portions of the funds were used to design, implement, and test new software tools or to create new features and functionality in existing software tools. These tools were built by students and faculty and are either used or will be used by the department to "power up" our teaching. Additionally, these tools are open-source and available for anyone to use.
GatorGrade(r)
An automatic grading tool that can be used to check assignments through user-created checks
- Improvements to TUI
- Bug fixes to GatorGrade
- Deployment improvements
- JSON and Markdown export
- GitHub job summaries
- Github issue tracker
- Insights and trajectory tracking
- ALSO: new checks in GatorGrader!
NaviGator
A Discord bot that leverages Google Sheets to allow students to retrieve commonly requested course information
- Discord bot
- OpenStack deployment
- Grade reporting
- Course details
- Interation tracking
- User auth, privacy ensured
AFLuent
An automated fault localization tool that is triggered when one or more test cases fail
- Pinpoint defects in program
- Coverage profile collection
- Statistical fault localization
- Multiplte AFL equations
- Integration with Pytest
Discover (Knockout Mutation)
Tools to help discover test coverage and effectiveness
- Assess quality of test suite
- Give feedback to students on poor test assertions
- Run locally and in CI
- Pip-installable tool
- TUI-based browser
Executable Examinations
Delivering exams that are programming focused and are automatically executed
- Integration layer on top of GatorGrade and GatorGrader
- Programming-centric examinations used in 101/102
- Security-conscious implementation for grading in CI
- Focus on working prototype for Spring 2023
- Refactor implementation and generalize for Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
GradeAlert
An automated gradebook utility for teachers written in Python
- Creates markdown files from the instructor's grade spreadsheet
- Grade files may be diffused to students via GitHub repositories
- Allows students to get feedback on class performance with minimal instructor effort
- Successfully tested in eight classes
- Also being used by other instructors in academia
Open Course Platforms
While collaborating with students, faculty led the development of open source course platforms in most courses taught in 2022. Each course below provides an online platform with easy access to the course materials including project and lab assignments, class activities, course flow, and slides. Solution repositories to all assignments can be provided upon request.
term-world Doug Luman
Learning-by-doing curriculum focused on using real-world objects and processes to teach computer science.
https://www.github.com/term-world
Proactive Programmers Greg Kapfhammer
Putting the PRO in Programmer with projects for students in Data Abstraction and Discrete Structures.
https://github.com/ProactiveProgrammers
Operating Systems Sketch Greg Kapfhammer
Exploring operating systems ... one sketch at a time!
Ready, Set, Research! Greg Kapfhammer
Comprehensive undergraduate research project: design research project, develop a computational artifact, write undergraduate thesis and present results of the scholarly activity
https://github.com/ReadyResearchers
Robotic Agents Janyl Jumadinova
Hands-on introduction to robotics via exploration of multiple robot platforms
https://github.com/RoboticAgents
Crafting Software Janyl Jumadinova
Team-focused project-based introduction to software engineering concepts and skills
https://github.com/CraftingSoftware
Junior Seminar Oliver Bonham-Carter
Research preparation: cultivate ideas, determine scope and feasibility, create prototypes and deliver proposals for potential research projects.
https://github.com/Devising-Research
Bioinformatics Oliver Bonham-Carter
An introduction to computational bioinformatics to explore and gain skill at the intersection of biology and computer science
https://github.com/Computational-Bioinformatics