WHACK SCHOOL MUSICAL | Newsletter T1W5

Mon 02 Nov Newsletter

WARWICK UNIVERSITY OCULUS - OC0.03 - SATURDAY 7 NOVEMBER - 10:50am

The lecture hall is filled with impatient students. It is the final moment before the WHACK tracks are released.

Jakub, Edward and Sam stand at the front of the hall, delivering an elaborate speech about WHACK and the importance of making the most of hackathons.

JAKUB: (nonchalantly, addressing the room) Remember, everyone, a hackathon isn't simply about winning prizes. It's about challenging yourselves, learning new skills and discovering what you can achieve in 24 hours through the power of teamwork!

The camera cuts to the slideshow. A seemingly endless series of introductory slides advances slowly towards the long-awaited track announcement.

The camera cuts to a student checking their watch, speaking almost under their breath.

STUDENT 1: (softly, rhythmically) WHACK

The student beside them joins in.

STUDENT 2: WHACK

The camera cuts between students scattered across OC0.03 as word begins to spread.

STUDENT 3: WHACK

STUDENT 4: WHACK

One by one the whole lecture hall begins to join in, the whisper developing into a coordinated chant.

STUDENTS: WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

Jakub attempts to continue speaking over the noise, giving up and turning towards Edward and Sam, the three exchanging a knowing glance.

EDWARD: So, the moment you've been waiting for...

The camera zooms on Edward's thumb as it hovers over the clicker's button

Unfortunately that's all I've written in my script so far... As for what happens next, I'll leave that up to you to write this weekend. Have fun, and more importantly, make sure to look after yourselves, 24 hours of coding is not for the weak.

💜 Welfare Notice

UWCS has two Welfare Officers: Kevin (Discord: yummycatfood) and Erica (Discord: heldesar). They can also be reached via their email inbox at welfare@uwcs.co.uk.

You can speak to them at any time via Discord, email, and in person, for advice, signposting, and support. This can be for navigating the uni's support services, disclosing inappropriate or concerning behaviour at one of our events, and much more.

Any discussions you have with them will be treated sensitively. They will not share details more widely without your permission, except where they believe there is a serious risk of harm, a safeguarding concern, or another situation where they are required to escalate.

🍻 Pub Dinner 🍻

🕖 Mon 2nd Nov 7pm - 9pm 📍 Dirty Duck

Thatchers Gold my beloved 💗

Congratulations! We've survived another full week on campus, and better yet, we've survived another week just generally.

Join us this week at the dirty duck to eat, drink, eat more, then drink more!!

🔍 Research Spotlight: Victor Sanchez 🔍

🕓 Tue 3rd Nov 4pm - 5pm 📍 CS1.01

No, Dad, the video of that cat playing the piano isn't real.

Computer-Vision-Informed Security and Forensics

In this session, we will discuss how computer vision has impacted the fields of security and forensics. Specifically, we will discuss the current challenges in detecting synthetic videos and images generated by the most recent high-resolution generative AI models, including the Text-To-Video (T2V) and Image-To-Video (I2V) models. We will present a new dataset aimed at promoting the development of robust and generalizable detection systems for T2V and I2V videos. Our discussions will also include how synthetic face images can be used in security applications where the goal is to predict the appearance of an individual across time.

🍔 Winter BBQ - Amazement! 🍔

🕔 Tue 3rd Nov 5pm - 9pm 📍 Claycroft BBQ

Segev and I went to deepest darkest coventry to prepare for this barbecue; you better come.

Come to the BBQ in ClayCroft™ barbecue area.

We will put out a post for how to get there.

5pm on Tuesday (Ostensibly, will be the first day of week 5 with good weather. But ideally Tuesday because it's my most free day), Week 5

free barbecue

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🧶 Wildcards & Chill (Craft Night) 🧶

🕒 Wed 4th Nov 3pm - 5pm 📍 FAB4.73

Crafts. UNLIMITED crafts. But no crafts??????

ever wanted to mineCRAFT?

well now you can! we've got LOADS of supplies for you to craft whatever your heart desires ✨ mainly: yarn for friendship bracelets, polymer clay, jewellery making, origami paper.... and more!!

But most importantly - FREE SNACKS AND DRINKS‼️‼️ these will be provided from Co-op courtesy of DCS 🙏

🗳️ UWCS EGM & Frep Elections - Night 1 (Elections) 🗳️

🕓 Wed 4th Nov 4pm - 7pm 📍 L3

i wonder if we'll see the UWCS frep sorting hat...

We're holding Elections! 🗳️

UWCS will be holding an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on the Wednesday 4th and Thursday 5th November, to run elections and vote on motions that influence how the society is run.

📰 Key Info 📰

When & Where?

Deadlines

How to Nominate

Your Deputy Returning Officer is Thomas Sweet. To nominate for a role, or propose a motion, please email him at Thomas.Sweet@warwick.ac.uk. For motions, attach your motion (template HERE), and to nominate provide your:

Voting

🗳️ Positions for Election 🗳️

Below are the details of positions up for election, along with how many seats are available. If you're interested in one of these roles, and would like to learn more, please feel free to reach out to our exec members over Discord or in person :)

🌱 Fresher Representatives

Seats: 5 (1st years only)

1st years who help us reach out to freshers and put on events that would benefit them best. Being a frep is a great opportunity to meet new people, learn new soft skills, and make an impact on people around you. We elect 5 of these, in the following categories:

🎓 Postgraduate Representative

Seats: 1 (Postgraduate Students Only)

The postgrad representative will work with us to help plan and advertise our events to better reach out to postgrads who might be interested in getting involved in the society.

🎮 Gaming Coordinators

Seats: 3

Gaming Coordinators are responsible for running Friday Night Gaming every week, as well as putting on tournaments, quizzes, and anything else gaming-related we might fancy doing. This would suit someone who enjoys gaming, being sociable, and staying up late.

🫂 Welfare Officers

Seats: 1

Welfare Officers work confidentially with both society members and exec to help manage and promote their wellbeing and safety. They are often the first point of contact when one of our members is having a bad time, and are tasked with aiding them in the moment, and signposting external services - such as Wellbeing Services and Report & Support - where appropriate. This would suit someone who is able to empathise with and help others, while also maintaining appropriate boundaries.

🗣️ Motions 🗣️

Motions are votes on how the society should change - be that through changing it's constitution or generally. To propose a motion, you can use the template HERE, and can find examples HERE.

☕ Comp Cafe ☕

🕔 Wed 4th Nov 5pm - 8pm 📍 CS0.02

one word: 'Javadocs' iykyk

Computing Cafe is a weekly space for catching up on studies and assignments with other students.

Did I mention there'll be free snacks? Why leave revision to the last minute when you can revise with free snacks?

🐍 X-Soc Python Workshop 🐍

🕕 Wed 4th Nov 6pm - 8pm 📍 MS.05

the academics were creative naming this one!

As it says on the tin i guess

🥄 Bending Spoons Workshop 🥄

🕓 Thu 5th Nov 4pm - 6pm 📍 L5

No spoons were deformed in the making of this workshop.

Building T-shaped engineers: how we onboard software engineers at Bending Spoons

How do you turn a new engineer into someone who can ship confidently, in weeks rather than months, without turning onboarding into an endless list of links? And if you were designing that from scratch, for engineers who arrive with very different backgrounds and experience levels, what would you put in it?

At Bending Spoons we approached it by building two things together: a Knowledge Portal - a single, version-controlled home for how we build software - and the One Path training, one onboarding route shared by every software engineer, whatever platform they will eventually specialise in. In this talk I'll walk through the design of both: why we organise knowledge around what engineers need to do rather than the technologies they use, how the training deliberately combines breadth (the foundations of the craft that every engineer needs) with depth (the stack a new joiner will actually work in), and how the path introduces the proprietary platforms - experimentation, telemetry, data and deployment - that our engineers use every day.

We'll also dive into how search over the portal evolved; we built a semantic search system to help people navigate it, and have since iterated on that design as AI capabilities improved. What held up, what we changed, and why the current version leans on a broader AI assistant.

📜 UWCS EGM & Frep Elections - Night 2 (Motions) 📜

🕔 Thu 5th Nov 5pm - 7pm 📍 OC0.04

just when you thought the fun of night one was over...

Please see the above description for night one ^^^

🪔 UWCS Celebrates Diwali 🪔

🕑 Fri 6th Nov 2pm - 4pm 📍 CS0.07

Happy Diwali!

Join us for an afternoon of rangoli making, card crafting, free sweets and more! We welcome people of all backgrounds to join us to make something fun and perhaps learn more about the popular festival of Diwali along the way!

🧭 Wildcards "Next Steps" Event 🧭

🕓 Fri 6th Nov 4pm - 7pm 📍 TBC

Come along for an invaluable experience to learn about career next steps!

Feeling overwhelmed about your next steps after your degree? Maybe an internship? Maybe academia? Is your CV good? How do you practice for interviews???

We all had these questions!! It's completely normal not to be sure (about anything 😅). So we've prepared this event based on all of our experience to give you a 101 on your possible Next Steps!

Current agenda:

But most importantly - FREE SNACKS AND DRINKS‼️‼️ These will be provided from Co-op courtesy of DCS 🙏

🏃 Run Club 🏃

🕔 Fri 6th Nov 5pm - 6pm 📍 Outside DCS

touching grass before an entire weekend locked in the Oculus

Weekly Friday runs, open to all members and friends of UWCS. An average week might look like a 5k around campus on a pre-planned route, but be ready for impromptu shenanigans as we are always looking for new ways to surprise and delight our attendees. FOR ALL ABILITY LEVELS. Whether this is your first or five hundredth time running please show up, we're really nice! Strava - UWCS Run Club

🎮 Friday Night Gaming 🎮

🕖 Fri 6th Nov 7pm - Sat 7th Nov 3am 📍 CS0.03

we really got milk midnight v5.0 before GTA6

The Friday Night™ fun continues outside of Welcome Week in unquestionably the best way to round off the week, nooooooo bias found here 👀.

Your Gaming Coordinators for this exec cycle are: Luna (lunazeta_), Santiago (colombian.), and Maddie (fridge06). Mafi (sinisterglace) is also your Gaming Co-ordinator until Term 1, Week 5 - come up to us if you need help logging in, finding something, or even just to yap (we dont bite :D). We'll often be identifiable by our exec hoodies :3

It wouldn't be Friday Night Gaming™ without the Gaming™🎮, and we have a BIG selection of things for you to choose from, and no its not just above average! its big I swear!😔😔

There are loads of options for consoles: Xbox (with Rockband), Wii, Nintendo Switch 1s (yes thats plurarl) AND a Nintendo Switch 2, PS4 and more. All of these have a HUGE variety of games.

More into Steam? We have that too, just ask us for our DCS account login, or login to Steam on your own account! Not only that, but you can get full access to the department computers and enjoy a wide selection of free games (wow!)

AND WE'RE STILLLLL NOT DONEEEE. We have a VR headset, go get immersed in your favourite 🏎️🏎️ car go vroom games™ or others! Beat Saber in particular a popular choice, but we have PLENTY of options available! Not to mention we have a RACING RIG!! Go spin that wheel and press those pedals, and fiddle with your gears. Get on those in game roads and REV that engine until youre on a motorway in a 3 wheel car at 120mph.

AND THATS STILLLLLLL NOT IT YETTTT. For those of you that prefer a little less video in your game, we have some board games in our cupboards for you to get along with.

thats it... for now 👀

We hope to see you there :3

Important: FNG is a sober event, please don't bring alcohol in, or you will be asked to leave. Also Important: Tidy up after yourself before leaving, the department does a great kindness in letting us run this event, it'd be nice if we could stay on their good side!🙏

P.S. I am currently seeking investors for WHACK School Musical. If this whole CS degree thing doesn't work out, my 9 in GCSE Drama is going to have to start paying the bills. -- Odin