Apr 06 2009
Human Sorting Algorithms Video
A while back in high school (Menlo School to be precise), myself and some other members of The Neighborhood (the math & comp sci club), suggested we try acting out the various sorting algorithms with humans and videotaping it. Unfortunately, we never were able to make the necessary arrangements to actually carry out the project, though I did write choreographic drafts for a couple of the sorts at one point.
However, this year during Knight School, some other Neighborhood members held a course on algorithms and managed to make the dream a reality. Here’s the terrific video on YouTube.
For what I can only assume were time constraints, Quicksort sadly is not shown(!). Neither is Heapsort, but that would be particularly hard to videotape given the necessary viewing angle to show the structure of the heap being made.
Anyway, congratulations to everyone in the “Algorithmic Thinking” Knight School class of 2009! Great job!
[EDIT: Also, I don't remember seeing that Obama clip before. That's pretty funny. I wonder who clued the Commander-in-Chief in...]
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Alas yes, we did not have time for Quicksort or Heapsort. Also, we didn’t cover either of them in our course. Somebody suggested we do Bogosort, but I drew the line at Bubblesort (and the latter has the advantage of being referenced by the president).
Heh. Bogosort would have been quite entertaining though. Whistle blows, all the “elements” run about randomly…