The 'academic' component of the EE Program covers multiple pillars of the GenWise Curriculum. These curricular elements will be covered over 2 weeks (4-5 hrs/ day), as follows:
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Week 1: Mathematics, Science, Design and Technology (STEM Focus)
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Week 2: Nature, Society &Individual; Tools for Thinking & Communication (Humanities Focus)
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Please click on each week to know (MUCH) more...
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While children are free to pick either week, we strongly recommend a balanced exposure to the content over both weeks.
Utpal Chattopadhyay
Utpal is senior mentor and course designer at GenWise. His passion in life is "to firmly establish science as a wonderful culture in developing young minds."
Since 2010, Utpal has been teaching Advanced Physics to talented undergraduate students at the Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore. He was one of the founders of Curiouscity Science Education, where he conducted numerous science sessions with middle school children. Utpal has been also been facilitating courses on Physics and Mathematics to gifted school students for the past several years.
Utpal has a bachelor's degree with honours in Physics from IIT Kharagpur (1st in his class), and a PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His corporate/ professional work experience includes stints at Bell Labs and Motorola (where he was a Director). Post 2005, he cannot imagine life without a chalk and the blackboard!
Mathematics of Games & Puzzles
The charm of mathematics is that it allows us to play with numbers, symbols, and patterns, and to explore the underlying structure of the world around us.
Blaise Pascal
Date(s):
May 7-14, 2023
It is hard to find anyone who does not like games and puzzles. Sometimes the games seem complicated and it is difficult to figure out a strategy for playing the games. This course takes a mathematical approach to playing games and solving puzzles. Some games are pure strategy, like chess while others are pure luck. However, there are a range of games that are a combination of strategy and luck. For instance, many casino games fall in the last category.
In this course we will discuss various types of games and the focus on understanding the underlying mathematical structure that leads to victory, loss or no win and no loss.
Similarly, for puzzles too, we will analyze them from the perspectives of their mathematical structure. There are some games and puzzles, for example, which look very challenging but are actually quite simple. On the other hand, there are games and puzzles which are very simple but even a small modification of the rules makes them extremely difficult.
In short, through games and puzzles this course will explore fundamental mathematical concepts like Probability and Combinatorics.