Bob Warnick's Home Page

Title: Instructor of Computer Science, EECS, WSU

Email: rwarnick@wsu.edu

Classes Taught:

• Cpt S 251 - C Programming - Fall and Spring
• Cpt S 122 - C++ Data Structures for Electrical Engineering Majors - Fall only
• Cpt S 401 - Computers and Society - Fall, Spring, and Summer
• Cpt S 402 - Professional Issues in Computing - Spring and Summer
  See your catalog for details and prerequisites.

Basic Teaching Philosophy:

• If you aren't sure you understand something, try teaching it to someone else. If you can't really explain it to them, you don't understand it yet (I knew that. I don't know why I didn't get it on the test.)..
• Work hard and get your hands dirty to learn the difficult things. Very little can stop a combination of intellect and effort.
• Put more energy and effort in to thinking and believing you can solve tough problems/tasks than you put in to making excuses for failure. Even a great excuse doesn't alter the fact that a problem is unsolved or a task undone.
• A last minute problem that prevents you from doing something, you have put off until the last minute, is not an excuse. It is evidence of a failure to plan for the inevitable problems that arise in all our lives.
• We all have to live with consequences of our choices and the problems that burden our own lives. We are not entitled to transfer those burdens to others regardless of how unfair our lives might seem at the moment. Some might be inclined to give us a hand, but we can't get angry if their own problems make them too busy to come to our aid. "If you fall off, dust yourself off and get back up again." - cowboy lyric (don't blame gravity or the dirt).
• "I can't." "I can." Both are true (a Nike T-shirt slogan).
• Many impossible things have been done by people who didn't know it couldn't be done.
• Sometimes, setbacks force us to start over. Quitting guarantees we won't finish.

Outside Interests:

Boating - I spend my summers on a houseboat teaching kids how to be proper river pirates. Training includes proper wearing of bandanas and eye patches, and familiarization with safety and proper use of various water filled latex projectile launchers (including handheld latex launchers, stationary and multi-pirate latex launchers, and air powered mortar launchers). Students also learn to talk like a pirate and they learn how to make tracer rounds to facilitate better aim after dark. Successful participants are awarded an eye patch, pirate flag, bandana, or pirate sticker, and are promoted to the rank of Privateer Apprentice First Class.

This year's addition to the pirate armory is known as the 'Boat Installed Gadget for Distant Interdiction and Camp Killing.' It boasts a six foot by three inch diameter barrel, a four liter air tank, 1 1/2 inch valve, and launch pressures in the 200psi range. One to a dozen water balloons can be launched from 200 to 600 feet. At 100 feet, a single balloon projectile has a velocity well in excess of a major league fastball. The latex tube launcher (slingshot) we use is powerful enough ( ~80mph at 50ft ) to knock a person down and leave impact bruises, so we don't shoot anyone with the air guns ( they do break tree limbs... ).

Next year, we are planning on looking into the use of nano technology to make artificial enhanced latex. The AELex would be capable of forming itself into various wing-like structures in response to control signals, and thus alter the aerodynamics of a balloon while it is in flight. The balloon could then steer itself and seek out a programmed target. Thus, it may be possible for us to make self-guiding water balloons ( smart balloons for short - PAF) . Arrrggghh

Music - Guitar picker, singer, and founding member of the Albion Main Street Marching Band (You should see our cello player and two piano players march). I'm not much of a singer or player, but as an activity, it is better than counseling and anti depressants for avoiding the blues. I dabble in building some electronic gadgets for guitar, such as buffered multi-loop effect switches, and collect guitars, amps, boutique analog effects, etc.