CS 18 (Spring 2026)

Welcome to CS 18! We’re super excited to have you here this term!

Most Recent Announcements

Due Next

Calendar

Wellness and Inclusion

It is very important to us that you succeed in CS 18. We provide many extra resources to help you. The professors and the TAs hold many office hours.

It is also very important to us that you maintain your mental wellness throughout the course. A few points are not worth losing sleep over. Everyone on the course staff is available to chat, and you can always attend office hours for a non-academic conversation if necessary. You can also visit the counseling center if you find you need help beyond the course staff. If you have a temporary health condition or permanent disability (either mental health or physical health related), you should contact accessibility services if you have not already. Additionally, if there is something we can do to make your experience better, please let us know.

Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are all core values of this course. All participants in this course must be treated with respect by other members of the community in accordance with the honor code. If you feel unwelcome or unsafe in any way, no matter how minor, we encourage you to talk to Adam or one of the Deans. We view these sorts of honor code violations as completely unacceptable, and we take them very seriously.

Tools

Course Staff

Instructor

he/him
Book an appointment!
Annenberg 122
eordentl@caltech.edu

Teaching Assistants

Max Chen
he/him
mfchen@

Handouts

The following is a list of handouts that you might find helpful throughout the course. We’ve categorized them by when they are useful.

Course Information

Syllabus – an overview of the course and administrative information

Setup Instructions – setup instructions for the course

Collaboration

Pair Programming – introduction to pair programming

Collaboration Policy – the course collaboration policy

Code Quality and Docs

Code Quality Guidelines – guidelines for how you should write C code

C Documentation – documentation for C standard library functions

Projects and Submission

Merge Requests – instructions on to make a merge request to complete reworks

Debugging with VSCode and Emscripten – an introduction to debugging strategies

Debugging Guide for C – a list of common error messages in C and potential causes

Schedule

DUE Fri, Apr 10
11:30 pm
project01 (pacman) [ guide ]
This project introduces us to creating a demo using emscripten and SDL.
DUE Fri, Apr 17
11:30 pm
project02 (nbodies) [ guide ]
This project introduces us to abstractions for forces and impulses.
DUE Fri, Apr 24
11:30 pm
project03 (collision) [ guide ]
This project introduces us to collision detection.