Exploring Engineering  Activity: Computing

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There are three activities.  Students work in group of five.  Students are expected to prepare all work before the workshop begins. The activity in the class will be to "share" and "discuss" the assigned tasks. 

The first activity is to answer the given questions.  We will randomly select a group to answer one question.  The second activity is "show and tell".  We have asked students to practice one skill task.  The selected group will present their works. The last activity is a "debate" style.  Each team will put forward a member (in rotation) to debate on the given topic. Each student will have 2 minutes to elaborate his/her case.  Students should prepare to perform both "pro" and "con" of the debate.

Assessments

There will be score for all presentations made in front of the class.  The score will be given to team.  All members of a team will receive the same score.  For the debate, the audience (for fellow students) will vote for the winner.  The score will be given and tally up for all students to see at the end of the class.

1)  General knowledge about IT

1.1  Read about Google glass, there are controversy about the use of Google glass in public.  It is the concern about privacy.  What do think about this issue.  What will happen if a lot of people wear such  devices that can "record" everything (with or without notifying us)?

1.2  Microelectronics and microprocessors are the pillar of modern digital technologies.  Search and read about the first microprocessor, who built it and what it is like?  Prepare to give 5 minutes presentation about the first microprocessor.

1.3  A new and popular apps for mobile phones is called "Snapchat".  What is it?  How it works?  Do you like it?  and why?

1.4  Google provides search services. Google is a huge company.  How big is it computing power?  How many machines Google has around the world to support its search service?  How they are arranged?

1.5  What is "data warehouse"?  Please give some example.  In particular, what do you know about Apple data center (that provides us "iTune store" and "Apps store") ?

1.6  How one bit of memory is made (I mean, show me the electronic circuit of one bit memory)?

1.7  As more and more people are on the net, companies start to harvest information about users of their services (ie. their "customers").  This is called "user profiling".  It is both good and bad about companies tracking our online behavior. What is your opinion?

1.8  Because of Thai law on "Computer Act" stated that a service provider must registers the name and time of its users,  Chulalongkorn computing service requires us to go through "net authentication" (https://netauth.it.chula.ac.th) every time we logon to campus network. Do you think it is necessary?  Does it really provide "safety" to society? 

1.9  Digital currency becomes the talk of internet right now.  For example, you can search the word "Bitcoin".  What is it?  How it work? There are several digital currency in use, search and give examples of such currencies.

1.10  Many superpowers are worrying about preparing for "cyberwar".  What is it?  How to fight such a war?

1.11  Now, mobile communication becomes one of the essential tools in our every day life. It provides many benefits for people to keep in touch, no matter where they are and when they want to. Explain how "Cellular Communication" works? You may discuss the system as well as the generation of mobile communications.

1.12  Recently, we have seen the trend of globalisation that is inevitable. However, in the past, in order to cover the whole surface of the earth with human-built infrastructure such as Copper wire, Terrestrial radio transmission or fibre-optics, a huge amount of cost and effort may be inevitable. Satellite has been one of the solutions to cover the large-scale and remote geographical area of the earth. Explain the "Satellite Communication" system, different types of satellite and their application.

1.13  Population of the world, though, has been increasing with slower rate due to family planning and recent lifestyles of new generation. It still causes a concern over the upsurge of energy consumption. Many forms of Energy have been discovered to satisfy the needs of human for various day-to-day activities. Smart Grid becomes one of the very interesting issue for managing the electricity, which is one of the very important form of energy, wisely. Explain briefly what comprises a "Smart Grid" system? How do these things would help us to consume and preserve the electricity?

2)  Some practical skill

topic:  Learn how a processor work by working through "machine code" examples

The best way to learn about a piece of technology is to use it.  To learn how a computer works, the foundation lies in microprocessors (or the "brain" of computers).  A short cut to understand this basics is to learn to write a program in machine code.  I wrote a simulator based on a standard textbook description.  You must download and try to run the examples program.

Here is the description of this processor.  Read Chapter 2 pages 77-90.  It tells you how a simple processor executes machine code.  Appendix C gives the code of each instruction.   Chapter 2   Appendix C

Here is the package of my simulator.  (sml2-2014.zip)  examples and executable are in directory "test" (asm.exe and sml.exe)

2.1  Work through simple programs to a) add two numbers, b) move a data around the memory,  c)  making decision
2.2  Write a program to find a maximum value of three numbers.
2.3  Write a program to find a multiply two numbers using repeat addition.  Here is the step to multiply m to n, you add m, n times, i.e. m + m + m ....
2.4  Write a machine code program to count the number of bit 1 in a number (integer). You can look at many solutions here (how to count the number of set bits).  A suitable solution is Brian Kernighan's method.  Note that one word in our machine is 8-bit.

You must prepare to show your program, and explain how it works and run it on the simulator.  Prepare to present this work to your friends in 5 minutes period.

3)  Discussion about technology and its impact to society.

3.1 The topic of debate is "Oversharing on social networks creates problem, for example, when you share someone else's picture on Facebook" 
3.2 The topic of debate is "Using Driverless car (aka Google car) is a good idea " 
3.3 The topic of debate is "Digital money is good for economy" 
Digital money is a protocol that allow transferring of money through internet. A famous example is Bitcoin.

The students will be divided into 2 group of five students. Each student will have a two-minute talk. You have to prepare your talk by searching for issues related to the topic above. Moreover, you may have to add or change some content to argue against the other team.

Good luck in your final exam and thanks for participating in the class

Prabhas Chongstitvatana, prabhas at chula dot ac dot th
Sukree Sinthupinyo

Department of Computer Engineering

last update 22 April 2014