Bryn Mawr College
CS 110: Introduction to Computing
Spring 2009
Course Materials
Prof. Dianna Xu
General Information
Instructor: Dianna Xu, 246A Park Hall, 526-6502
E-Mail: dxu at cs dot brynmawr dot edu
WWW: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~dxu
Lecture Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Room: Park 338
Lab: Thursdays 4-6pm in Room 231 (additional lab hours
will also available, see below)
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Lottery results: final classlist 
Laboratories:
- Computer Science Lab Room 231 (Science Building)
- You will also be able to use your own computer to do the labs for this course.
Lab Assistants: The following Lab assitants will be available during the week for assistance on lab assignments.
- Emily Bushway: Tuesdays & Thursdays 10a to 12 noon
- Marissa Mocenigo: Tuesdays 8a to 10a and Sundays 8p to 10p (starting from the week of February 2)
- Rebecca Rebhuhn-Glanz: Mondays and Wednesdays 3p to 5p
- Melanie Shafer: Wednesdays 4p to 6p and Sundays 2p to 4p
- Leila Zilles: Mondays 11a to 1p and Thursdays 4p to 6p
These are the hours when the Lab will not be available: Mondays and Wednesdays 1-2:30p
CS110 Lab Schedule (RED means Lab is unavailable)
HOURS |
MONDAY |
TUESDAY |
WEDNESDAY |
THURSDAY |
FRIDAY |
SATURDAY |
SUNDAY |
8a |
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MM (8-10) |
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9a |
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MM (8-10) |
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10a |
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EB (10-12) |
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EB (10-12) |
DK (10-12) |
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11a |
LZ (11-1) |
EB (10-12) |
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EB (10-12) |
DK (10-12) |
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12 |
LZ (11-1) |
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1p |
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2p |
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MS (2-4) |
3p |
RRG (3-5) |
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RRG (3-5) |
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MS (2-4) |
4p |
RRG (3-5) |
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RRg (3-5) MS (4-6) |
LZ, DX(4-6) |
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5p |
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MS (4-6) |
LZ, DX(4-6) |
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6p |
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7p |
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8p |
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MM (8-10) |
9p |
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MM (8-10) |
EB (Emily Bushway), DK (Deepak Kumar), MM (Marissa Mocenigo),
RRG (Rebecca Rebhuhn-Glanz), MS (Melanie Shafer), DX (Dianna Xu), LZ (Leila Zilles)
For a printable version of this schedule click here.
Texts & Software
Learning Computing With Robots: by
Deepak Kumar, Institute for Personal Robots in Education (Fall 2008 Edition). Available at the Campus Bookstore.
Python Software + IDLE + Myro (This software is already installed in the Computer Science Lab). The software is also available for your own computer from the CD included in your text.
Scribbler Robot Kit: These will be handed out to you in Week#2.
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Important Dates
January 20: First lecture
March 5: Exam 1
April 28: Last Lecture
April 30: Exam 2
Assignments+Robot Videos
- Assignment#1: (Due on Thursday, february 5): Do the following exercises:
Chapter 1: Exercise 9 (Hand in the drawing)
Chapter 2: Exercise 2 (Hand in the written answer)
Chapter 2: Exercise 3 (Hand in the program as well as the drawing)
Chapter 2: Exercise 7 (Hand in the program). If possible, post a video of your robot's performance on YouTube (send link to me). You can use any music from an external source as background for the dance. When posting on YouTube make sure you enter the tags "Bryn Mawr". "Scribbler robot", "CS110" to enable easy searches.
videos: Van Nguyen's Funky Town, Pamela Burt's Technological dance, Chuck dances to Britney (Aliza Rothstein), Night on Bald Mountain (Maggie Murphy)
Jon Horn and Michelle Zauner, Woo Hoo (Bethie Azuma), In the mood (Stephanie Trott), robot dance (Melissa Carn), howard (Sophie Balis-Harris)
- Extra Credit Assignment E1: (Due on Tuesday, February 10): Attend Prof. Bernard Chazelle's talk and write a short (3-4 page) essay/critique of it.
Prof. Bernard Chazelle (Princeton University) will be giving a talk this Friday, February 6, 4:00-6:00p (Tea at 3:30p) in Room 338, Park Science Building. His talk should be of interest to all in this course and is titled, "What an iPod, a Flock of Birds, and Your DNA have in Common". This is part of the Fantastic lectures in Computer Science (see here for more details).
- Assignment#2 (Due on Tuesday, February 17): Write a program for your Scribbler to draw the bluetooth logo. Your program should include a function called, drawBTLogo(height), so that you can use it over and over again to draw logos of different sizes. Write a main program to use drawBTLogo to draw at least 3 logos (use a loop) of different sizes (say 5, 10 and 12 inches tall) on the same sheet of paper. In the spirit of Valentine's Day, can you write a program for your Scribbler to draw a heart? Alternately, write a program for your Scribbler to create some abstract art. Hand in the two programs, and sheets that show your robot's drawings. For the second program, try and be creative, include repetition, use different colors etc. HINT: For how to write general scribbler commands for turning a specific amount and traveling a specific distance, you may want to read the first 5 pages of Chapter 4.
- Assignment#3: (Due on Tuesday, February 24): Write Python programs to make the following population projections: (1) What will the US population be in the year 2050? (2) In which year will the US Population exceed 1/2 billion? (3) In which year will the US population double?
Write a separate program to answer each of the questions posed above. You may use the example program in Chapter 4 (page 90) as your starting template.
Your program should input the Current population, growth rate, and the current year (if needed), and any other input required to answer the questions. You can use the figure: 305,529,237 as the population of the United States on January 1, 2009. Use a growth rate of 0.9%. Additionally, show the outputs of all three programs if the growth rate changed to: 0.8% and 1.0%.
Hand in: A print out of the three programs, along with a print out showing the inputs and outputs from each program. Write a short (less than 1 page) essay on your experiences with this program describing what you learned, how you feel about the concepts you learned, and any known issues that you may have encountered along the way.
- Assignment#4: (Due on Thursday, March 5): Implement Braitenberg vehicles 1, 2a, and 2b as discussed in Chapter 6 of your text. Additionally, implement any one of the suggested vehicles/robot applications from Chapter 6 (Choose from: Refrigerator detective, burglar alarm, Hallway cruiser, follower, Timid, Indecisive, Paranoid). Hand in all the programs you wrote. Also, write a short (1-page) essay on designing insect-like behaviors based on the robots you designed. Extra Credit: Make a video of your robot's behaviors and either send it to Dianna and/or post it on You Tube.
- Assignment#5: (Due on Tuesday, March 31): Click here for details
- Assignment#6: (Due on Thursday, April 9): Click here for details
- Assignment#7: (Due on Thursday, April 23): Click here for details
How to Install Myro on your own computer?
Myro 2.8.14 download: Click Here.
For MACOS users: Click Here.
For Windows XP users: Click Here.
For Windows Vista users: Click Here. Also, see the handout (click here) for establishing a Bluetooth connection.
Robot Videos and other demos from out there!
- SONY Robots dancing
- Another humanoid robot dance
- SONY Rolly Dance
- Dancing Penguin robots
- A Penguin robot (sort of dancing)
- Sync. Dance: Sarcoman Robot
- Keepon Dance
- A kid dancing with a robot
- A Robot Ballet (Nutcracker)
- Dabcing Vacuum Cleaner Robots
- Dancing Hexapod robots
- Robot Artist (3:21)
- Hektor: The graffitti drawing robot: Several videos
- AARON The Cybernetic Artist (visit the web page and even download a version for your computer)
- An interactive Scribbler
Lectures
- Week 1 (January 20, 22)
January 20: First class meeting. Overview of the course. Introduction to computing and robots. Do the class questionnaire. lecture notes
January 22: History of computing and other fun things. lecture notes
Read: Chapter 1 from your text.
- Week 2 (January 27, 29)
January 27: Introduction to the Scribbler robot. How the computer talks to and controls the robot: Bluetooth wireless, computer, Python, Myro. Making the connection. Basic Scribbler commands: naming the robot, movements, etc.
January 29: Today we will meet in the Lab (231). You will get your robot kits.
Assignment#1: (Due on Thursday, february 5): Do the following exercises:
Chapter 1: Exercise 9 (Hand in the drawing)
Chapter 2: Exercise 2 (Hand in the written answer)
Chapter 2: Exercise 3 (Hand in the program as well as the drawing)
Chapter 2: Exercise 7 (Hand in the program). If possible, post a video of your robot's performance on YouTube (send link to me). You can use any music from an external source as background fo rthe dance. When posting on YouTube make sure you enter the tags "Bryn Mawr". "Scribbler robot", "CS110" to enable easy searches.
videos: Van Nguyen's Funky Town, Pamela Burt's Technological dance, Chuck dances to Britney (Aliza Rothstein), Night on Bald Mountain (Maggie Murphy)
Jon Horn and Michelle Zauner, Woo Hoo (Bethie Azuma), In the mood (Stephanie Trott)
- Week 3 (February 3, 5)
February 3 : Defining new commands. Saving your work in modules/files. Configuring your Python environment. Making your commands more general using parameters. Abstraction as a key idea in computing.
Read: Chapter 2 from your text.
Extra Credit Assignment E1: (Due on Tuesday, February 10): Attend Prof. Bernard Chazelle's talk and write a short (3-4 page) essay/critique of it.
Prof. Bernard Chazelle (Princeton University) will be giving a talk this Friday, February 6, 4:00-6:00p (Tea at 3:30p) in Room 338, Park Science Building. His talk should be of interest to all in this course and is titled, "What an iPod, a Flock of Birds, and Your DNA have in Common". This is part of the Fantastic lectures in Computer Science (see here for more details).
February 5 : Robot dances. Doing simple computations: numbers (integers and floating point numbers), strings, expressions, operations, assignment, names and variables, computer precision and limits, print and speak commands.
Assignment#2 (Due on Tuesday, February 17): Write a program for your Scribbler to draw the bluetooth logo. Your program should include a function called, drawBTLogo(height), so that you can use it over and over again to draw logos of different sizes. Write a main program to use drawBTLogo to draw at least 3 logos (use a loop) of different sizes (say 5, 10 and 12 inches tall) on the same sheet of paper. In the spirit of Valentine's Day, can you write a program for your Scribbler to draw a heart? Alternately, write a program for your Scribbler to create some abstract art. Hand in the two programs, and sheets that show your robot's drawings. For the second program, try and be creative, include repetition, use different colors etc. HINT: For how to write general scribbler commands for turning a specific amount and traveling a specific distance, you may want to read the first 5 pages of Chapter 4.
- Week 4 (February 10, 12)
February 10: Structure of robot brains. A slightly formal introduction to Python syntax with an overview. Temperature converter: doing simple computations. Input in Python. Doing repetition.
Read: Chapter 3.
February 12: More on for loops. Population projection for arbitrary future years. Sum of 1 through n. More on lists. Lists and strings.
Read: Lecture notes (curtesy of Bethie Azuma)
- Week 5 (February 17, 19)
February 17: Drawing Robots. Drawing polygons, random sized ones. Doing Repetition using while-loops; writing conditions.
Read: Chapter 4.
February 19 : Sensing: proprioception and extreoception; Scribbler sensors: time, stall, battery (proprioception); camera, light, proximity (exteroception). Commands for obtaining sensor values. Pictures: pixels, grayscale images, RGB images, saving pictures. Using sensor values to defined simple behaviors. Lists and list operations. Creating and saving animated gifs.
Read: Chapter 5.
Assignment#3: (Due on Tuesday, February 24): Write Python programs to make the following population projections: (1) What will the US population be in the year 2050? (2) In which year will the US Population exceed 1/2 billion? (3) In which year will the US population double?
Write a separate program to answer each of the questions posed above. You may use the example program in Chapter 4 (page 90) as your starting template.
Your program should input the Current population, growth rate, and the current year (if needed), and any other input required to answer the questions. You can use the figure: 305,529,237 as the population of the United States on January 1, 2009. Use a growth rate of 0.9%. Additionally, show the outputs of all three programs if the growth rate changed to: 0.8% and 1.0%.
Hand in: A print out of the three programs, along with a print out showing the inputs and outputs from each program. Write a short (less than 1 page) essay on your experiences with this program describing what you learned, how you feel about the concepts you learned, and any known issues that you may have encountered along the way.
- Week 6 (February 24, 26)
February 24: Review of Scribbler's sensing commands (takePicture, getIR, getLight). Making decisions using if-statements. Fundtionas that return values.
Read: Chapter 5.
February 26: Normalizing sensor values. Braitenberg Vehicles. Designing robot behaviors. reactive Control of robots.
Read: Chapter 6.
Assighment #4: (Due on Thursday, March 5): Implement Braitenberg vehicles 1, 2a, and 2b as discussed in Chapter 6 of your text. Additionally, implement any one of the suggested vehicles/robot applications from Chapter 6 (Choose from: Refrigerator detective, burglar alarm, Hallway cruiser, follower, Timid, Indecisive, Paranoid). Hand in all the programs you wrote. Also, write a short (1-page) essay on designing insect-like behaviors based on the robots you designed. Extra Credit: Make a video of your robot's behaviors and either send it to Dianna and/or post it on You Tube.
- Week 7 (March 3, 5)
March 3:
March 5: Exam 1 is today.
- Week 8
No classes. Spring Break!
- Week 9 (March 17, 19)
March 17: Welcome back! Exam#1 Review. Review of Python and concepts covered so far. The Python math library. Using the math library.
Videos: Lost follower Burglar alarm (Pamela Burt) Hallway cruiser (Mellisa Carn) The Chuck series: Chuck is Alive Chuck is a Coward Chuck is aggressive Chuck: Drawer Detective (Aliza Rothstein) Burglar alarm Jessica Wong
Read: Chapter 7.
March 19:
Extra Credit Assignment E2: (Due of Tuesday, March 24): Attend Prof. Jennifer Golbeck's talk and write a short (3-4 page) essay/critique of it. See below for details.
SPECIAL EVENT ON WED. March 18:
Fantastic Lectures in Computer Science presents
Prof. Jennifer Golbeck, University of Maryland
Computing with Social trust: Web Algorithms, Social networks, and Recommender Systems
Talk at 4:30p, Tea at 4:00p in KINSC H109 (Haverford College)
Assignment#5: (Due on Tuesday, March 31): Click here for details.
- Week 10 (March 24, 26)
March 24: Paper, Rock, Scissors. Strategies for writing simple game playing programs. Doing Graphics: drawing simple shapes: points, line, circles, images, text, etc. Doing RGB colors.
Read: Chapter 8
March 26: Drawing shapes (points, lines, circles, rectangles, ovals, polygons, text, images) and animating them.
- Week 11 (March 31, April 2 )
March 31: A slight diversion to discover the "logarithm"...and binary search. Image processing basics: creating, displaying, modifying, shrinking, enlarging, etc.
Read: Chapter 9
Assignment#6: (Due on Thursday, April 9): Click here for details
Assignment#7: (Due on Thursday, April 23): Click here for details
April 2: Image Processing
- Week 12 (April 7, 9)
April 7 : Image Processing continued.
April 9 : Intro to AI, tic-tac-toe
- Week 13 (April 14, 16)
April 14: Intro to AI, continued
April 16: Algorithms & Problem solving. Core ideas in computing and problem solving.
- Week 14 (April 21, 23)
April 21:
April 23:
- Week 15 (April 28, April 30)
April 28: Course wrap up. Evaluations etc.
April 30: Exam 2 is today.
Grading
All graded work will receive a grade, 4.0, 3.7, 3.3, 3.0, 2.7, 2.3, 2.0, 1.7,
1.3, 1.0, or 0.0. At the end of the semester, final grades will be calculated
as a weighted average of all grades according to the following weights:
Exam 1: 20%
Exam 2: 25%
Labs & Written Work: 55%
Total: 100%
Links
Created on
January 14, 2009.