APSC 142 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER PROGRAMMING FOR …

APSC 142 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER PROGRAMMING FOR

ENGINEERSWINTER 2017

Instructor

Tashfeen Karamat, Ph.D.

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Lecture 1

About Me

• Tashfeen Karamat

• Assistant Professor (Adjunct)• Royal Military College of Canada (RMC)

• Navigation and Instrumentation Research group at RMC

• Education• PhD Queen’s 2014

• MASc RMC 2008

• M.Eng Queen’s 2006

• Publications• Book on GPS/INS- Oct, 2012

• Several papers on GPS/INS

• Interests• Photography

• Etymology

• Astronomy

© Tashfeen Karamat 2017 2

Course notes

• No audio/video recording of the lectures (it’s a copyright

material)

• Course official page is not yet functional

• As an interim measure to get the notes, go to following

link:

• http://karamat.segfaults.net/

• Click APSC142

• Then click PDF of week 1 to download the lecture

• This is only for week 1. For rest of the lectures, go to onQ

• Make sure you use onQ regularly

• Enable notifications etc. to get the info quickly

3© Tashfeen Karamat 2017

http://karamat.segfaults.net/

Course Organization & People

Lectures1 hour/wk

Studios1.5 hours/wk

Labs2 hours/wk

• Brian Lynch (Sec. 100)

• Tashfeen Karamat (Sec. 101)

• Malek Karaim (Sec. 102)

• Course Instructor/Graduate studio TA

• Undergraduate studio TA

• Graduate TA

• Undergraduate TA’s


Course Activities• Lecture:

• 1 hour/week

• Studio (Practice programming):

• 1.5 hours/week – beginning in Week 2

• Studio exercises – weeks 2-11

• Quizzes: weeks 3, 6, 9 and 12

• Lab (Robots):

• 2 hours/week – beginning in Week 2

• Lab exercises – required programming tasks

• Project – demonstrated in week 11 or week 12

• Office hours

• Before and after the lectures

• Setup a time through email ([email protected])


Course Schedule (Lectures)

6

Lecture 100 – Ellis Hall Auditorium

Lecture 101 – Ellis Hall Auditorium

Lecture 102 – Stirling Hall Auditorium

© Tashfeen Karamat 2017

Course Schedule (Studios)

7

Studios – Beamish-Munro Hall 213


Course Schedule (Labs)

8

Studios – Beamish-Munro Hall 212/214


Marking scheme

• Lab exercises – 10%• best 7 out of 9 will be counted

• Studio exercises – 10%• best 7 out of 10 will be counted

• Quizzes – 10%• best 3 out of 4 will be counted

• Project – 25%

• 3% for project proposal (week 7/8)

• 10% for project demonstration (week 11/12)

• 12% for project report and code (week 11/12)

• Final Exam – 45%


Studios

• Short video lecture summarizing weekly material and demonstrating examples

• Studio exercise to be demonstrated to TA (assigned one week ahead, may be completed at home or during studio)

• Studio exercises are marked out of 3:• 3 marks if exercise program completed successfully

• 2 marks if exercise program partially complete

• 1 mark if exercise program did not work, but you made some effort

• Changing studio sections is NOT permitted!


Studios

• Studios run from week 2 to 12 in BMH 213:• Weeks 2-11: studio exercises

• Week 12: review for final exam

• There will be 4 quizzes written during studio time:• Weeks 3, 6, 9 and 12

• The best 7 out of 10 studio marks and the best 3 out of 4 quiz marks will count towards your final grade


Labs

• You will work in pairs to program a Lego EV3 robot using RobotC• Lab exercises will be posted on course

website prior to each week’s lab

• Can be tested at home with simulator

• Marking: labs are marked out of 3• Lab exercises (weeks 2-7)

• 3 marks for successful completion

• 2 marks for partially complete exercise

• 1 mark for attendance

• Project labs (weeks 8-10)• 3 marks for attending the full lab session


Labs

• Labs run from week 2 to 12 in BMH 212/214:• Weeks 2-7: lab exercises with specific tasks

• Weeks 8-10: project labs; work on your robot project

• Weeks 11-12: project demonstrations

• The best 7 out of 9 lab marks will count towards your final grade

• Changing lab sections is NOT permitted!


Lab Procedures

• At the beginning of each lab, you will receive an attendance/sign-out slip

• Write both partners’ names and student numbers on the slip

• The slip is used to sign out a robot to use in the lab and for TAs to record the lab marks

• You must return all equipment and turn in your slip at the end of the lab

• Preparation• Read each week’s lab material before going into the lab! You can

even begin to prepare some of your programs using the simulator.


Lab Project Details

• You and your lab partner will define a project by Week 7

• The project involves designing software to make the EV3 robot do something fun and fancy

• A short project proposal is due in Week 8

• You will work on your project during the lab sessions in Weeks 8-10

• Project demonstrations will be held in week 11 or week 12

• After demonstrating your project, hand in a project report, including a print-out of your project code (in the same lab period as your demonstration).

• There will be a bonus of 2 marks if you demonstrate your project and submit your report in week 11

• Information and rules for the project, project proposal and project report will be posted on the course web page and on course website


Resources

The primary resource for APSC 142 is the course website page. You will find:

• general information on course organization & policies • lecture & studio slides (for all sections) • lab exercises• weekly practice exercises and solutions• Robot simulator (for use at home)• marks• information and links to additional resources on C programming

• Notes: • answers (where appropriate) to studio exercises will be posted, but

full solutions will not be provided; if you miss a studio, you should do the programming exercise and check your answer

• partial solutions to lab exercises will be provided


Computer Organization and Architecture

• A computer is a machine that can solve problems by carrying out a

series of instructions

• The machine – or physical device – is the hardware; the set of

instructions – or program – is the software

17

task main()

{

float x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3;

float slope, yint;

x1 = 15;

x2 = 75;

y1 = 20;

y2 = 90;

x3 = 60;

// compute slope

slope = (y2-y1)/(x2-x1);

nxtDisplayTextLine(1,"Slope is:");

nxtDisplayTextLine(2,"%0.3f", slope);

// compute intercept

yint = y1-x1*slope;

nxtDisplayTextLine(3,"Intercept is:");

nxtDisplayTextLine(4,"%0.3f", yint);

// Find y3

y3 = slope*x3+yint;

nxtDisplayTextLine(5, "y3 is: %0.2f", y3);

}

2000 BCE

2000 CE


Input / output control

Hard drive Keyboard Monitor Modem Robot hardware

USB drive Scanner Printer WiFi

DVD Mouse

Computer Organization and Architecture

18

I/O and storage

devices

ALU

Control

Regis

ters

Central processing unit (CPU)

RAM RAM

Memory

Four components are necessary for computing:input – get information (data) into the computer

storage (memory) – store data and instructions

processing – manipulate the data

output – get answers out of the computer


Computer Applications

• Today, you can find computers everywhere.

19

Type Price ($) Example

Disposable computer 1 – 5 Greeting card

Embedded computer 10 – 100 Watch, appliances, cell phones, cars,

robots

Game computer <300 Xbox, Wii, Playstation

Personal computer 1000 Desktop, laptop, tablet

Server computer 4000 Network servers

Cluster computer 20K – 200K Low-end to high-end applications

Massively parallel

computer

10M Grand challenge applications


Computer Applications

• Today, you can find computers of different shapes and sizes.

20

Flexible smart phone

Xbox gaming system

IBM Blue Gene Super

computer


Programming as a Tool

• Engineers and scientists use programming as a tool for problem solving.

21

Analyzing air flow around a

race car Simulating dispersion of Chlorine

after a spill

Solving for protein structures that fight

diseases


C programming language• C is a classic (procedural) programming language

• It is one of the most popular languages of all time• Used by engineers in industry

• Low run-time and access to hardware devices

• C has been used to develop:

22

Operating

Systems

Embedded

Systems

Computational

Software

Android

Mac OS

Unix

Windows

Automobiles

Robots

Biomedical devices

(e.g. pacemakers)

Maple

MATLAB

Mathematica


RobotC versus Standard C

• RobotC is a subset of standard C developed for

specific robotic systems

• some commands are named differently

• some commands are specific to the robot function, e.g.

setMotorSpeed

• RobotC displays output on the LCD display of the Lego

robot, not the computer screen

• RobotC has no keyboard input

• We will use RobotC for the Lego EV3 robot


RobotC

• RobotC is a licensed product, available to

students in BMH 212/214

24

http://i.imgur.com/rsJYvMg.png


RobotC• QEV3 Simulator is developed at Queen’s for students to use in the labs, studios, and at home• For use with studio exercises, lab exercise preparation, and project


What We Will Cover

• Syntax: rules for writing programs that a computer can

read

• Programming structures:

• Conditional statements [if ... else]

• Repetition [while and for loops]

• Techniques for storing and manipulating large amounts of data

[arrays]

• Engineering Applications

• Moving and manipulating robots

• Simulating physical problems

• Style: making programs readable to others, easier to

debug


Topics

• C program structure

• Variable types and declaration [int age]

• Expressions [area= PI * radius * radius]

• Screen Output [displayTextLine]

• Conditionals [if …else]

• Loops [while loops, for loops]

• Arrays

• Functions

• Screen pixel drawing

• Sorting

• Gaussian Elimination


Programs: From Ideas to Computer ‘Bits’

28

1. High-level

description (Idea)

Make Robot

Follow Black

Line

100110101110010001010001100011

101010000001100

(Binary

Code in

memory)

(Binary Data)

3b. Assembler Program

AB95FC2E637BC

2000

(HEX

Machine

Code)?


Programs: From Ideas to Action

29

2. Human Translation to

C-language Program

(Source Code)

task main( )

{

int black;

motor[1]=30;

motor[2]=30;

if ……

motor[1]=0;

……

}

1. High-level

description (Idea)

Make Robot

Follow Black

Line

c. Loader Program

100110101110010001010001100011

101010000001100

(Binary

Code in

memory)

(Binary Data)

3. C-Program Translation

to Machine Code and

Execution

a. Compiler Program

MOV $45B EAX

ADD 3, EAX

(Assembly

Language

Instructions)

b. Assembler Program

AB95FC2E637BC

2000

(HEX

Machine

Code)


Generating a computer program

1. Write the RobotC source code

2. Compile the source code. The compiler

• Checks the syntax (or grammar) of the code

• Reserves parts of memory to store the variables

3. Run (execute) the program.

• The computer will perform each instruction in the program.

4. Debug make sure you have no errors and that program

achieves “idea”


Simple program

task main()

{

int x1, y1, x2, y2;

float xmid, ymid, side1, side2, distance;

x1 = 15;

x2 = 75;

y1 = 20;

y2 = 90;

// compute midpoint

xmid = (x1 + x2)/2;

ymid = (y1 + y2)/2;

// compute distance

side1 = x2 - x1;

side2 = y2 - y1;

distance = sqrt(side1*side1+side2*side2);

}

31

x

y

(x1,y1)

(x2,y2)

(xmid,ymid)


Things to Notice

• the “main” program begins with task main()

• the program opens with { and closes with }

• other blocks of code (functions) are also delineated by curly

brackets { }

• there are semicolons at the end of most statements

• comments are defined by // at the beginning of the

comment or /* and */ around the comment and are

ignored by the compiler

• comments are important to tell other programmers what you have

done


Syntax errors

• if you have a syntax error in your program, it will not run

• instead the compiler will generate an error message

• for example, if you typed xmid = (x1 + x2)/2

• instead of xmid = (x1 + x2)/2;

• (i.e., you forgot the ; at the end of the statement

• you will get a PARSE ERROR


Programming style and debugging

• The computer will follow your recipe (program) blindly–even if your recipe is flawed

• Your syntax may be correct and the program will compile, but the program doesn’t do what you intended

• For example:// compute midpoint

xmid = (x1 + x2)/2;

ymid = (y1 - y2)/2;

// compute distance

side1 = x2 - x1;

side2 = y2 - y1;

distance = sqrt(side1*side1 + side2*side2);

34

you have a ‘-’ sign instead of ‘+’

The program will run, but the answer will be incorrect.


Debugging

• Finding and correcting program errors is called debugging

• Debugging is harder if you don’t use good writing style and commenting • Poor programming style makes it hard for others to read your

program and figure out what it’s designed to do

• Good writing style• Use consistent indentation, spacing and placement of { }• Use comments tell others (and you!) what each segment of code is

supposed to do

• Team projects rely on team members working individually on different sections of code and require good programming style


References• Original slides provided by Prof. Evelyn Morin (Sec. 100)

• Slides have been adapted from previous course instructors: Dr. K. Rudie, Dr. A. McLeod and Dr. S. Simmons and co-instructors H. Abou-zeid, B. Nabulsi anb Brian Lynch

• QNXTBotSim was developed by Dr S. Simmons

• Web-sites

• Bombe (Turing) – the Turing machine: http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/bombe_turing.html

• IBM Blue Gene - http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/bluegene/

• Flexible smart phone – Dr. R. Vertegaal:

• http://www.cs.queensu.ca/frameset/frameset.php?local=true&url=http://www.hml.queensu.ca/people/roelvertegaal


http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/bombe_turing.html

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/bluegene/

http://www.cs.queensu.ca/frameset/frameset.php?local=true&url=http://www.hml.queensu.ca/people/roelvertegaal

References (cont’d)

• Abacus: Weisstein, Eric W. "Abacus." From MathWorld--A

Wolfram Web Resource.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Abacus.html

• F1 race-car CFD: Advantage CFD

http://www.symscape.com/node/261

• Simulated chlorine spill: ERCIM Environmental Modelling

Working Group (Achim Sydow)

http://www.ercim.eu/publication/Ercim_News/enw39/sydow.htm

l

• Protein structure solution: Nature Vol. 466 Issue 7307 Letters

(Seth Cooper, et al.) (doi:10.1038/nature09304)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7307/full/nature09

304.html


http://mathworld.wolfram.com/about/author.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Abacus.html

http://www.symscape.com/node/261

http://www.ercim.eu/publication/Ercim_News/enw39/sydow.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7307/full/nature09304.html

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