Shadowfax Cluster Rant 2009-2024 Release 36.07

https://www.udemy.com/user/alvar-garcia-fernandez

CMP101 Week 14: Microsoft Excel Lab!

Dear Students,

LAB307 was all about familiarizing ourselves with Spreadsheets in general and Microsoft Excel in particular. LAB308 was devoted to an Excel Lab.

Congrats! You've made it this far! Next week, Week 15, is our last week and will consist of preTEST3A review and TEST3B Final.

Lectures & Labs

307 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

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CMP101 Week 13: Logic Gates & Processing!

Dear Students,

LECTURE 305 was all about the direct 1-1 correlation between Truth Tables and Logic Gates so we could design our digital circuit diagrams! LAB 306 was a challenge to have each of use draw our own space aliens (see Zoog)! We used all the commands we learned in HelloProcessing and discussed functional vs object oriented programming extensions.

Congrats! You've made it this far! Next week, Week 14, we'll devote both classes to an Excell Lab. Then our last week, Week 15, will consist of preTEST3A review and TEST3B Final.

Lectures & Labs

305 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 12: preTEST2A & Processing!

Dear Students,

LECTURE 303 was about revisiting preTEST2A and checking our work with SAGE. LAB 304 was all about finishing the Hello Processing tutorials: Shape, Color, Animation. Next week we will have our last lecture about Logic Gates and their connection to Truth Tables. Most of our remaining classes after that will be devoted to labs.

Lectures & Labs

303 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 11: postTEST2B & Processing!

Dear Students,

There are no recordings this week as LECTURE 301 devoted to a postTEST2B review and LAB 302 is already recorded at Hello Processing! We covered "Section 1 Hello" and "Section 2 Shapes," next week we'll cover color and animation! We're using Processing as a gentle introduction to Java graphics programming.

Lectures & Labs

301 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 10: preTEST2A Review!

Dear Students,

Lecture 209 was a review of every lecture we've had so far (preTEST2A) covering:

Whole Numbers in Bases Other Than 10,

Rational Numbers in Bases Other Than 10,

4-Bit 2's Complement Binary Integers and

Truth Tables.

Lecture 210 was not recorded as it was devoted to taking TEST2B. We will not recorder Lecture 301 as we will be going over TEST2B. Our next Lab 302 will introduce us to the Java programming language, graphics, animation and simulations! Bye Bye Python...

Lectures & Labs

209 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 9: Truth Tables & Series!

Dear Students,

Lecture 207 was all about evaluating a boolean expression using a truth table. We also talked about decomposing a boolean expression into its most basic components using only AND, OR, NOT in order to build a truth table from scratch. We will use Truth Tables in our next unit and Logic Gates to design and test digital circuits!

In Lab 208, we refactored Lab 206 to find the value of an infinite series instead of a finite series.

Lectures & Labs

207 on BlackBoard

208 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 8: Whole Numbers & Sequences!

Dear Students,

Lecture 205 was devoted to reviewing preTEST1A again. This time we could do Part IV: Integers properly. Also, we used pythonic functions to check our work on Part III: int(), bin(), oct(), hex(). For example:

int('1111',2) returns 15

bin(15) returns '1111'

oct(15) returns '17'

hex(15) returns 'F'

So, we input a string in a base other than 10 into the int() function and it outputs an integer in Base 10. bin(), oct() and hex() operate as inverse functions since we enter a Base 10 integer and output a string!

Lab 206 was all about finite Sequences and Series using for loops, lists and list operators in python on SageCell.

Lectures & Labs

205 on BlackBoard

206 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 7: Integers & Equations!

Dear Students,

Lecture 203 was about 2's Complement Binary Arithmetic! In other words how do modern day CPUs add and subtract signed numbers in Binary? Please see screencast 203 below. Lab 204 was continuing our investigation of how a Computer Algebra System (CAS) solves equations. Please see screencast 204 below. Last week we solved quadratic equations by coding a quadratic formula function in python. This week we extended this idea by writing a function to handle non quadratics too. We started by using Newton's Method to solve an easy equation as a test case, x**3-8=0. Newton's method for this equation is based on the recursive sequence:

x=1,

x=x-(x**3-8)/(3*x**2).

This method uses rational numbers to approximate irrational roots, so we got lots of fractional results: LAB204a. Then we converted these results to decimals and found the limit is 2: LAB204b. Then we generalized our find_root() function to find the nth root of a, find_root(n,a), solving x**n-a=0: LAB204c. Like this:

x=1,

x=x-(x**n-a)/(n*x**(n-1)).

BTW, you can solve quadratics this way too: LAB204d.

x=1

x=x-(a*x**2+b*x+c)/(2*a*x+b)

Note: the denominator is always the derivative of the numerator, but you didn't need to know that!

Lectures & Labs

203 on BlackBoard

204 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 6: Solving Quadratics!

Dear Students,

Please see our Lab 202 recording below. We only recorded on Thursday this week as Tuesday was a post TEST1B review. Thursday was a Lab about using python and numerical methods to solve quadratic equations by writing functions using the quadratic formula! Here's today's code in python!

Last week we only met on Thursday for TEST1B, so we had no recordings or blog posts. That day was devoted entirely to the TEST: no filks, no dox, no reviews, no lectures, no labs!

Next week's Lecture 203 will about how a modern PC handles signed number arithmetic in Binary. Our next Lab 204 will be about solving equations that are not quadratic!

Lectures & Labs

202 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 4: Adding & Subtracting!

Dear Students,

Please see our Lecture 107 and Review 108 recordings below. We finished UNIT01 on Tuesday (107) with a discussion of adding and subtracting whole numbers in bases other than 10. Thursday (108) we went over preTEST1A as a review sheet for our first test next week, TEST1B. We didn't get to Integers (signed numbers) so all questions and answers will involve only positive whole numbers on this first test. We did cover Positive Rational Numbers, we'll see that on our second test along with Integers.

We didn't have time for a Lab this week since we had the review session today (Thursday). We'll continue with Integers (Lecture201) and Equations (Lab202) in UNIT02.

This will be our last post for a couple of weeks as next week we only have TEST1B on Thursday 2/24. UNIT02 starts on Tuesday 3/1 with the next lecture and continue Thursday 3/3 with the next lab.

Lectures & Labs

107 on BlackBoard

108 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 3: Binomials & Equations!

Dear Students,

Please see Lecture 105 and Lab 106 recordings below. We continued our discussion of Bits & Bytes converting integers from base 10 in our Tuesday lecture. Thursday's lab was about Binomials (Lab106) without and with pythonic lists and for loops as well as solving equations. UNIT01 ends this coming Tuesday with a discussion of addition and subtraction in other bases. Next Thursday we will go over our preTEST1A review sheet so you will be ready for our TEST1B.

Lectures & Labs

105 on BlackBoard

106 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 2: Algebra!

Dear Students,

Finally! We had no software, hardware or heating problems this week in our "new" room! Suffice it to say that I think we were much more productive!

Tuesday's Lecture continued our discussion of how modern day computers represent data. We continued to learn how to convert whole numbers to BASE 10. We even began talking about converting from BASE 10! Here's a sample quiz with answers highlighted in green. See if you can't get the same answers!

Thursday's Lab extended our introduction to coding in Python and Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) such as SAGE. We extended what we know about the 7 basic arithmetic operators to combine binomials algebraically! Here's sample code from today (Lab104).

Don't forget to check out our videos from Lectures and Labs as well as our FILKS and DOX (documentaries) below:

Lectures & Labs

103 on BlackBoard

104 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week 1: Arithmetic?

Dear Students,

OK, we survived our first week!

Thanx for hanging in there with me through all our technical difficulties! We had several down PCs in room B223 on Tuesday during our first Lecture, some login issues and it was even too hot! So, we got a room change...

On Thursday, in our new room B221, during our first Lab, I had WiFi issues just trying to play a Filk on YouTube. This networking issue turned out to be a campus-wide outage! I even had trouble recording and smartboarding our lesson on Zoom. You guys even had issues with Ethernet!

See below for Tuesday's Zoom recording from our Lecture on Positional Arithmetic and converting to BASE 10! I'm including a video from another class that is similar to Thursday's Lab. Here's sample code from our Thursday's Lab102 on using SAGE to do Arithmetic pythonically. You will also find below our Tom Lehrer Filks from this week!

Lectures & Labs

101 on BlackBoard

102 on BlackBoard

FILKS & DOX

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College

CMP101 Week Zero: Setting Up!

Dear Students,

I am happy to announce that our BlackBoard Site is up and running ready for your perusal. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the course requirements in the Syllabus. Also, if you could download, print and complete your Welcome Bio to hand in this Tuesday, that'd be great!

FYI, I've been teaching 100% remotely for nearly 2 years due to health concerns during the pandemic. As such, I am not available before class or after class. We will also be using face masks during class and observe social distancing protocols. Please use my email address as listed in the syllabus if you have any questions. I don't have office hours, so please avail yourself of extra computer time and tutoring after class in B225 (right next to our classroom B223).

Since we've been using BlackBoard and Zoom so much during the pandemic, I thought it would be helpful for you if I recorded our classes over zoom to post on BlackBoard in case you miss anything or you are absent. I will try to write all my notes with my stylus on my Chromebook so I can display what I do just like a SmartBoard during class on a PC Projector. That way you won't miss a thing from class if you watch the recording later! You can even join our live zoom session if you are stuck at home for whatever reason!

I hope you learn alot in my class this semester! I will try to make it fun. We may have a few Filks and Documentaries from YouTube during lectures. What's a Filk you ask? See the links above (in this paragraph). BTW, except for three preTESTs and three TESTs, most Tuesdays will be lectures based on our textbook (so read the chapters!) and most Thursdays will be LABs. There will be one LAB grade and one TEST grade in each of our three units. With the exception of two optional extra credit take-home exams based on our Documentaries and textbook, all graded work will be completed in class (LABs and TESTs).

One last thing, 100% attendance is required (see Syllabus). So, we'll be having a fourth TEST grade reflecting your attendance record. You are all starting with 100 points for this TEST grade, so don't lose these points!

That's all for now. Can't wait to meet you all on Tuesday 1/25/2020 at 8:30am sharp!

Stay healthy,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College