Circuit Project
Day 1
The first day of the Circuits project we were going to work with actual circuit's but because someone stole all of our stuff we got to use Cedar Logic. With Cedar Logic we got to play with Virtual circuits. We learned about an AND Circuit, an OR Circuit, a NAND circuit, and a NOR circuit.
A AND circuit is when a input requires both energy sources to make an output.
An OR circuit is when the input requires one OR the other energy source to make the output.
A NAND circuit recquires an Inverter. An invert is defined as the opposite or upside-down, so you can draw the conclusion that a inverter does the opposite of an AND circuit. That is, it does not need both energy sources to make an output.
Like the NAND circuit, a NOR circuit is the opposite of a OR circuit. That means it requires no energy to work.
Binary Counting
Also on day 1 we learned how computers use binary code to count. At the beginning of the class Mr. Farrell asked a volunteer to choose a number from one of the 5 papers on the board. He then asked if the number was on each of the pages, and by using binary code he found what number that student had chosen. Binary code is made up of two numbers: one and zero. One is used to represent ON, and zero is used to represent OFF. And by using place number we were able to count by only using 2 numbers. We modelled this in Net Logo, and in this part I was very confused, but because Emily helped me I understand part of it now.
Day 2
Tuesday was the day we got to solder and make these awesome little robot pins that blink their lights.
We put them together by soldering the electrical components together so that the electrical current could flow through the components.
Later on Tuesday we got to play around on Cedar Logic trying to figure out how computers remember memory. To do that we made a Flip-Flop. Below is some pictures of my Flip-Flop and the first thing I noticed was that differnet buttons controlled the lights blinking sequence like mores code.
However, to get it to start blinking you have to push the two buttons on the ends
Day 3
On Wednesday we got to do more independent work to look into Operating Systems, Languages, work a little with Python, and to work on this HTML site.
Operating Systems
An operating system is the software that runs on your computer. It oversees all that is happening on your desktop. Some examples of operating systems include: Windows, Mac, and Linux. Of course there are more that are out there but these are usually the ones that either come with your computer or can be downloaded separately.Even though a computer does not require a operating system to compute, if you want to play games or surf the web you will need a operating system. But not just that, an operating system works with the hard drive to manage how information gets saved.
Above is a picture of the Apple Mac operating system. It comes with all Mac books made by Apple and unlike Windows or Linux this system cannot get viruses.
Above is a picture of a Microsoft Windows operating system. Used in most computers Windows is prone to computr viruses so you always have to be careful so that you don't accidental corrupt your computer(like I once did).
Above is a picture of another operating system called Linux. Linux is a free software that you can download on just about an computer.
Day 4(Thursday)
Breadboards
On Thursday we were able to work with bread boards to fully understand how transistors work. We wanted to know how transistors work to make gates. First we just wanted to know what the bread board does so we connected the bread board and the battery with alligator clips and 2 conductors. And the battery powered a LED that was on the bread board.
After we played with the LED's we went to making gates with the transistors. The first gate we had to make was a Or gate.
An Or gate on Cedar logic looks like on above. But instead of just buying a specific or gate, we wanted to make one. We made them on the bread boards which was pretty challenging but eventually one of the LEDS worked.
After we made the OR gate we got to make an AND gate on our bread boards.
Like the or gate, people now make or gates withought bread boards, which leads to my nect topic.
Transistors
A transistor is a semiconductor that is used to switch electrical signals. The original transistor was originally invented by 3 physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley. Their invention earned them a Nobel Prize. Transistors were originally thermionic triodes that looked like a fat light bulb but in 1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley started to test with making the first modern day transistor. And in 1965 Gordon E. Moore made a prediction.
Moore's Law
Gordon E. Moore is a co-founder of the Intel Corporation. But what he is "moore" famous for is the creation of the Moore's Law. Moore's Law is the rediction that every 2 years the amount of transistors in a dense system doubles. And as we can see it has proven true in the image below.
Moore's prediction is important because we now can carry a computer in our pocket(cell phones). Also technology industries can grow larger and better because of competition. And technology continues to grow as you can see in the picture above, in 2011 we went from 2,300 to over several billion.
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting is when you test your computer for viruses or malware and it usually takes a while because it scans your entire computer. I had to troubleshoot my laptop when I accidently downloaded a virus because I thought it was a texture pack for minecraft. After that I had to get some anti-virus programs to get rid of the virus. I still think my computer is corrupt so I think I need to troubleshoot again, but now I know that I hve to be careful with what I download.
PC
On Friday we go to take apart some PC's and see what was wrong with them, and luckily our computer was all ok and ran fine. The only thing that I think could be improved is if we install an operating system and clean the moniter.
