Here is a list of percentages in the class that I have gotten so far:
Digital Logic Design Class Grades
----------------------------------------
Homework 93.48%
Design Project 95.83%
Exams (2) 62%
Laboratory 97.57%
Final Exam 63.5%
*Overall 77.71% *
I had 2 exams in the exam category of which I had gotten a "41" and an "80". The final exam was worth 25% of our grade. Wonderful emphasis on test scores =) , I'm being sarcastic !
My overall percentage is a 77.7%. I had done a small amount of extra credit in the class and I am really hoping that the professor will decide to grade on a curve and I can possibly get a B- or a B for my final grade.The worst case scenerio would probably be a C+ or a C for the class. I guess I'm not all too upset about my final grade because I know that it could have been worst, with missing a 50 point problem and not being able to fully finish other problems (see below for a description of my final exam). I was expecting to get like a 50 on my final exam, but I am satisfifed that my final percentage for the class is close to a B average.
Let me explain why I did so badly on the final exam. I even went to the teacher and talked to him about one of the problems. I was so so nervous when I talked to him about the exam but I knew that I needed to talk about one of the problems or else I might not get partial credit for the conceptial part of the exam.
Firstly, I would like to say that I did study on for the final. I know the material, I have done well on the homework and design projects in the class. However, the exams are usually designed to take too long. The final exam had a total of 5 problems with about 9 sheets, one problem being multiple choice with about 15 separate problems on the sheet. The first problem took me about a half hour and I would have liked to spend about 45 minutes on it. I had to triple check part a of the problem because if you mess up on that part --you're really screwed on the rest of the problem! The reason that I wish that I had more time for the problem was to minimize the logic and diagram with the problem. I mean it's not that hard to work the problem but the real challenge is in minimizing everything (specifically the k-maps, multiplexor implentations, and the number of gates used to implement the logic). I ended up not being able to minimize stuff too much during the exam due to time constraints, afterall there is another 4 long problems left to do in 1 1/2 hours. The next problem I can't remember!
The problem after that was another easy but time consuming problem. We were giving an input sequence and an output sequence for a finite state machine with a Moore Representation. These problems are not difficult, but what is time consuming is a.) coming up with a state diagram for the machine and b. ) MINIMIZING that!!!! If you have no idea what I am talking about, don't worry. Basically the problem is to decode a bunch of 1's and 0's and look for patterns and express a 1 or a 0 output if the pattern or sequence is recognized. If I remeber correctly, we had to make a minimized state diagram to recognize the sequences 101 and 010. The number of inputs in 1 and the number of outputs are 1. So here is an example of a possible sequence. Oh, by the way to make this problem harder, this is NON-RESETTING which means you can recognize the sequence 1010 and out put a 1 because there is a 010 embedded in the input.
Example of a Sequence
-------------------------------------
Input 0001101000111000111010101010011000111001
Output 0000000100000000000011111111000000000000
Hopefully I was able to write this example correctly. If you know digital logic design and see any mistakes in this example sequence, let me know!
This example can be expressed in a state diagram and then minimized or if you're really good you can minimize this while making the state diagram (which I can't quite doo well yet).
Then I had another part of the problem with a NEW sequence that would recognize odd parity three bits which would be the bits:
001
011
101
111
We had to use a mealy machine for this
This is even more complicated because the state diagram must take in account for 4 sequences and not 2! I had about 11 states before minimizing the sequence down to 8 I think.
That was it fo problem #3, sadly enough I had skipped part of the odd parity question and came back to it about 20 minutes before the end of the exam and was able to come up with a state diagram but didn't have time to finish my minimized one. I would have liked to spend 30-45 minutes on this problem.
No after skipping the second part of problem 3 I was now on to problem #4, the by far hardest portion of the exam. This problem was worth 50 points!
We had to design a mealy system for the movement of a robot that has a sensor. The problem said that the robot had two control lines TR and TL from a remote controller (which was the machine that we were designing). The robot also had a sensor on it and if an obstacle was detected, the robot would turn right until not obstacle was detected and continue going straight. This is how I interpreted the problem: Three inputs : obstacle, turn right, button, turn left button). After all we were designing a remote controller, I thought the controller had buttons to input to the robot to turn left and to turn right. That made the most sense for me. The outputs that I thought should go were turn left, turn right, and go straight.
to be continued....
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katiecam- Katie Williams
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pedagogical efforts of your teacher. I know I had my frustrations
with my teachers when I was in college, which was a long, long time ago.
And later, as a college teacher myself, I found that I had frustrations with
my students. Since I taught at an “alternative” school I had a little
more freedom than at more traditional schools, but much was the
same, only different in appearance. The basic problem remains
the same: a class, a test even a project are artificial constructs
intended to teach and to confirm the acquisition of certain skills and
knowledge. As you so tellingly describe, there can be major problems
with the process of communicating a problem in a test, either the
professor didn’t do a good job of formulating the problem or the student
wasn’t able to understand it. In the “real world”, a substantial amount
of effort is expended to correctly perform that communication and
then to verify that the problem specification is correct. That’s done
before any substantial work on the _solution_ to the problem is begun,
but even _after_ work on the solution is begun, the definition of the
problem to be solved may be modified since relevent information is
generated during the problem solution process that may clarify what
the problem _really_ is. You know, the old story of, “We thought we
needed to make a faster horse cart but we found out that we needed
to make a car.”
One thing that _is_ different now in school is that equation solving
systems like Mathematica and MatLab/Maple are available. The opinions
about how much and when these tools should be used by students varies.
I can remember filling up page after page after page solving some stupid
equation. By the time I got to what I thought was the answer, I had forgotten why I was even solving that equation. And with all of those
pages and pages of operations, just one little mistake means that either
you veer off and your equation gets bigger and bigger and bigger until
you finally realize, “Whoa! This can’t be right! It’s supposed to get
smaller (fewer terms)!” or else you just plain get the wrong answer.
I figure, why do by hand what a machine can do? But there are those
(teachers, “pedagogues”) who insist that there is some almost moral
virtue that is achieved by doing these calculations by hand. I think part
of it is that a lot of these people just aren’t that comfortable with
computers. Sort of like back in the “stone age” when engineers and
scientists first started using paper and pencil to solve a problem:
“Whoa! What is that thing, dude?”
“It’s called a pencil. And this is paper. You can draw diagrams much
faster and more easily than by chiseling them in stone!”
“I don’t know dude, we’ve always used chisels and stone. I don’t think
you will really _understand_ a problem if you write it down that way.”
Well, unfortunately, when you’re taking a class, you have to do it _their_
way. But I guess that’s life. The best encouragement I can offer is that
it sounds like your frustrations are valid, but somehow you have to
figure out what your professors want and give it to them. And if you
see a specific difficulty in your performance, for example, in taking tests,
then *practice* -- create practice tests, with time limits and a desk and room from which you can’t leave until you’re done. Get somebody to
watch you as you work the fake test.
And, one last thing: Cheez Whiz??? You don’t actually _eat_ that
stuff, do you?????????????????????