Thursday 28 June 2012

dancing robots - outreach


For the last few months at lot of the outreach work from the Junkbots project was focused on the exercises based around turning cans into drawing bots or junk clearing bots. On 21st June 2012 the robot programming side of the project was trialled with primary schools.

The Northamptonshire based Nene Lakes Extended Services ran "Chemistry at Work Day" event hosted by Scott Bader, Wollaston and the robot programming was also included as well. The programming idea, an off-shoot of the junkbots project, was for the students to programming an NXT Lego robot to dance using only four commands that allowed the robot to:

  • go forward for so many centimetres
  • go back for so many centimetres
  • go turn right for so many degrees
  • go turn left for so many degrees

The structure of the activity was

  1. up to 5 minutes introduction to the activity
  2. up to 10 minutes as a group of usually up seven; design a dance routine of no more than four moves
  3. up to 10 minutes putting the routine on to the robot using a template Java program 
  4. up to 10 minutes testing the routine; redesign the routine with up to eight moves, repeat 3
  5. remaining time involves forming a large circle putting the groups robot in the centre and watching them preform and saying which is the best and why.
When the instructions are being entered into the computer, the facilitator does the first one and then the students add the remaining instructions themselves and decide which instruction to use, and the first student tells then next student how to do it and so on. The facilitator does the compiling and uploading to the robot largely for speed.


Because of a limited access to the computer to program the robots an extra activity was incorporated - one person reading out the instructions one by one and then one or more members of the group acting out the actions.

Objectives aimed for

  • they can write and design programs;
  • STEM is fun;
  • robots are fun;


Lessons learn by the facilitator - it would be much easier if there was two facilitators!

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Hollywood Effect on Digital Forensics




 Do you want to learn how computer forensics is really done? 

Geraint Williams, Information Risk Consultant and Trainer for IT Governance Ltd and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Bedfordshire, will be speaking at Bedford College on the evening of Thursday 28 June.  This is part of the continuing programme of free evening lectures organised by the Computing Department at Bedford College in partnership with the local Bedford branch of the British Computer Society (BCS).

The success of forensics-based dramas like CSI, Numb3rs, and NCIS has ensured there is no shortage of applicants to study forensics.  Hollywood and its public are enamoured by the apparently supernatural potency of the discipline.  The "CSI effect" has given the public and particularly some members of juries inflated expectations of computer forensic analysis.  This talk looks at Hollywood and the TV interpretation of digital forensics and gives an insight into how it is really done.

Geraint will be speaking at Bedford College Studio Theatre on Thursday 28 June between 6.30 and 8.00pm, and this again promises to be an incredibly informative and enjoyable evening.
To ensure that you don't miss out you should register online at:
Everyone is welcome so mention this to all your colleagues, family and friends. 
Please register now to avoid disappointment, and we look forward to seeing you on 28 June

Friday 15 June 2012

Junkbots and HE STEM

The results of a funding from HE STEM South West has enabled the junkbot project to go into primary schools and the material to be revised based on good practice in STEM public engagement in primary schools. 

Details of the work developed and a case study can be found at: http://www.hestem-sw.org.uk/project?id=16&pp=540

Inspiration for the project:

RFID success

BCS Northampton organised a talk about RFID on 13th June 2012 on the University of Northampton. If you missed it, you unfortunately missed a treat. The event was open to BCS and non-BCS members and was unluckly up against a Euro 2012 match.

Andrew James and Declan Begley from Harland Simon PLC took us through applications of RFID and a demonstration of passive and active RFID as applied to a hospital environment. The talk included an opportunity to handle different types of RFID tags (I didn't realise the range was as large and varied) and also included case studies of their use in tracking assets around a hospital and some interesting ideas about using RFIDs with patients. Also near field applications were also demonstrated.

Probably the most worrying point raised was the encryption used on the biometric RFID on UK passports has been cracked!

For more information on BCS events in Northamptonshire and surrounding areas go to http://northampton.bcs.org/forthcoming_events.php?menu_id=5 

Tuesday 12 June 2012

update: Applications for RFID


Applications for RFID 13th June 2012

Synopsis:
Andrew James RFID Sales Manager - Established a new business channel at Harland Simon with RFID as the underlying technology. Focus on delivering active and passive RFID solutions to deliver improved efficiency in busy, multi floor healthcare environments where location tracking is key. Recent successes include location tracking solutions at Cambridge University Hospitals, South Devon Chesterfield Royal Hospital and Milton Keynes General Hospital.

Declan Begley - Business Development Manager (RFID) - Declan has 15 years experience delivering IT projects in the newspaper printing industry across the globe but in recent years has taken an interest in using RFid to solve a range of everyday problems - include tracking the money on Channel 4's 'The Million Pound Drop'.

Subjects: Active and passive RF Solutions and introduction on latest miniature RF/GPRS/GSM/LF/GPS technology

Location: Room MB8 at University of Northampton Campus St Georges Road NN2 6JD 
Time: 18:30

For BCS members and non-members

http://northampton.bcs.org/forthcoming_events.php?menu_id=5

Monday 11 June 2012

The Anatomy of a Mobile 'Phone


Coventry Event
The Anatomy of a Mobile 'Phone
Thursday 14 Jun 2012, 18:30 - refreshments from 6:00pm, 
Goldstein Lecture Theatre, 
Coventry University (opposite Coventry Cathedral)

Peter Andersen – IET
Have you ever wondered how your mobile 'phone works? This lecture will explore both the transmission systems, the environment they work in and the electronic devices (chips) that make up their circuit boards. The mysteries of WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, detecting magnetic north and many other functions will be uncovered and demonstrated. 

To book, please follow this link to the IET website thanks.

Sunday 10 June 2012

CEISEE 2012 - Shanghai

Recently two members of the Department of Computing (Gary Hill and Scott Turner), University of Northampton went to CEISEE 2012 in Shanghai, the 8th symposium is this series, following on from Northampton last year.

Two papers were presented see http://computingnorthampton.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/teaching-and-learning-journal-papers.html in the Journal of Computer Education.

The symposium focused on the teach of Software Engineering and preparing students to be both technically competent but also employable as possible. Perspectives and experiences from China, UK, Germany, France, Ireland and Italy were all presented, discussed and considered; along with the importance and the advantages of transnational programmes. Some very interesting discussions about potential for collaborative research in all these areas were held.

Shanghai was a very pleasant city for this friendly symposium.

Thursday 7 June 2012

Computing student wins volunteering award


Congratulations to Vimukthi Mudiyanselage (BSc Computing) for winning the Vice Chancellors Award for Outstanding Contribution to Student Volunteering on 31st May 2012; for his volunteer work  over the last few years on and off campus.

At the same ceremony Rashmi Dravid also won an award for her achievements in volunteering; in particular here activities to raise the profile of Women in Computing.




For more detail see: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/article/306/university-students-and-staff-volunteers-worth-470k

Computing Courses

BSc and HND Computing Provision (click on the links below for more details of the courses)



    The University of Northampton's, Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies offers five courses within the MSc Computing postgraduate provision (shown below) all available either part-time or full-time. 

    The contents are the opinion of the author(s) and not necessarily the view of the University of Northampton.

    Friday 1 June 2012

    teaching and learning in computing journal papers



    Kariyawasam K., A., Turner S., Hill G. (2012) 
    "Is it Visual? The importance of a Problem Solving Module within a Computing course", Computer Education, Volume 10, Issue 166, May 2012, pp. 5-7, ISSN: 1672-5913.


    Summary slides shown below




    Hill G., Turner S. (2012) "Referencing within Code in Software Engineering Education!", Computer Education, Volume 10, Issue 166, May 2012, pp. 1-4, ISSN: 1672-5913.
    Abstract: Traditionally computer sciences courses will assess software code. It is common and accepted good practice (as in written reports) to reference other sources of appropriate material. However there appears to be no explicit method, recommendation or advice to computer science tutors and students on a referencing approach. This paper aims to stimulate discussion from peers involved in software engineering education. By discussing the apparent lack of "referencing within code" advice to students and proposing suggestions for appropriate solutions.




    If there are others recently in the school on teaching and learning please send me the details: scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

    Artificial Intelligence- system optimization and education



    The application of Artificial Intelligence techniques in system optimization and engineering education 

     Dr Rosa Basagoiti 
    University of Mondragon, 
    Spain 


     Date: Thursday 28th June 2012 
    Time: 14:00 – 15:00 
     Venue: MY120, Avenue Campus  


    SYNOPSIS  
    This lecture will discuss various methods of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can be applied in three different technical areas.  The first area involves lift engineering / vertical transportation where genetic algorithms can be used to solve the dispatching problem. This optimization problem can be considered as a Multiple Travelling Salesman Problem (MTSP) and can be treated with genetic algorithm techniques. Using these techniques, two different objectives can be pursued: time and energy consumption. Furthermore, fuzzy logic methods can help to decide automatically when to prioritize the time and when to prioritize the energy consumption.  

    The second area is the system monitoring and diagnosis where feature extraction and classification can be used in a data-driven approximation approach combined with physical models.  In the third application, the personalization of content of e-learning platforms for students learning profiles is involved. In this problem one needs to create models of the students’ activity and use them in order to improve the student effectiveness and engagement, reducing the time used by the tutor to select content specific for each student.