Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

For my robotics class I gave them just three questions in their finals.

The first two, just like I "warned" them, was about the logic circuit and the PIC programming, for the same result, which had four inputs and one output. The thing was, I made for questions.

But I labeled them sets A to H, making them think there were twice as many different types of questions are there actually were.

What surprised me was that for this part of the exam, there were still people who went for listing down all sixteen possible combinations of the inputs, and listing down each variant as a conditional statement - in other words, brute force.

It's not possible for the logic gate circuit solution though.

And I also gave them the usual sitting arrangement, putting the irregular fourth year students at opposite ends of the room.

Literally: one was at the front right, the other was at the back left.

But this still did not stop them from talking to their neighbors.

Why? Because the third part of the exam was the same for all sets.

We (or more specifically, they) discussed thirteen different types of sensors in class. All I asked is that they enumerate eight of them, and give one practical application of each.

And as an example, I said they shouldn't just right down "automatic door opener" but they should say what the input of the sensor is, what is its output and what component it triggers.

I even gave them a two sentence minimum for the answer, to get a full five points.

So that part is just 40 points of the total, while the I/O was 35 pts. each.

Session 1949 still went for the easier smaller percentage part of the exam to answer. Class dismissed.