Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, founded in 1955 and located in Claremont, California, United States.
Digital systems have revolutionized our world. From television to cell phones to GPS to warfare to automobiles to medicine to distance education, computers and digital processing have reshaped the way we live and work. The semiconductor industry has grown from $21B in 1985 to $412B in 2019, making it one of the largest sectors of the economy. Computers are also a vital part of daily practice in every field of science and engineering.Previous generations of engineers learned the “nuts and bolts” of the profession by doing hand-on projects such as disassembling and rebuilding engines. As technology has advanced, cars have become too complicated for the average person to work on. Ironically, the same advances have made computers much easier to build. While most fields of engineering require extensive mathematics and complicated analysis of even rather simple components, digital systems merely require counting from 0 to 1. Their challenge, instead, is in combining many simple building blocks into a complex whole. In this class, you will experiment with digital systems, building simple circuits from logic gates on a breadboard and designing more complex systems with a logic simulator. You will learn how to systematically create digital systems with a desired function. By the end of this course, you will have the knowledge and experience to design digital systems and be prepared for more advanced coursework.Beyond the practical reasons to take this class, I hope you find it enormously fun and exciting like I do. There's a great satisfaction about being able to build things. Digital systems are ideal because the components are far cheaper and easier to use than in other engineering fields. It's also amazing to demystify how digital systems work under the hood. I fell in love with digital design when I first studied it in college, and I hope you do too!This is the first half of a 2-part sequence. This half covers digital design. The second half, ENGR85B, covers computer architecture, where you will learn to program, use, and build microprocessors. By the end of the second half, you will have designed your own microprocessor and understand it all the way from the transistor level to the software. You'll also have built smart gadgets and games with lights and sensors.
“Although many of the programs designed to teach kids to code are very simplistic, many of them, like Scratch, are suitable for all ages. It doesn't matter how old you are…Get started with the basics of programming!” -LifehackerWant to learn computer programming, but unsure where to begin? This is the course for you! Scratch is the computer programming language that makes it easy and fun to create interactive stories, games and animations and share them online.This course is an introduction to computer science using the programming language Scratch, developed by MIT. Starting with the basics of using Scratch, the course will stretch your mind and challenge you. You will learn how to create amazing games, animated images and songs in just minutes with a simple “drag and drop” interface.No previous programming knowledge needed. Join us as you start your computer science journey.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1044106. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
WHAT IS “HOW STUFF MOVES”?Mechanics is the study of how things move. It was the first quantitative science to achieve wide power to predict behavior, including things never before directly observed. Newton, Leibniz, and others invented calculus to describe motion and we will find both differential and integral calculus extremely useful throughout this course.This is the third in a 3-part series of courses that parallels the second-semester mechanics course taught at Harvey Mudd College. Part 3 focuses on the movement of oscillating systems and the propagation of waves (sound, seismic, or surface-water). Part 1 examined linear motion, and Part 2 examined angular motion. This course is an invitation to develop your problem-solving skills and to learn how to apply mathematics to all sorts of problems of the physical world. Learning the rules that govern how stuff moves in the world around us is exciting; using those rules to predict _correctly _something that you haven’t observed means that you really understand something. It‘s a great feeling.WHAT SHOULD I KNOW BEFORE WE START?You need not have taken physics before, but we assume that you have studied mathematics, up to and including a first course in calculus. You may be taking a calculus course concurrently with this course; that should be a good strategy. We will introduce important calculus ideas and methods as the need arises and provide examples.There is a Mathematics Diagnostic Test that you can take at the beginning of Part 1 of this series to ensure that your mathematics background will set you up for success in this course.
How do computers work? What do computer scientists do? What does it take to make a computer or a computer program work? We answer these questions and more with MyCS: Computer Science for Beginners. We believe that anyone can succeed in and enjoy computer science. This course is an early introduction to CS, designed for anyone who's completely new to the field. It explores a combination of the basic principles of how computers work and how we can use them to solve interesting problems and create amazing things. Lessons alternate between general exercises and assignments in Scratch, which offer a chance to both practice some basic concepts of computer programming and explore the many cool, creative, and useful applications of CS. You don't need any CS or programming background to do this course - just a bit of basic math and a lot of creative thinking. The course is intended especially for middle school students and their teachers, but is good for learners of all ages. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1240939. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
WHAT IS “HOW STUFF MOVES”?Mechanics is the study of how things move. It was the first quantitative science to achieve wide power to predict behavior, including things never before directly observed. Newton, Leibniz, and others invented calculus to describe motion and we will find both differential and integral calculus extremely useful throughout this course.This is the second in a 3-part series of courses that parallels the second-semester mechanics course taught at Harvey Mudd College. Part 2 expands on Part 1 by considering the rotation of objects, connecting new concepts of angular momentum and torque to the properties of linear motion. Part 1 examined linear motion, and Part 3 examines wave motion. This course is an invitation to develop your problem-solving skills and to learn how to apply mathematics to all sorts of problems of the physical world. Learning the rules that govern how stuff moves in the world around us is exciting; using those rules to predict _correctly _something that you haven’t observed means that you really understand something. It‘s a great feeling.WHAT SHOULD I KNOW BEFORE WE START?You need not have taken physics before, but we assume that you have studied mathematics, up to and including a first course in calculus. You may be taking a calculus course concurrently with this course; that should be a good strategy. We will introduce important calculus ideas and methods as the need arises and provide examples.There is a Mathematics Diagnostic Test that you can take at the beginning of Part 1 of this series to ensure that your mathematics background will set you up for success in this course.
WHAT IS “HOW STUFF MOVES”?Mechanics is the study of how things move. It was the first quantitative science to achieve wide power to predict behavior, including things never before directly observed. Newton, Leibniz, and others invented calculus to describe motion and we will find both differential and integral calculus extremely useful throughout this course.This is the first in a 3-part series of courses that parallels the second-semester mechanics course taught at Harvey Mudd College. Part 1 explores the concepts of momentum, force, and energy, and how these properties define the motion of objects at everyday speeds. Part 2 examines angular motion, and Part 3 examines wave motion. This course is an invitation to develop your problem-solving skills and to learn how to apply mathematics to all sorts of problems of the physical world. Learning the rules that govern how stuff moves in the world around us is exciting; using those rules to predict _correctly _something that you haven’t observed means that you really understand something. It‘s a great feeling.WHAT SHOULD I KNOW BEFORE WE START?You need not have taken physics before, but we assume that you have studied mathematics, up to and including a first course in calculus. You may be taking a calculus course concurrently with this course; that should be a good strategy. We will introduce important calculus ideas and methods as the need arises and provide examples.There is a Mathematics Diagnostic Test that you can take at the beginning of this course to ensure that your mathematics background will set you up for success in this course.