Projects
Activity 1.1.8 - Soldering
Regardless of whether you have your driver’s license or will soon be getting it, two absolute certainties exist. One: you will want to drive your parents’ expensive car, and two: they will not let you. To a parent, the reasoning is obvious. When you are first learning to drive, you are most likely to make a mistake. Wouldn’t it be better to make these mistakes in the ten-year-old family minivan?
Like driving, good soldering requires practice. In this activity you will practice your soldering skills while constructing a simple Fun Light Project. This Fun Light Project has many of the same components as the Random Number Generator that you will construct in a future activity. Moreover, like the old minivan, if you happen to damage the Fun Light while honing your soldering skills, it’s not a big deal.
Like driving, good soldering requires practice. In this activity you will practice your soldering skills while constructing a simple Fun Light Project. This Fun Light Project has many of the same components as the Random Number Generator that you will construct in a future activity. Moreover, like the old minivan, if you happen to damage the Fun Light while honing your soldering skills, it’s not a big deal.
Activity 1.1.9 Random number generator
How many times has this happened to you? It is a rainy Sunday afternoon, there is nothing on TV, and you decide to play a board game with the family. You go to the closet and get out the Monopoly® game only to find that the die is missing (note: die is the singular for dice). Wouldn’t it be great to have a simple electronic device to replace all the dice that have gone missing? Well, after you complete this project, that’s exactly what you will have.
In this project you will assemble and test a Random Number Generator kit that randomly displays a number between one and six in the patterns typically seen on a board game die.
In this project you will assemble and test a Random Number Generator kit that randomly displays a number between one and six in the patterns typically seen on a board game die.
Project 2.1.6 AOI Logic Design: Majority Vote
The United States 2000 Presidential Election between George W. Bush (Republican) and Albert "Al" Gore (Democrat) will be best remembered for the controversy over who won Florida's 25 electoral votes, and ultimately, who won the presidency.
At the heart of the controversy was the use of antiquated and unreliable paper ballots. The use of these paper ballots resulted in an unacceptable amount of over-votes and under-votes. An over-vote occurs when someone’s vote is counted more than once, and an under-vote occurs when someone’s vote is not counted at all.
To ensure that this type of controversy does not occur at your company, the board of directors has asked you to design an electronic voting machine. The voting machine will allow the four board members to cast their ballots and will display the pass/fail status of each of their decisions.
The board of directors has four members; a president, a vice-president, a secretary, and a treasurer. Each member has a single yes/no vote. For a decision to pass, a majority of the board members must vote yes. In the event of a tie, the president’s vote is used to break the tie (i.e., if the president votes yes, the decision passes. If the president votes no, the decision fails.).
In this project, you will use only AND, OR & Inverter logic gates, frequently referred to as AOI logic, to design, simulate, and build a Majority Vote voting machine that meets these design specifications.
At the heart of the controversy was the use of antiquated and unreliable paper ballots. The use of these paper ballots resulted in an unacceptable amount of over-votes and under-votes. An over-vote occurs when someone’s vote is counted more than once, and an under-vote occurs when someone’s vote is not counted at all.
To ensure that this type of controversy does not occur at your company, the board of directors has asked you to design an electronic voting machine. The voting machine will allow the four board members to cast their ballots and will display the pass/fail status of each of their decisions.
The board of directors has four members; a president, a vice-president, a secretary, and a treasurer. Each member has a single yes/no vote. For a decision to pass, a majority of the board members must vote yes. In the event of a tie, the president’s vote is used to break the tie (i.e., if the president votes yes, the decision passes. If the president votes no, the decision fails.).
In this project, you will use only AND, OR & Inverter logic gates, frequently referred to as AOI logic, to design, simulate, and build a Majority Vote voting machine that meets these design specifications.
Project 2.4.1: Date of Birth
The world’s first all-transistor calculator was the IBM 608. The 608 was introduced in 1955 at a cost of $83,210. The calculator was the size of a large dresser. The 608 was capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, the same capabilities of a four-function calculator that you can buy today at a store for $2.99. Despite the tremendous decrease in size and price that has occurred over the last five decades, the underlying design principles for the two calculators are the same.
In this activity you will implement an adder that combines two 2-bit numbers. This 2-bit adder design is a simplified version of the adder that is in a four-function calculator. You will implement both a small-scale integration (SSI) and medium-scale integration version of the 2-bit adder.
In this activity you will implement an adder that combines two 2-bit numbers. This 2-bit adder design is a simplified version of the adder that is in a four-function calculator. You will implement both a small-scale integration (SSI) and medium-scale integration version of the 2-bit adder.