ROBOTIC STUDENT  YEAR ONE

The term also consisted of practical sessions looking at how computers work and simple feedback of computer and robotic systems.  We had to build and understand logic gates, but the most interesting experiment was the insect robot.  We had to program a robot to do basically what we wanted it to do in terms of movement and reaction to the environment around it.  As it was our first term, the demonstrators did not really want to let us loose on all the settings of the insect.  We used a program called Pspice to first simulate the settings we had put into the chip before plugging the chip into the robot.  The chip is programmed in delphi but it is then put through another program that changes the code to assembly language, a sort of interpreter.

My timetable is fairly busy as I am in everyday, with at least three lectures.  Thursdays are the busiest where I am in from 9am to 4pm.  These will all be back to back lectures with an hours break in between, so you have to be fairly dedicated if you wish to do the course.

Every Monday we have a practical lab where you put all you have learnt that week to practice.  The lab could be anything from writing a program from the programming module to dealing with logic gates.  There are post graduates in the room to ask questions to but you should be able to do the lab as it would be specific to what you would have been taught the week before.  All would be specific to what you would have been taught the week before.  All the labs add up to about 15% of your final grade.  You need 40% to pass the first year so doing well in these could mean you can kind of lay back in the exam.

In the first year of Computer Science and Cybernetics you have six compulsory modules.  Four are mainly concerned with the computer science part and the other two are cybernetics related.  The computer sciences ones comprise of a maths module, computer and internet technologies module, software engeineering module and a programming module.  The cybernetics ones are electronic circuits and cybernetics itself.

Talking about the modules individually, some are fairly straight forward but others need hours of work for you to just grasp the concept.  I would say electronic circuits and cybernetics are the most challenging modules.  They mainly deal with physics and biology.  The maths module can be tricky if you did not do A Level maths as most concepts come from the ideas and basics of A Level maths.  The university changes their programming language every couple of years.  My year is the first to start off learning in C and C++ in the first year.  They do not teach the language specifically but they teach you about different languages and how you can adapt to different programming languages, so if you past experience in C programming you do have an upper hand but later on during the course we are introduced to other programming languages such as Delphi.  Out of all the modules, software engineering and computer and internet technologies are the most straight forward.  They teach more or less what we laready know about the internet, internet connections and the many acronyms and computer jargon.

There is one big software engineering project in the first year where you have to make a board game.  This is the biggest piece of coursework you would have to do in the first year.  There are also some other small ones for the other modules, but there are different bigger ones each year.

This being the first term, all the lectures keep telling us how much harder the course gets.  But i must say for the first term you would want to learn everything first time round because unlike being in school, lecturers are there for the hour of the lecture and they have to go to their next one so doing your own work and revision is a must.

Overall the term was quite laid back and not too much was piled on us although next term will be a lot more harder and a lot more busier.

Click HERE Year 1 Continued