Course Overview
In this course, we'll explore various aspects of computing science while learning how to code. Here's the tentative schedule.
- Unit 0. What is Computing Science?
In the first week, we'll talk about what computing science is, where it comes from, why it's awesome,
and start to learn about how it works. You'll get set up with the tools that we'll be using in this class to help you
become proficient computer scientists by the end of this course. By the way, in computing, we count from 0 :)
- Unit 1. Automation - Chatbots
You will be learning about the basics of programming through exercises loosely based on chatbots
(e.g., Amazon Alexa or Siri). You'll make your first program in Python, learn about comments, outputting to the screen,
creating lists, working with text, and changing output depending on conditions.
- Unit 2. Cryptography and Encryption - Secret codes
When you purchase goods on the Internet, check your grades or your bank account online, you are using cryptography.
In this unit, we'll see how we can encrypt messages using Python programs.
- Unit 3. Graphics and Animation
Pixar movies and your favourite 3D animated films these days are built with code. You'll make a basic animation using code,
and learn how to build complex and beautiful graphics using a technique called recursion.
- Unit 4. Computer Vision
Computers are so smart that they can recognise faces in images, to unlock your phone with your face.
How do they do that? And how can cameras be used to guide robots and autonomous cars? We'll talk about how that works
and you'll do exercises to write Python code to do process and understand photos.
- Unit 5. Internet and Big Data
The Internet has become a hub of information. Lots of information. How can we sift through these billions of webpages and
information points efficiently? We'll talk about searching and sorting algorithms, how to evaluate their effectiveness at the scale of millions.
- Unit 6. Under The Hood
We've learned about many applications of computing science, but what's happening in our computers to make this happen?
During this module, we'll explore what is "under the hood" of the computer, looking at its micro processor (CPU) and its language: binary code,
in order to understand how it all works.
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