2011 Summer

The inaugural session of the LACC took place from June 27 to August 19 with a group of eight terrific students. As part of the LACC program, the students first went through eight modules covering various computing topics: programming, algorithms, social networks, web services, robotics, energy and speed of computation, cryptography, and image processing. Each module was organized as a highly interactive 2-3 hour lecture delivered by a graduate student, followed by an 1-1.5 day long mini-project involving software analysis and programming. Furthermore, the students also conducted additional web research into additional topics relating to these modules, and delivered short presentations every Friday. 

In the final 4 week of the program, the students transitioned to doing independent research projects in teams of two, working in laboratories of Professors Dolecek, Gupta, and Srivastava under close supervision of graduate student mentors. The project topics were diverse, and spanned theoretical algorithmic research to experimental embedded systems. At the culmination of the program, the LACC students presented their research via posters and demos as part of the HSSRP poster session.

Participants

  • Mike Ambrose
  • Sonum Hingorani
  • Gee "Jennifer" Jo
  • Yashas Kumar
  • Brianna Loo
  • Elana Stroud
  • Jimmy Vo
  • Emily Woods

Modules

Note: You are free to download the module 

1. Introduction to Programming with Python

Instructor: Lucas Wanner

Description: Introduces students to the basic principles of programming in general with python as the language. Introduces variables, functions and basic control flow

Resources: Slides: pdf, key; Code

2. Algorithms

Instructor: John Lee

Description: Basic concept of algorithms with examples of sorting, graphs and greedy method. Exercise on shortest path and sorting

Resources: Slides: pdf, ppt; Code; Media

3. Social Networks

Instructor: Ben-Yue Chang 

Description: Introduces students to some basic principles of graph theory with social network as an example. Exercise on a social network graph construction and visualization.

Resources: Slides: pdf; Code; Documents

4. Web Services

Instructor: Yifan Sun

Description: Teaches two key elements of web services: client-server model and HTTP request-response model with example of amazon and twitter. Exercise on creating a basic server-client chat service.

Resources: Slides, code media

5. Robotics

Instructor: Newton Truong

Description: Lessons on how to control a robot with exercise on robot movements with Scribbler. Concept and exercises on robot control policies using external sensors.

Resources: Slides: pdf; Documents

6. Energy and Speed of Computing 

Instructor: Lucas Wanner

Description: Introduces importance of optimizing software for speed, memory, power etc. Students experiment with  run time and power consumption of different algorithms.

Resources: Slides: pdf, key

7. Cryptography

Instructor: Liangzhen Lai

Description: Introduction to basic principles of encryption/decryption with examples of caeser cipher and frequency analysis.

Resources: Slides, code, media

8. Image Processing

Instructor: Tianji Wu

Description:  Introduction to digital representation of images and some common image processing operations like up/down sizing, edge detection, embossing, etc.

Resources: Slides: pdf, ppt; Code

Friday Module Research Presentations

1. Introduction to Programming; Algorithms

2. Social Networks; Web Services

3. Robotics; Energy & Speed of Computation

Research Projects

Project #1: Analyzing Neurofeedback Using Commercial Electroencephalography Technology

Project #2: Master-Slave Control of an Anthropomorphic Robotic Arm using the Xbox Kinect

Project #3: Characterizing Twitter Social Networks Using Google Page Rank

  • Team: Sonum Hingorani, Emily Woods
  • Mentor: Yifan Sun
  • Poster: pdf, ppt

Project #4:

    Farewell Dinner and Poster Session

    On August 18 we had a dinner at the UCLA Faculty Club to celebrate a successful end of the program, and then on August 19 we had the final poster session. Below are some photos from the event.

    LACC Summer 2011



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