2012 Summer

The second session of the LACC is taking place from June 26 to August 17, 2012. This year LACC has thirteen students. As part of the LACC program, the students are going through nine modules covering various computing topics: programming, algorithms, social networks, web services, robotics, energy and speed of computation, cryptography, embedded computing, 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 week.

Additionally, seven of the students are also engaged in independent research projects either individually or 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 students present their research via posters and demos.

Participants

• Students participating only in LACC instructional program
  • Alex Huang
  • Jessica Ruth Jocson
  • Nicholas Kwon
  • Maryann Rui
  • Ramanan Sivasundaram
  • Brian Tehrani
• Students participating in both LACC instructional program and research projects
  • Karinna Loo
  • Jayna Patel
  • Prerana Poddar
  • Sandra Rhee
  • Ryan Smith
  • Surya Sundararajan
  • Hang Yang

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: Rani Ghaida

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. Web Services

Instructor: Fred Sala

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

4. Image Processing

Instructor: Ankur Sharma

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

5. Social Networks

Instructor: Fred Sala

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

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. Embedded Computing

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

8. 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

9. Cryptography

Instructor: Mark Gottscho

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

Resources: Slides, code, media

Module Research Presentations

1. Introduction to Programming; Algorithms

• Slides

2. Web Services; Image Processing

• Slides

3. Social Networks; Energy & Speed of Computation

• Slides

4. Embedded Computing; Robotics

• Slides

Research Projects

Project #1: Software Framework for Internet of Things

• Team: Prerana Poddar, Ryan Smith
• Mentors: Henry Herman, Newton Truong
• Poster: pdf

Project #2: Context Inferencing on Mobile Phones

• Team: HangYang
• Mentors: Supriyo Chakraborty
• Poster: pdf, ppt

Project #3: Graph Properties for Social Networks

• Team: Karinna Loo, Sandra Rhee
• Mentor: Fred Sala
• Poster: pdf, ppt

Project #4: Algorithms for Electronic Design Automation

• Team: Jayna Patel, Surya Sundararajan
• Mentors: Rani Ghaida
• Poster: pdf, ppt