An Engineering Course for Primary Students

A course in Computer Architecture, as taught to students in years 4 to 6. The course starts with simple comcepts, such as decisions involving "yes" and "no" and keeps adding layers until we program a fully operational computer that we have built ourselves (in a logic simulator). Beyond computer architecture, this course aims to teach a child that they can understand a complex topic by breaking it down into simple steps and following a logical progression.

The course follows a bottom-up approach, topics being: information, bits, binary numbers, binary arithmetic, Boolean logic, logic gates, adders, subtractors, binary multiplication and division, sequential logic, latches, registers, counters, hexadecimal numbers, negative binary numbers, multiplexers and decoders, memory, arithmetic logic unit, input, output, program counter, instruction register, fetch/decode/execute cycle, a complete computer using gates, machine code, assembly language.

Weekly Notes

Each lesson typically introduces a relatively self-contained topic, such as Ethernet, with asides potentially thrown in, such as how a CD works. Starting from week 3 there is a continuing course called "A Course in Computers", which takes up about half the lesson, each week building on the previous to form a continuing sequence. Italics denote the topics that belong to this course, in the list below.

• 15/5/2018: Lesson 1 - Ethernet, Installing programs, IP layers
• 22/5/2018: Lesson 2 - Wireshark/packets, protocols, man
• 29/5/2018: Lesson 3 - Installing Debian, CDs, Information, Bits, Computer Architecture
• 5/6/2018: Lesson 4 - Network tour, ssh, decimal and binary numbers
• 24/7/2018: Lesson 5 - Boolean logic, arithmetic using logic
• 31/7/2018: Lesson 6 - Gates, Networks of gates, XOR gate, Simulation, Half Adder
• 7/8/2018: Lesson 7 - Full Adder, Multi-bit adder
• 14/8/2018: Lesson 8 - Review of full adder and multibit adder, installing gcc,"Hello World" in C.
• 21/8/2018: Lesson 9 - Sequential Logic, RS-Flip-Flop, NAND, NOR, Latch
• 28/8/2018: Lesson 9 repeated due to missing students
• 4/9/2018: Lesson 10 - Register, Shift Register, Counters, Hexadecimal, Wrap Around and Overflow, Subtracting, 2's Complement
• Some later modules have not yet been uploaded

Example Circuits

• Basic Logic Gates in the Logic Simulator
• Exclusing OR (XOR) Gate in the Logic Simulator
• A Multi-bit Adder in the Logic Simulator
• A 4-Bit Adder in the Logic Simulator
• A Register (Master-Slave Flip Flop) in the Logic Simulator
• A 4-Bit Counter in the Logic Simulator
• A Circuit to Negate a Number
• A 4-Output Decoder
• A 4-Input Multiplexer
• A 4-Bit Memory
• A 4 x 4 Multiplexer
• A 4x4 Memory Array
• An Adder/Subtractor
• An Arithmetic Logic Unit
• A Computer with 16 bytes of memory (memory implemented using discrete logic)
• A Computer with 32 bytes of memory (memory implemented using discrete logic: slow!)
• A Computer with 256 bytes of memory (with toolbox visible)
• A Computer with 256 bytes of memory, preloaded with a program to do long multiplication.
• A Computer with 256 bytes of memory, preloaded with a program to count down
• A Computer with 256 bytes of memory

Useful Information

Useful Linux Commands

Notes on setting up a self-contained computer network for teaching

Michael's description of how to compile and run Scratch3.

Simcirjs Logic Simulator.
Zip archive of simcirjs, which you may unzip into a directory then run by opening the file index.html in a web browser.
Git repository for simcirjs source code

Assembly Language Simulator

Information About the Server

• apt-cacher statistics

Copyright John Dalton 2018

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.