This is the course page for COMP1511's 20T2 offering.
The web page for COMP1511 20T3 is located at:
https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP1511/20T3
Hi there COMP1511!
As you may have noticed, UNSW is in the process of releasing the results for term 2, which includes your COMP1511 mark.We've also collated the majority of the results for COMP1511.
If you want to check them and see a detailed breakdown of how you went, you can use the View Autotest/Submissions/Marking link from the course website. These are the marks that have been submitted to UNSW, but if there is an administration error in them, they can still be changed.
Note that UNSW has a policy that marks will not be adjusted if someone is close but not at a particular category like Pass or Distinction etc. We can check if there has been an obvious clerical error like adding up is incorrect etc and we will definitely correct marks that have any issues like that.
Some students will see a mark code of LE, which stands for Late Entry. If this is the case for you, it means that something has not been finalised and you will be contacted shortly to explain why. Some of this is not being handled directly by COMP1511 staff, so you might be contacted by someone outside of the course.
In a closing (personal) note, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who took part in COMP1511 this term. I know that right now your thoughts are on your marks and what they mean for your progression through your degree etc, but I hope that you can also think back to what you may have learnt and what you'd like to take with you into the future. Remember that while your mark might matter a lot to you right now, in the future, it will mean nothing in comparison to your commitment to learning and working with programming and computing.
Marc Chee (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi COMP1511!
Some of you have noticed that marks have slowly been getting added over the last week. At this point, I believe that the following marks have all been added:
Please check your marks and let us know via the course email (cs1511@cse.unsw.edu.au) if anything is seriously wrong.
Exam Marks are still being finalized.
We expect that the majority of the course's marks will be provisionally released early next week (and we'll send out a notice when this happens). UNSW should formally notify you of your mark in the course on Thursday 3rd of September. Some of you may receive an "LE" mark, which means that your mark has not been finalized. In this case, you'll be contacted directly to explain why you haven't got the mark yet (usually this is due to investigation of suspected plagiarism, a supp exam, or work with long extensions applied).
Thanks so much for a great term,
~Tom (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!
Doo do doooo doooo . . . do do dooo dooo doooo . . .
Final Exam
A reminder to everyone that the exam starts tomorrow, the 14th August at 9am Sydney time (AEST) and goes for exactly 24 hours.
Hopefully everyone's ready to go and has received at least one email at their UNSW email address showing how to get access to the Exam. Remember that the contact email for any exam issues is cs1511.exam@cse.unsw.edu.au
I also want to say to everyone that an exam can be a super stressful time where there's a lot of pressure on you to work harder than you usually do. Please bear in mind that, given the time constraint and the fact that it's testing you on the entire course, the exam will feel harder than anything else in COMP1511. Knowing that in advance will hopefully lessen the shock of when you actually try to take on the challenge.
On top of this, the exam is there so we can differentiate the capabilities of all the students in the course, regardless of everyone's current ability. This means that, unlike most of the course work, we have no real intention that the majority of students can finish this work. Don't be alarmed if you can't answer some of the questions, and if you need to focus just on the hurdles to make sure you pass them, that's probably a good use of your time.
Solutions, Marks and Other Work
There are other parts of the course that are still being marked, so please bear with us.
In the next few hours this evening, we'll be unlocking all the solutions to any class content so you'll be able to have a final look over lab and weekly test solutions. Bear in mind that we haven't finished marking all of these (one of them was only due a couple of hours ago) so you won't be seeing your final lab or weekly test marks until after the exam.
Your second Assignment marks will also take a little while as the automarking on them will start after the exam is complete and then we'll be going through and hand marking for style after that.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi COMP1511,
Please check your student email inbox, as you should have received an email with information about exam communications. If you did not get an email from cs1511.exam@cse.unsw.edu.au; send us an email at that address so we can make sure you get all our emails.
A few reminders:
Good luck for all your exams!
~Tom (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi Everyone,
Quick update - Moodle has been having some issues, and we are concerned some students may not be able to join the 3pm revision sessions. Here are links to join those sessions, even if you can't use Moodle. We encourage you to come along!
Mon15A (Advanced Linked Lists):
https://au.bbcollab.com/guest/3aea86ff266244189c5b...
Mon15B (Basic Linked Lists): https://au.bbcollab.com/guest/8863d7c1ab2940939315...
~Tom (On behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Heya COMP1511!
And you thought you'd heard the last from Marc and Chicken! Even though we're not officially teaching anything this week, there are still a bunch of things to think about (and things that can help you with the exam!)
What's left in the course:
Assignment 2
I hope everyone's finished now and relieved! If you aren't, it's ok . . . there's still some time left in the late penalty to earn some marks if you need to. Otherwise if you're done I hope that the experience of working on something reasonably big and complicated like this has taught you something both about programming and about interpreting someone else's code that you need to work alongside.
Lab and Weekly Test Deadlines
We changed some of the deadlines this week to dodge important milestones.
The Week 10 Lab is due Tuesday August 11th to give you some time after the Assignment to work on it.
The Week 10 Weekly Test is due a little earlier on Thursday 13th August to make sure it's due before the Final Exam and there's some time for you to look at the solutions.
Revision Tutorials on Monday 10th August
We're holding some revision sessions on Monday the 10th August. These sessions will specifically be covering parts of the course that we know people are having more trouble with. If you'd like to come along, these are open to ALL COMP1511 students and the timetable is:
| Class Code | Time on Monday | Tutors | Topics (note that these are indicative, specific topics may be covered on request) |
| mon11a | 11 AM - 2 PM AEST | Tammy & Tanya | Arrays & Strings |
| mon13a | 1 PM - 4 PM AEST | Dean & Laura | Structs, Pointers & Malloc |
| mon15a | 3 PM - 6 PM AEST | Tom & Anosua | Advanced Linked Lists (building your own list, mass addition + deletion, stacks+queues, ADTs) |
| mon15b | 3 PM - 6 PM AEST | Kane & Ben | Basic Linked Lists (looping through, adding to, simple deletion) |
Live Stream on Tuesday
Marc will be back for one last Live Stream at 2pm on Tuesday, the 11th August. There's a link in the
Week 11 Lectures
section of the Course Website. This will be an AMA (Ask Marc Anything) where you can get some final clarifications on any topics you'd like for the final exam.
The expectation is that this will run for 2 hours, but there's a bit of space to run longer if necessary.
CSESoc Study Session
CSESoc is running a joint study session for a few different subjects on Wednesday the 12th August from 10am to 1am (yep, all day and night!). There will be ex 1511 students and tutors who can help with your study there. Marc will also be making some appearances (but I'm not going to be there for the whole session). Here's a link to the
Facebook Event
.
Exam on Friday, the 14th August
The Final Exam for COMP1511 will start at 9am on Friday the 14th August and can be submitted any time up to 9am on Saturday the 15th. We will send an email to your UNSW Student email address this week to help you get setup for the exam. Please make sure your email address is working and receiving emails otherwise you may have trouble accessing the questions. If you want to know more details about how the exam works, there's a demo practice exam in the Week 10 Lab. Any issues leading up to (and during) the exam can be brought to our attention using our exam email address: cs1511.exam@cse.unsw.edu.au
Good luck with your final study!
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi COMP1511,
Unfortunately many people who were waiting for the 11am-3pm help session today couldn't be seen; and we weren't able to run overtime. As a result, we are scheduling another help session for tonight, from 6pm to 8pm on Friday August 7th.
Priority will be given to people who weren't seen earlier today.
Hi COMP1511!
Another mid-week announcement, since lots of things are happening in the next few days! This notice will cover:
Assignment 2 Due on Sunday at 6pm
As you all hopefully know, our second assignment, Castle Defense, is due at 6pm on Sunday 9th of August (times in AEST). If you haven't started yet, get in touch with your tutor for some guidance, or come to a help session!
We're also aware that some of the function comments in realm.h (and one in realm.c) were confusing. We've updated those comments to clarify further, though none of the rules of the assignment have changed. You don't need to change the comments in your realm.c, but if you find them confusing, check the updated realm.c and realm.h to clear things up.
A reminder that you will find answers to some of your
Frequently Asked Questions in the assignment spec
!
Style Check Requests No Longer Allowed on the Forum
We've been extremely happy to see students taking up our offer for tutors to style-check their code! Unfortunately, they take the forum staff away from answering other student questions, and since they don't include your code, they're not useful for everyone to see. As a result: please email your tutor to ask them for a style check of your assignment, don't post on the forum. We'll answer style checks that have already been posted as of this notice, but any new requests for style checks will be closed and we'll ask you to email your tutor. You can find your tutor's contact details by clicking their name on the Timetable .
Please note that your tutors are busy people also, so they may not be able to provide immediate style feedback. Also, if you email them on the weekend (especially on Sunday) you may not get a reply in time for the Sunday 6pm deadline.
Lab Deadline Extended for Week 10
We've heard from some students that their volume of work has made it difficult to complete the Lab for this week. As a result, the Week 10 Lab deadline has been extended by two days to Tuesday 11th August. It is very important to complete this lab, as it contains the practice exam.
Weekly Test for Week 10 Will Be Released on Thursday
Additionally to the Lab, there will be a Weekly Test released on Thursday. This test contains revision questions from past exams, so it's perfect for revising for the Exam.
Revision Exercises Released
As Marc mentioned in his Notice on Sunday, the revision resources have now been released. You can find them in the sidebar under "Course Work" where they're listed as Revision .
Revision Sessions on Monday 10th August
On Monday, the four tutorials scheduled will be "revision seminars", and will be open to everyone in the course. There are sessions in Blackboard Collaborate for each revision seminar, though you may need to check all the pages to find them! They will have the following topics:
| Class Code | Time on Monday | Tutors | Topics (note that these are indicative, specific topics may be covered on request) |
| mon11a | 11 AM - 2 PM AEST | Tammy & Tanya | Arrays & Strings |
| mon13a | 1 PM - 4 PM AEST | Dean & Laura | Structs, Pointers & Malloc |
| mon15a | 3 PM - 6 PM AEST | Tom & Anosua | Advanced Linked Lists (building your own list, mass addition + deletion, stacks+queues, ADTs) |
| mon15b | 3 PM - 6 PM AEST | Kane & Ben | Basic Linked Lists (looping through, adding to, simple deletion) |
We encourage you to come along!
We're all wishing you the best of luck for your coursework this week. Please get in touch with us if you're having any issues, and ask any questions you may have by asking on the forum.
~Tom (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi COMP1511!
Here we are at the final teaching week of COMP1511. I hope you've had a fun ride, but it'll be time to get off soon. We have a few things to talk about this week . . .
MyExperience Survery
You may have already received an email from UNSW about MyExperience, our survey system. You can access the survey via the Course's
Moodle Page
. Please fill out the survey to give us useful information on how the course has run and how we can improve it!
Course Recap
This week in Lectures, we'll be covering the entire course in summary, which will hopefully remind everyone of what we've learnt this term and kick off your study.
Weekly Tests
Last week's weekly test was released a day late, but is still currently available and will be until its Thursday due date. There will also be a Weekly Test released on Thursday in Week 10 which will contain actual questions from past exams to use as study practice. You'll get marks for doing them as well as getting study done for the exam! (Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!)
What's in the Exam?
In lectures this week, we'll be covering the format of the Exam itself. The Final Exam for this course will be running from 9am on the 14th August (Sydney time) until 9am on the 15th August. While there's a 24 time period for the exam, it's designed for three hours of sustained uninterrupted work (what the time would be limited to if we were conducting it in person). This means that you're not expected to spend 24 hours on it, it's just a 24 hour window so no particular time zones are disadvantaged by when we're running the exam.
Exam Practice in Labs
This week in your labs, we'll be showing you a few sample exam questions in the exact format that they'll be running in the exam. This will include giving you a chance to log into the exam environment itself and get familiar with how we'll be giving you the questions as well as how you will be using autotests and submitting answers.
Our example questions there will have a combination of questions that are reasonably similar to exam questions as well as one from one of the 2018 exams.
Revision
We have some materials and activities that will help with Revision for the exam. In the next few hours the Revision section of the course website will appear. It has a series of questions that are organised in terms of topic. They'll be similar to lab exercises that you can use to either test your knowledge or prepare for what you might be asked in the exam.
Next Monday (Week 11), in the normal tutorial time slots for a Monday, we'll be running some revision classes that will have tutors demonstrating and discussing some of the different sections of the course that they see as important. More exact details of this will be released later this week.
There will also be one final Live Stream in Week 11, which will be a final chance for some Q&A if anyone needs final exam prep. This will be scheduled later!
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi COMP1511,
Another Mid-Week update, since lots is going on. This update will cover:
Assignment 2 FAQ & Autotest Additions
As more people have started to work through Assignment 2, we've seen some common questions. To address these, we've made an FAQ: https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1511/20T2/assignments/ass2/index.html#FAQs. More questions may get added as we see common questions.
Additionally, we have recently found out that leak check has not been enabled on our autotests for some of the time that the assignment has been running, and so not all submissions have been tested with leak checking. Because enabling it now would cause issues for students who have already completed the assignment, we have added extra tests, and left the original tests with leak-check disabled. Passing these new autotests is not a requirement to get full marks in the assignment. You can also manually test your assignment for leaks by using 'dcc --leak-check' instead of 'dcc'.
Exam Information
Since you will have now received your exam timetable, you may have questions about how the exam will run. We will provide lots of information during Week 10 about the structure and content of the exam, and how to revise, but this is the logistical information:
The COMP1511 Exam will run from 9AM AEST on Friday August 14th 2020, until 9AM AEST on Saturday August 15th 2020. You will be able to submit as many times as you would like, and at any time within that 24 hour period. The exam will be available online. The exam is designed to be attempted in about 3 hours, though we encourage you to take breaks, and you can complete it at your own pace, as long as it is submitted before 9AM on Saturday. A COMP1511 staff member will be on duty for most of the exam if you encounter issues, and more information will be posted closer to the exam date about how you should contact them.
Students who have exam clashes should have already received an email regarding their arrangements; and students with special provisions will receive an email about their arrangements in the next day or two. If you have a personal issue regarding exam logistics, please contact cs1511@cse.unsw.edu.au. Next week we will demonstrate a sample exam environment, as well as give lots of information in Marc's lectures. If you have any questions about the exam that aren't logistical, you will likely find they are answered next week, but you are welcome to ask on the forum about them.
MyExperience
As many of you will have seen, the UNSW MyExperience survey has been released. Please complete it, because the feedback is extremely useful in shaping how we teach (especially how we teach online). You can complete it by following the link that was emailed to you, or by going to https://myexperience.unsw.edu.au/ .
Hope your week is going well!
~Tom (On behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi there COMP1511!
Here again with your weekly notice about what's going on in the course :) We have some info about:
Linked Lists
We're putting a lot of effort into learning about Linked Lists at the moment. Remember that if you're having trouble with them (and they are certainly harder than most everything else in COMP1511) that having a chat with your tutor(s) during Lab time or going to a
Help Session
might make a difference in unlocking a crucial piece of understanding!
Assignment 1 Marking
Most of Freefall has been marked now with the remaining to be finished in the next few days. When you receive your marks via
View Autotests/Submissions/Marking
, it's a good idea to look through the marked file and check out the comments that may have been left in your code. The tutors will be giving you clues there as to how you can improve your code style, which should be worth a lot more marks to you in Assignment 2 and in general should help you create more error-free code in the future.
Assignment 2 - Castle Defense
Castle Defense has been out for a week now and hopefully everyone's getting a bit of time and experience working with Linked Lists and has had some time to approach the assignment. At the time of writing this notice, the assignment is version 1.4 with some minor changes in the specification and some of the code files. It's worth having a quick look at the changelogs at the end of the
Assignment Specification
and in the code files to see if there's anything that's changed that will affect any work you've done so far.
If anyone needs assistance with Castle Defense, remember that Help Sessions are still running and we'll have more support as we get closer to the due date. There's also the Course Forum which should be pretty helpful either as somewhere to search for answers or ask questions.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi COMP1511!
This is a midweek update, since there are a few more things going on than usual!
Student Representative Survey
The CSE Stureps are running a survey to get feedback on courses running this term, and they're asking for your participation. You will all have received an email to your inbox with a link to complete the survey, at
https://web.cse.unsw.edu.au/~apps/prismatic/
. The survey runs until next Wednesday. You can also get in touch with the Stureps directly, their contact details are at
The Stureps Website
.
Assignment 2 test_realm.c Tests
You may have noticed if you've already started the assignment that some autotests were not provided at the time we released. These autotests were for the test_realm.c file, which lets you specify your own testing code. These 5 autotests have now been provided. You'll find more detail in the
testing section of the assignment
.
Assignment 2 Minor Changes
There have also been a few minor changes to the starter code, none of which should affect your ability to compile and run your code:
return 0;
was added to the main function in test_realm.c to prevent warnings when compiling.
1511 setup-castle-defense
.
Hope you're enjoying your week!
~Tom (On behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi there COMP1511!
A few things are happening at the moment that you should be aware of:
Assignment 1 Marking
You may have noticed if you look in
View Autotests/Submissions/Marking
that the automatic marking pass has been completed for Assignment 1 and hand marking by the tutors has started. If you are noticing any issues with the automatic marking, please feel free to get in contact via cs1511@cse.unsw.edu.au. We're expecting hand marking of assignments to be finished in early week 9.
Assignment 2 has been released
Around the time this notice goes out,
Assignment 2
will have released. It's called Castle Defense and is a COMP1511 version of a Tower Defense game. It's very strongly based on the use of Linked Lists, which we'll be covering in even more detail this week, following from the introduction we gave last week.
Bonus Live Stream for Assignment 2 and Linked Lists
I'll be running an optional Live Stream on Friday this week that will go through Assignment 2. We'll have a look at the infrastructure around how the Assignment works as well as the marking scheme and answer any questions people have at this point about Linked Lists.
Speaking of Linked Lists . . .
We're very focused on this data structure at the moment. This week will be entirely dedicated to it. The tutorials and labs will revise building linked lists from structs and pointers while the lectures will continue our example that shows how we use linked lists in a worked example. By the end of the week we'll have covered enough Linked Lists for everyone to have enough content to complete Castle Defense.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi there COMP1511!
Welcome to Week 7. We're back into the swing of things this week after our week off. A few things to talk about:
Flexibility Week last week
If you'd like to go back over the content that was shown in Flexibility Week, there are links in the
Week 6 Lectures
section of the course website if you'd like to see any of the optional content we went through. None of it introduces new assessable content, but some of it might help you understand what we've presented previously and help your approach to your future in programming.
Assignment 1: Freefall
I hope everyone learnt something useful in the time spent on Freefall. Even if what you learnt was: "I should spend more time on assignments in the future" that's still something useful! If there have been any last minute emergencies or issues, you can still get in contact with us.
Otherwise, I'm hoping the practice with arrays and loops will have gotten you some familiarity with them and the process of learning about them. As computing techniques become more complex, it's useful to have learnt a bit about "how to learn" these difficult concepts.
I have also found a YouTube video of someone solving the entire assignment. Please bear in mind that this is a very serious case of Academic Misconduct and the investigation has already been passed to UNSW's Central Integrity. In case anyone's wondering about the risks of using external help on assignments, UNSW has put together a site explaining some of the issues with Contract Cheating . Please bear in mind that anyone submitting these solutions instead of their own work will most likely be considered a level of plagiarism that is much more serious than the level that we would investigate within the subject itself. At worst case, this may result in expulsion from the University entirely.
If you have used content online that you now realise is beyond what you should have for Assignment 1 (and yes, we have checked and know who you are already) and would like to resubmit or simply remove your submission, please email us at cs1511@cse.unsw.edu.au.
Weekly Test from Week 5
The test released in Week 5 is due in this week (Week 7). This allows you to have a break from the tests in Week 6 (as you were probably quite busy with Freefall).
Regular classes until the end of term
We're back into our normal rhythm of classes now. This week (and all the weeks through to week 10) will have your usual Lectures, Tutorials and Labs. We're going to start piecing together some of the concepts we've seen so far to teach you about building up data structures from other variable types in the second half of the term.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi COMP1511!
Welcome to Week 6, which is also known as Flexibility Week. I have a few things to keep you up to speed on this evening:
Flexibility Week
This week, things are a little different from a normal teaching week.
There will be two lectures this week. They'll be at similar (but not exactly the same!) times as our normal lectures and on the following topics:
The Week 6 Lectures section will have all the relevant live stream links
Bonus Video
Carroll Morgan is a friend of COMP1511 who lectures other courses you may be interested in later in a Computing degree. He has put together a bonus video that follows on from some of the commenting style you may have seen in COMP1511 lectures and tutorials. The link for the video is
here
.
Assignment 1
Assignment 1, Freefall is going into its final week. To butcher an old proverb . . . "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now." If you haven't started the assignment yet, I'd suggest now is a good time to start :P
Even though Tutorials and Labs wont be running this week, Help Sessions will be! The Course Forum is also a good place to look for help if you need it!
Autotest Changes
There has been a change to one of the autotests for Assignment 1, the third test known as "01_place_stone_invalid" that was testing a situation that the Assignment spec said would never happen (all stone placements were invalid, leaving an empty map). This autotest had to be changed. We've gone through all the submissions that have been affected by this (if the autotest result changed after the test change) and have emailed all students that this affects. Please check your email for this message because it could mean you need to change your assignment code based on the new test.
Marc Chee (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching team)
Hi COMP1511!
Some things that are happening at the moment:
Network Outage tonight, 28/6/2020 from 23:45 to 02:00 Monday 29/6/2020
Between these times, UNSW's User Database will be under maintenance so it is unlikely we'll be able to log in to our CSE accounts. Outside of these times, access should be fine.
Weekly Tests
A quick reminder to everyone that the second weekly test is still running and will be until Thursday evening. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, it's nice to spend an hour on it if you can find some uninterrupted time to test yourself. Here's a link for the current
Weekly Test
.
Help Sessions
We've increased the amount of Help Sessions that will be running in the next two weeks for assignment support. You can check the
Help Sessions Timetable
to see when you can get some one on one help. Bear in mind that we expect these to get very busy by the end of the assignment, so going earlier is better!
Flexibility Week
A reminder in advance that Week 6 (6th - 10th July) is Flexibility Week. This is a week where there will be no new assessable content from COMP1511. There will be no Tutorials or Labs, but I will still be doing some Live Streaming potentially as a review of the first half of the course as well as some content that's not specifically for 1511, but advice on future studies and the long term view of Computer Science.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi all!
A quick notice to let you know that the Weekly test released today was definitely released too early with some serious issues, so I've had to make some changes and rerelease.
Apologies if you'd already started the test (you still have a week to complete it!) . . . here are the issues and changes:
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hey COMP1511!
A big week is upon us! So many things happening now that the course is ramping up into full swing. Here's a list of things:
Labs Marked
If you check your current submissions via the
View Autotests/Submissions/Marking
link on the course website, you'll see that we've released the marking for the first two labs. Just a reminder to everyone, Lab 1 does not count towards your final mark as it was an introductory lab and for your other labs, we will only be marking the best 7 out of 8 labs.
Help Sessions
One on one help is increasing. If you look at the
Help Sessions
section of the course website, you'll see that we now have more help sessions running every week as well as a LOT of help available as we get closer to the Assignment due date. Remember that if you have general questions that you think other students might also have, the
Course Forum
is a good place to ask, but if you need specific help with issues with your code etc, then Help Sessions are great for that.
Weekly Tests
If you haven't already noticed, the Weekly Test for Week 3 is available in the
Tutorials, Labs, Tests
section of the Course Website. This will be due on Thursday this week, so there's still plenty of time to work on it. The Weekly Tests are a good way to check your progress in the course and see what you might need to study.
Assignment 1 - Freefall
The specification document and all the infrastructure around it (like autotests etc) has been released for Freefall, our first assignment in COMP1511. The assignment is a bit of a homage to the Golden Age of Arcade Games, and will have you implementing some of the structure behind a game using C programming techniques like arrays and loops. You will find a link to Assignment 1 in the
Assignments
section of the Course Website. Please don't be alarmed that some of the concepts used in the assignment haven't been taught yet . . . they're definitely going to be shown in lectures and tutorials this week!
Live Stream Friday
Speaking of which . . . I'll be running a bonus live stream (less formal than a lecture and without official course content) to have a look at the assignment, give some hints on how to get started and answer any questions people might have from their first look at it. We might also play some classic arcade games :P A link for the stream will go up in this week's
Lectures
section once it's been organised.
Tutorial Labs and Zoom
Last week, we ran a small survey to see if students were having trouble connecting to Blackboard Collaborate, especially from outside of Australia. We're going to run one tutorial this week in Zoom to see how well that runs. This will be Tuesday 15B, which is at 3pm on Tuesday. Apologies that we didn't have that as one of the time options in the survey, but it's one where we're prepared for this and should likely be a good time based on responses we received. If you would like to participate in this test tutorial/lab, please email Finbar Berkon (finbar.berkon@unsw.edu.au) who is organising it. He will be able to send you a link to join the Zoom. If you would prefer to use Blackboard to Zoom and you're in Tuesday 15B, you can attend Tuesday 15A which will be running in Blackboard as usual.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi COMP1511,
We've received reports of students (especially in Mainland China) having trouble connecting to Blackboard Collaborate. We are interested in running a test tutorial next week on Zoom, to see if it's easier for students to connect to. If you have had difficulties with Blackboard Collaborate, please fill in this form, and we will get in contact with you to try organise such a tutorial.
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?i...
~Tom (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hello there COMP1511!
We're rolling into week 3 this week and we've already learnt so much about how to get started with Programming in C. We're going to be continuing our learning about looping code in the Tutorials and Labs (which are now available in the
Tutorials section
of the course website). There are a few really serious challenges this week . . . remember that they're there to spark interest but you don't have to complete them all! Some of them are right on the edge of impossible :P
Weekly Tests
Later on this week (probably after our Thursday lecture) our first Weekly Test will release. If you remember my introduction to the course (it's ok if you don't, there was a lot of information all at once), the Weekly Tests will be running once a week (no, really, it's in the name!) and you'll be given a timer for 1 hour when you first open the questions. That timer is just for your benefit, you don't have to stick strictly to it (we know everyone's working at home with potential distractions or unstable internet etc). But one of the purposes of the Weekly Tests is for you to see where you're tracking in the course and they're setup for about 1 hour's worth of work. We suggest you work on the Weekly Test under "exam conditions", that is, not looking up any resources or class material.
You can check what you're able to answer after the hour and it should give you a reasonable idea of how you're going in the course and what you might want to go back and study. After that, feel free to continue working on the questions if you want . . . and potentially looking up whatever information you need to complete them. It's always good to be able to see how you can complete something that you couldn't remember when you first tried it.
We're going to set up the section of the forum related to Weekly Tests with a little warning to remind you to try not to read the questions there until after you've had a chance to see the test fresh.
Assignment 1
Next weekend, we're going to be dropping the first Assignment for COMP1511. I'm not going to give away what it is yet, but it'll be falling into your laps soon!
The first assignment will be a chance for you to work on a larger project using the techniques we've worked on already and some of what we'll be teaching this week and next. Hopefully it'll be a fun experience to be able to put together a larger program that does a little bit more than the lab exercises we've been working on so far.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi COMP1511!
We're about to start Week 2. Last week I hope you had a good week of getting to meet your tutors and some of your classmates and I got a good chance to chill and hang out with a lot of you at Lab 0 on Friday afternoon.
If you're looking for the material that was in Lab 0 (the CSESoc run orientation exercise), we have a link to the activities here: https://lab0.tech/
Week 1 Lab Exercises were supposed to be due around now (5pm Sunday) but we've had some issues with our autotests, so we're extending the deadline by one day. Having said that, the Week 1 labs aren't worth any marks, but I know some of us like to hand everything in for completeness anyway!
Now that we're in Week 2, we'll be trying out some of the new programming techniques taught in week 1, with variables, maths and if statements explored further in the Tutorials and Labs (which will be releasing soon . . . I accidentally released them early without a final look over them, so those of you who started today, they might be changing a little, but most likely not much!).
Remember that Monday of Week 2 (tomorrow, June 8th) is a Public Holiday here, so there will be no classes running! If you have a tutorial/lab session scheduled, please attend another session this week. If you'd like to see when sessions are running, please our Timetable .
Help Sessions are coming soon . . . we're just waiting on a final timetable and organisation of them. I'll let you know once they start up.
Marc (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)
Hi COMP1511,
CSESoc (Computer Science & Engineering Society) is the student society that represents anyone enrolled in a computing degree or course (like COMP1511). They host events to improve your technical skills; to improve your career skills; and to help you enjoy uni and find friends.
More information can be found by liking their Facebook page (
https://www.facebook.com/csesoc/
) and joining their Facebook group (
https://www.facebook.com/groups/csesoc/
).
This Friday (5th June) CSESoc is hosting Lab 0 from 4 pm to 6 pm along with Marc Chee. This is an opportunity for you to meet older students, to get to know the University, CSE, CSESoc, and other COMP1511 students! You'll be setting up your computer, logging into VLab, and learning about uni life - it's a really valuable event if you're new to CSE or the University.
The event will run on Blackboard Collaborate, and joining will be very similar to joining your tutorial -- Join the room named "CSESoc Lab 0" (it might be on the second or third page of the list). The event will also involve content hosted on
https://lab0.tech
. You can register for Lab 0 with CSESoc here (
https://bit.ly/CSESocLab0T2
), although you do not have to register to join the event.
Please note that students are expected to adhere to the UNSW Code of Conduct during this event.
Hello COMP1511!
I hope you're ready to get started this week! We're mostly ready ourselves and I have some links for you so that you can join us in your first classes this week.
Tutorials and Labs
(yes, they're running this week!)
By this time, you will hopefully have received an email from your tutor letting you know how to participate in your Tutorial/Lab Session this week. If you're wondering about the material being covered, it's available in the
Tutorials, Labs, Tests
section of the Course Website.
If you're having trouble finding which session you need to join, you might want to check Blackboard Collaborate on COMP1511's Moodle Site . It will have links to all the tutorial/lab sessions.
Lectures
Lecture slides for week 1 are now available in the
Lectures
section of the Course Website. You don't need to read these in advance, I'll be going through them during the lecture itself.
The lectures will be live streamed through YouTube Live, and each lecture has a link for the stream which will also be a link to the recorded video after the stream has finished. For anyone who doesn't have access to YouTube or the bandwidth to stream, I'll also be uploading the videos themselves to Echo360, which isn't set up yet, but will be soon (and I'll add links to the Course Website once they're ready).
The link for the first lecture is: https://youtu.be/OwT7C0_XKGs
If you're intending on taking part in the Live Chat during the streams, I strongly suggest you set up an account with your actual name, it makes it much easier if we want to continue a conversation (rather than trying to figure out who "gamerdude6969" was later on)
Looking forward to meeting everyone (at least digitally) very soon!
Marc Chee (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Staff)
Hi COMP1511,
This term, we're using a service called Discourse as our forum. To access it, go to https://discourse.cse.unsw.edu.au/cs1511/ and sign in, and you will be automatically registered for the COMP1511 forum.
This is a place where you can get in touch with tutors and other classmates to chat about the course, and to get help on your coursework. While you will need to log in to access the forum, you can post questions anonymously to your classmates if you wish.
The forum will be discussed more in your tutorials next week, but you can sign in now to have a look around!
Tom Kunc (On behalf of the COMP1511 Course Staff)
Hi COMP1511,
So this course notice comes out a little earlier than I planned to, but hi!
First things first . . . nothing's due right now, we accidentally sent out an email from old due dates that says that some exercises are due . . . they are not! Don't worry, we won't have anything due yet!
Ok, now that we've got that sorted out . . . WELCOME TO COMP1511!
We're just putting the final touches on the course and getting it ready to deliver to you starting next week. A reminder that we're starting with tutorials and labs in week 1. We'll have our Moodle website up and running in the next couple of days and that will link to the system we're using for online tutorials/labs. You'll also be receiving an email very soon from your tutor showing how you can join your first tutorial next week.
Lectures will be Live Streamed . . . those links will be made available once I've set up the streams, but the first one will be live on Tuesday at 9am and will be available as a recording afterwards, both on YouTube and on Echo360 via our Moodle page.
As our content is made ready for you, it will become available on the Course Website . For now, our Course Outline is available, which might be worth checking out while we're putting the rest of the content together.
Apologies for the false alarm in the automated due dates system and we're looking forward to meeting you soon!
Marc Chee (on behalf of the COMP1511 Teaching Team)