[ILUG] where are the Irish "Summer of Code" entrants?

[Dave O' Connor]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Paul Jakma wrote:

> On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Dave O' Connor wrote:
>
> > One module in 2nd year contained a section on optimising the
> > efficiency of moving something from one place to another.
> >
> > A lab was spent timing the efficiency of the paths which different
> > movements of the hand would take.
> >
> > That's fine if I was studying manufacturing or something but why this is
> > relevant in a IT based degree, I have no idea.
>
> This is just a /guess/ now, but I wonder if the idea was to:
>
> - develop various algorithms for the above
> - predict their suitability using a computer
> - provide some kind of formal analysis of the better algorithms
>   (or all of them, if you only developed a few)
>

Unfortunately not. It was a random module thrown in to pad out the course.
The TA for the lab said as much. Computers were neither mentioned nor used
for the entire module.

> wild guess..
>
> > This may not seem all that bad but unless you studied the module it's
> > actually impossible to realise just how pointless that module was.
>
> Well, even if my wild guess was wrong - you could have turned it into a useful
> computer problem. What were you expecting from the course?

True, but it was on at 9am on a Tuesday morning. The brain wasn't kicking
in that well after being roused from its bed. :) I wasn't expecting
anything specific because it was a broad course but what I definitely
wasn't expecting was a course on efficient movements of your arm in a
factory setting.

> > Dave
>
> regards,
>

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