Course Description
This course is the first-year coding/computer science class for engineering students. APSC160 is divided into two parts. The first part of the course is C programming and the second part of the course uses Arduino & Excel (mostly Arduino).
This class used to make students write assessments on paper, now all of them are online, which is more fitting considering that it's a computer science class. APSC 160 follows a flipped classroom style. Students first watch online lectures, then come to in-person classes to engage in iClicker questions, and complete worksheets and pre-labs. Coding assessments are completed on Visual Studio Code.
Types of Assignments To Expect
Worksheets - There are usually 2 worksheets a week that are based on the content of the screencasts.
Computer Labs - Pre-labs are released a week before your in-class lab assessments. At the beginning of the course, there used to be a lab assessment every week, but that was when the content of the course was not as extensive. Later on in the course, expect there to be a lab assessment every two weeks.
iClicker - The iClicker questions are for participation. These are free marks! Just show up to class and open iClicker on your phone/laptop.
Midterms - Types of questions can include short answers that explain how a certain piece of code functions and long answer questions that will ask you to code a program.
Final Exam - The final exam is worth 30% and mostly focuses on the later content of the course such as Arduino, Strings, and Arrays.
Advice/Study Tips
Develop fast typing skills. While the labs have a relaxed time limit, the midterms and final exam are the complete opposite. It would be advantageous to type as fast as possible.
Screencasts are not your friend. Not only are they incredibly monotonous but they are not very helpful for completing worksheets & lab assessments once the course becomes more rigorous. It is recommended to use the textbook or external resources that help with C programming.
Add comments to your code so that it is easier to understand how the program is supposed to function. Getting used to this habit will help with gaining better grades in this course.
Actively inspect for coding errors. You could be missing a backslash or a semicolon and that could ruin the output of your program.
Create projects based on the coding concepts introduced in this class. Projects like these are extremely helpful for preparing for lab assessments, midterms, and the final exam.
Textbook exercises for this class are also useful as well for preparing for lab assessments, midterms, and the final exam.
Resources
Programiz is an excellent coding website that has tutorials and courses for coding languages such as Python and C programming. This site is also easier to find programming errors.
Replit is another coding website that you can use to inspect coding errors as well as code using C programming.
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