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View All QuizzesGCSE Computer Science (UK)
1.1 System Architecture 1.2 Memory and Storage 1.3 Computer networks 1.4 Network security 1.5 – Systems software 1.6 – Impacts of digital technology2.1 – Algorithms 2.2 – Programming fundamentals 2.3 – Producing robust programs 2.4 – Boolean logic 2.5 – Programming languages and IDEs
A-Level Computer Science (UK)
1.1 Contemporary processors, input, output and storage devices 1.2 Software and software development 1.3 Exchanging data 1.4 Data types, data structures and algorithms 1.5 Legal, moral, cultural and ethical issues2.1 Elements of computational thinking 2.2 Problem solving and programming 2.3 Algorithms
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Computer Network Acronyms – Quiz
Are you confident with your knowledge of key computer networks terminology? Check if you know what these acronyms stand for!
GCSEA Level
Solution...
The solution for this challenge is available to full members!Find out how to become a member:
➤ Members' Area
Network Design Quiz
Before completing this quiz about key network design concepts including network hardware, network topology and types and characteristics of computer networks, you may want to read through the following blog post about network design.
Take the Quiz! (open full screen)
Check that your understanding of essential network design concepts by completing this quiz:
Tagged with: Networks
Computer Hardware Acronyms Galore!
Are you confident with your knowledge of key computer hardware terminology? Check if you know what these acronyms stand for!
GCSEA Level
Solution...
The solution for this challenge is available to full members!Find out how to become a member:
➤ Members' Area
Using Karnaugh Maps
Karnaugh maps are a tool used to simplify complex Boolean expressions. To do so you will need to be able to
- Complete a Karnaugh Map for a given Boolean Expression or a given Truth Table.
- Identify the main blocks of 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 consecutive 1s.
- Use these blocks to write down the Simplified Boolean Expression for your Karnaugh Map.
The following slideshow gives examples of how blocks can be identified on different Karnaugh Maps:
Your Task
Use a Karnaugh Map with 4 inputs to simplify each of the following Boolean expressions:
Solution...
The solution for this challenge is available to full members!Find out how to become a member:
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Computer Science Wordle!
Have a go at guessing the hidden computer science keywords…
5 Letters 6 Letters
Tagged with: Quiz
Office Network Design Task
A small IT company would like your help to improve the performance of their network.
They have a range of network components, all connected using ethernet cables but are not too sure how all the equipment are connected together. Before upgrading their network, they would like you to draw a diagram representing their network topology.
Luckily, all the ethernet ports on all the equipment used in the office have been clearly labelled, so these labels should help you draw an accurate design/topology of this network.
To draw the network design, you will need to use our network design tool:
Design Your Own Network Online
Here is all the information you will need to design this network.
Floor PlanMain SwitchRouterFirewallWAPHub
The network consists of:
- 8 Desktop computers spread across two rooms,
- 2 inkjet printers,
- A server rack with a file server, an e-mail server, a web-server and a backup server,
- A main switch (in the server room),
- A hub (in the extension room),
- A router,
- A firewall,
- A Wireless Access Point (in the main office area).
The employees of the office can also connect their smartphones and laptops wirelessly.
Here is the floor plan of the office:
Here is a picture of the main switch, located in the server room. The labels on this switch should help you design the network topology. (Click on the picture to zoom in).
Here is a picture of the router, located in the server room. The labels on this router should help you design the network topology. (Click on the picture to zoom in).
Here is a picture of the firewall, located in the server room. The labels on this firewall should help you design the network topology. (Click on the picture to zoom in).
Here is a picture of the Wireless Access Point (WAP), located in the main office. The label on this WAP should help you design the network topology. (Click on the picture to zoom in).
Here is a picture of the network hub, located in the extension room. The labels on this hub should help you design the network topology. (Click on the picture to zoom in).
Improving the Network Performance
The employees find that the network performance is not great especially when:
- Accessing the Internet
- Connecting their laptops and smartphones wirelessly in the extension room.
To improve the performance of this network, the office have contacted their Internet Service Provider and upgraded their Internet Connection to a higher bandwidth.
They were also told that, installing a cache server could improve the performance of the network when employees access the Internet.
Finally, they found out that the network Wi-Fi signal in the extension room was fairly weak due to the distance to the Wireless Access Point and the presence of partition walls between the extension room and the main office area where the WAP is located. They were advised to install an extra Wireless Access Point in the extension room.
Could you upgrade your network diagram by adding:
- A cache server, connected to the main switch,
- An extra Wireless Access Point (WAP), connected to the main switch.
Solution...
The solution for this challenge is available to full members!Find out how to become a member:
➤ Members' Area
Tagged with: Networks
Let It Snow Challenge
In this challenge, we will create a randomised Christmas card using Python Turtle. Our card will include 20 snowflakes of random sizes, colours and number of branches, randomly positioned on the canvas.
We will also add some Christmas Greetings to our card.
The aim of this challenge is to learn how to define your own functions in Python and to add your own parameters to your functions.
Before completing this challenge, you should first learn how to draw a snowflake using Python Turtle by completing our snowflake challenge.
You will then be able to re-use your code to complete this “Let It Snow” challenge, following the steps from this video tutorial.
Video Tutorial
Python Code
You can now complete the code below as explained in the above video tutorial…
Solution...
The solution for this challenge is available to full members!Find out how to become a member:
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Solving a Zebra Puzzle using Prolog
In this challenge, we are aiming to get the computer to solve Zebra Puzzles by creating Prolog programs.
Zebra Puzzle?
Zebra Puzzles, also known as Einstein’s Riddles, are a type of logic puzzles where you have to use the clues to make logic deductions in order to solve a given problem.
The most famous Zebra Puzzle was created by Einstein and published in 1962. You can find out more about this puzzle on this page.
Our zebra puzzle will be based on the following scenario:
Three kids went to a superheroes fancy dress birthday party.
The names of the three kids are Ethan, Ali and Anya.
They dressed up as Spiderman, Captain America and Iron Man.
The kids are 6, 8 and 10 years old.
We don’t know how each kid dressed up or how old each kid is but we have the following clues:
- Anya was dressed up as Spiderman.
- Ethan was not dressed up as Captain America.
- The youngest kid dressed up as Spiderman.
- The kid who is 8 years old dressed up as Captain America.
You can solve this puzzle manually using the following grid:
Prolog?
Prolog is a declarative language that uses a recursive approach to solve logic puzzles. To solve a logic Puzzle using Prolog, a programmer first needs to declare a knowledge base consisting of a collection of facts and rules. This knowledge base can then be used to run queries to try to solve the puzzle.
Setting up the knowledge base
Let’s first focus on declaring the key facts of our puzzle as follows:
/* Facts */ kid(ethan). kid(ali). kid(anya). hero(spiderman). hero(captain_america). hero(iron_man). age(six). age(eight). age(ten).
We will then implement our clues as rules:
relation(K,H,A):- K=anya, H=spiderman, age(A). relation(K,H,A):- K=ethan, hero(H), age(A), H\=captain_america. relation(K,H,A):- kid(K), H=spiderman, A=six. relation(K,H,A):- kid(K), H=captain_america, A=eight.
We will add two extra rules that will be used to solve this puzzle and to reinforce the fact that two kids cannot have the same age or the same costume.
different(X,Y,Z):-X\=Y,X\=Z,Y\=Z. solve(K1,H1,A1,K2,H2,A2,K3,H3,A3):- relation(K1,H1,A1),relation(K2,H2,A2),relation(K3,H3,A3),different(K1,K2,K3),different(H1,H2,H3),different(A1,A2,A3).
Solving the puzzle…
We have created this knowledge base using an online Prolog Environment called Swish:
https://swish.swi-prolog.org/p/Superheroes%20Zebra%20Puzzle.pl
You can now run the following query to solve this puzzle:
?-solve(K1,H1,A1,K2,H2,A2,K3,H3,A3)
Your Turn!
Pick up any Logic Grid Puzzle from this website and build your own set of facts and rules in Prolog to solve your puzzle.
Tagged with: Prolog
Dingbats – A Level Computer Science
Feeling confident with your A Level Computer Science terminology?
Have a go at guessing the hidden keywords or expressions represented by the following dingbats…
Dingbats 1 to 20Dingbats 21 to 40Dingbats 41 to 60Extras
Hint?
Here is a list of all the keywords used in the above dingbats, in alphabetical order…
LMC Simulator
Logic Gates Circuits
Network Designer
Flowchart Studio
Online Python IDE