Computer Engineering

Computer Engineering exposes students to the inner workings of digital devices in an increasingly digital world. The courses allow students to gain a wide variety of skills, both hands on and theoretical. Beginning in Grade 11students start working with circuits, learning about soldering and the construction of digital circuits with breadboards and Integrated Circuits (74xx series TTLs) as well as how to cope with the challenges of debugging circuits. They also develop programming skills through an introduction to Procedural Programming using the C language. A unit on Number Systems and Boolean Algebra allows them to also see the relationships between their work with circuits and programming. A module on Computer Hardware is also a part of the courses, introducing students to the inner workings of a PC, along with the fundamentals of an operating system installation and configuration through the use of various forms of Linux. All of the skills learned in the Grade 11 course are then further refined in Grade 12, which is a project based course which integrates all of these skills through an introduction to Robotics. Although the Computer Engineering courses are Grade 11 and 12, students are able to take them in their Grade 10 and 11 years to help them with their timetabling.