Printer FriendlyLogic Puzzles
Presented by: Becky Gibson, Senior Technical Staff, and Annette Riffe, Advisory Software Engineer, IBM
Workshop Description
Software engineering involves solving puzzles and explaining to the computer how to solve them. We will explore some of these puzzles and how to write instructions explaining our solutions.
We start off with a group exercise, a Sudoku puzzle. We will then split up into smaller groups to solve the Tower of Hanoi, Three Jugs Puzzle or the Four Knights Puzzle, and write up the steps we used. Each group will get the instructions from a different group and see if the steps are accurate enough so solve the puzzle.
Leaders’ Job Descriptions
Becky: Becky is a Web accessibility architect in IBM's Emerging Technologies Group. She focuses on accessibility and the Web and is currently assisting with the development of the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specification and implementing accessibility in the user interface components of the Dojo Open
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Annette: Annette is the security engineer for IBM's Lotus Connections product. She focuses on preventing hackers from obtaining private information using web-based attacks on the Lotus Connections applications.
Advice for Career Path
Becky: In order to prepare for a career in technology or science, students should continue to take math and science classes throughout high school and college even when such classes are not required. Math and science help to build problem solving skills which can be applied to many different careers.
Annette: Take advanced math classes in high school. This opens up opportunities to take more interesting math classes in college, which are necessary for a degree in computer science. Learn to communicate effectively, both in spoken and written language. If you have access to a writing or speaking course, take it!