Assessment Tool

Lecture 12: Functions and Design

Content Tested: Top down and Bottom up Design

Lecture Content:

Design Process
Functional Decomposition
Top Down Vs. Bottom Up
Graphics Primitives

Goals:

Develop ability to apply principles and generalizations already learned to new problems and situations
Develop problem-solving skills
Develop appropriate study skills, strategies, and habits
Improve mathematical skills
Prepare for transfer or graduate study
Learn techniques and methods used to gain new knowledge in this subject

Assessment Technique: Documented Problem Solutions

Purpose:

Instructors can find out how students design graphics drawing functions in terms of simple drawing functions like line, triangle, rectangle, and circle.

Activity:

Today we saw the process of functional decomposition in creating functions to draw a picture of a house. Today you have the opportunity to let your creativity shine.

Assume we have the primitive drawing functions of Triangle, Rectangle, Circle, and Line. Design your own picture using these shapes and draw it below. Suppose you want to draw this same picture using C functions. Draw the static call graph or calling tree of your functional decomposition. Describe your process as you determined the functional decomposition. Was the process top down, bottom up, or both?

Note: The activity does not require writing C code.

Possible Solution

Figures will vary from student to student. One such picture and decomposition might be the following. The process will probably be bottom up and top down since one needs to do the drawing using primitive shapes and also design larger regions of the picture such as the eyes.

Possible Uses of Activity:

The instructor might want to let students work on this activity individually since students like to draw their own pictures. After people are finished, have some students present their solutions to the rest of the class. Discuss with the class the strengths and weaknesses you see with the decompositions. Also, the instructor might highlight the similarities among the decompositions.