www2.latech.eduWelcome to Watson

Watson Interactive Learning Suite eBook Labs Download AboutAbout History Acknowledgements History of Watson Watson development has taken place in four distinct phases: the first from 1993 through 1995, the second from 1996 to 1998, the third phase from 2002 to 2004, and the fourth phase from 2013 – 2014. Phase 1 (1993 – 1995) The first phase of Watson involved the conceptualization, design, and initial implementation of nine lab environments. During this time, Watson was support by a $100K grant from the National Science Foundation. A Watson Lab: Phase I (1993 – 1995) Watson’s core concepts of a unified graphical user interface, cross platform compatibility, breadth of concept coverage through the use of a suite of independent labs, and depth of coverage within individual labs by careful attention to the pedagogical content of individual lab activities, roach. Barry was also the driving force behind convincing the National Science Foundation to initially fund the project. During the first phase of the Watson project, Don Garrett and Alex Ramos were key members of the team. Don and Alex implemented the library of shared code that was central to the original C / SUIT lab prototypes. Other individuals who contributed to the development of this phase of Watson include: Pat Bronson , Lee Falta, Michael Gaudet, Dr. Gary Klein, Josh Kleinpeter , Dr. Barry Kurtz , Jeff Matocha, Unmesh S. Mayekar, Dr. Mike O’Neal , Alex Ramos, Dr. Louis Roemer, Vinay Shivaiah, Sameer Singh, Charlie Stear, and Mark Williamson. During the second phase of Watson development, Josh Kleinpeter was my "right hand man. He was the first person to assist me with use of the labs in the classroom setting. Plus, he did an excellent job keeping the C / SUIT prototypes running well beyond the point at which they should have been retired. The developers for the second phase of Watson include: Chris Dickenson, Gene Rogers, Chris Plock , and Dave Muse, Imperative Mike O’Neal , Graphics and Watson-Java Toolkit Chris Plock , Josh Kleinpeter, and Dave Muse, Database Heather Richards, Digital Logic Jeff Rugg, Spreadsheets and Data Structures Ben VanWagner , Assembly Kasoum Gioul, portions of the Spreadsheet code Jon J. Walker , mouse-oriented editor in Graphics Jayson Calloway, Cai Hong, and Byren Vaughn helped prototype a number of these Java-based labs. My right hand man” for the third phase of Watson has been Cliff Lemoine . Cliff was invaluable in helping me to restart Watson development after a three-year lull resulting from my spending time in industry. Cliff helped tutor students in my CSC 100 classes, maintained the Phase II labs, and developed the object-oriented lab for Phase III. A special heart felt THANK YOU also goes out to my good friend and former student Don Garrett who, in addition to being a primary developer in Phase I of Watson, returned to Louisiana Tech to pursue a Master’s degree and in the process developed the Java Swing framework for Watson Phase III. Don’s years in industry developing object-oriented Java-based applications provided him with the background to lay a solid foundation for the current set of labs. Without Don’s efforts, Watson Phase III would not exist. The primary developers for Watson Phase III include: Brandon George, Spreadsheet Jim Patterson, Database Chris Martin, Data Structures Don Garrett, Graphics and Overall Watson Framework James Phillips, JavaScript Cliff Lemoine, Object-Oriented Clay Zuvich, Assembly Anthony Stonaker, Digital Logic In addition to these developers, I’d like to thank the entire spring 2004 CSC 404 Senior Capstone” class. This class did a spectacular job improving the look and feel of the Phase III labs, including developing all of the graphics, the user’s manual, brochure, CD case, flash-based web site, flash tutorials, and multi-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) Watson CD. Additional efforts included: testing, bug tracking, bug fixes, and numerous improvements to the UI based on feedback collected from actual users. While all of those who worked so hard on this project deserve a BIG thank you, special recognition should be give to Jim Patterson (the Project Director), and Chris Martin and Louis Landry (who were jointly responsible for the look” of Watson Phase III). The primary developers for Watson Phase IV include: Tommy Bozeman, Database Lab Jacob Burt, Textbook Framework Andrew Duryea, Watson Editor and JavaScript Lab Mitchell Martin, Spreadsheet Lab James Miltenberger, Graphics Lab Cindy Richard, Graphic Design Brock Tubre, Graphic Design Neil Vosburg, JavaScript and Digital Logic Labs Ricky Waller, Assembly Lab In addition to these developers, I’d like to thank everyone in the Fall 2013 independent study, Winter 2014 Software Engineering class, and Spring 2014 Senior Capstone class. These students had a tremendous task of implementing Watson into one fully functional e-book, and they did a fabulous job of doing so. With over 3,500 total developer hours dedicated in this Phase (and still growing), it’s obvious to see the amount of effort these students put forth. With that being said, I am VERY thankful for these students and their work!In addition to the code written specifically for Watson by our developers, several external libraries were used. These libraries along with their authors (if applicable) are enumerated below: Acorn by Marijn Haverbeke (used in JavaScript chapter for parsing of JavaScript programs) AngularJS by Google (used in Database and Assembly chapter figures/exercise modes) Bootstrap by Twitter, Inc. (used throughout the e-book for mobile scalability, etc) Font Awesome by Dave Gandy (used for icons throughout the book) Handsontable by Marcin Warpechowski (used in Spreadsheet figures and exercise modes) JS-Interpreter by Neil Fraser, Google Inc. (used in JavaScript chapter for interpreting JavaScript programs) jQuery by jQuery Foundation (used in just about everywhere in figures/exercise modes) jQueryUI by jQuery Foundation (used for components such as Watson Dialogs) jQueryMobile by jQuery Foundation (used in Graphics and Spreadsheet figures/exercise modes) Kinetic JavaScript by Eric Rowell (used in Digital Logic chapter for drawing circuits) Require.js Visibly by Addy Osmani (cross browser support for onFocus” event) We would like to thank the developers from each and every one of these libraries! To each and every one of you, THANK YOU!” Dr. Mike O’Neal Director, Project Watson Close...