A student who loves all kinds of computers is indulging his passion this summer by providing the coding for a professor’s web page project.
Carlos Chai ’03 (Montego Bay, Jamaica), an electrical and computer engineering major, is using the Java computer program to help make some computer-aided design tools available to other Lafayette students, as well as those at other schools.
“It’s given me an opportunity to catch up on my Java. Designing an interface is a good experience,” says Chai, who adds that he loves computers of all kinds.
As an EXCEL Scholar, Chai is working with John Greco, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, who teaches courses on digital circuits and digital system design. In EXCEL, students assist faculty members with research while earning a stipend.
Greco aims to create a set of software tools for use in the design of digital logic circuits and make it available on the student web page. The tools will help the user obtain a minimal sum-of-products expression for a logic function, according to the professor.
“Carlos Chai will be responsible for Java coding the entire project,” says Greco. “I will provide the theoretical background for the necessary computations and will suggest strategies for organizing and implementing those computations.”
In doing the EXCEL work, Greco says, Chai would be extending his knowledge of Java learned in two of the professor’s courses to a web-based application.
Chai says he has been working independently and will show Greco much of the results only when he is finished.
A graduate of Cornwall College, his high school in Jamaica, Chai is a member of the International Students Association and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.