Instructors
Abeer Alwan, Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UCLA, alwan@ee.ucla.edu
Achuta Kadambi, Assistant Professor, Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, UCLA, achuta@ucla.edu [Prof. Kadambi is a former COSMOS participant in the mid 2000’s]
Coursework Prerequisite
Algebra II, Integrated Math III, or equivalent. It is recommended to have taken AP Computer Science.
Programming Prerequisite
In addition to the recommendation to take AP Computer Science, candidates should have “basic comfort” in programming in any language (Python, Matlab, C, C++, Java, etc). Candidates should be able to take the average of a list of numbers, sort a list of numbers, concatenate text strings, etc.
Programming Onramp
Initial days of the program are dedicated to the basics of programming using the Python programming language. This will introduce and/or review foundational concepts such as assignments, variables, operations, functions, parameters, return statements, loops and conditionals, and modules.
Course Description
Explore the world of artificial intelligence (AI) for images and sounds. Develop your own AI algorithms where you can hear and see the results. Speech and Image processing involves analyzing, synthesizing, and recognizing soundwaves and images. In this cluster, you will learn about how humans and machines produce and perceive speech like Siri does and recognize objects in images like emerging self-driving cars do. The first two weeks will focus on speech processing and the last two weeks on image processing. In particular, the instructors will show the common synergies between processing speech (a 1-dimensional signal) and images (a 2-dimensional signal). The instructors do not assume familiarity with Python, but recommend “basic exposure” to programming in any language, where “basic exposure” is defined in the pre-requisites of this document. Additional guest speakers who are industry and faculty practitioners will introduce cutting edge technical topics under the same prerequisite umbrella, to ensure a high-school appropriate delivery of content from all cluster material. Students will gain hands-on experience through the “Computer Lab”, where projects are conducted on real data from various applications: in particular, (a) medicine; and (b) entertainment, inspired by the local connections at UCLA Hospital and Hollywood, respectively.
A laptop with web browsing capabilities is all the equipment that is recommended for optimal participation, with options available for those without. Field trips will include visits to the UCLA Hospital to meet with participating physicians and an entertainment studio in Hollywood that is using AI for visual creation.