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Lab Pack 1: Boolean Logic (Week 1)

308 words

The week-1 lab anchors the entire course's tactile pattern: build with your hands; verify; reflect. Five worksheets in worksheets/ch1/. The breadboard pattern lands here; it returns in weeks 2, 3, and 5.


Anchors the week

Week 1: Boolean Logic. The first useful circuit is the 4-bit ripple adder (lab 1.4). Everything before it (flashlight, telegraph, NAND-only gates) is preparation.

Concept the lab embodies

NAND universality. Any digital circuit can be built from NAND alone. Once you have demonstrated this on the bench, the rest of the silicon stack becomes legible to you: every chip you ever read about is built from gates that are built from NAND that is built from transistors.

The five worksheets

Worksheet Time Purpose
lab-1.0-discrete-logic-breadboard.md ~90 min Prereq: bench setup and discrete-logic IC familiarization
lab-1.1-flashlight-breadboard.md ~60 min The Petzold flashlight; one switch, one bulb, two states
lab-1.2-morse-telegraph.md ~90 min Petzold's relay pattern; an electrical circuit that controls another electrical circuit
lab-1.3-nand-only-gates.md ~90 min Build AND, OR, NOT from NAND only
lab-1.4-4bit-ripple-adder.md ~120 min The first useful circuit; foundation for week 2

Grading rubric

Each worksheet has its own rubric inline. The week-level rubric: every lab worked at least once on the bench (or in the workbench for browser-path students); a one-paragraph reflection journaled per lab; the Toolchain Diary started.

Browser-path equivalents

Bench labs 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 do not have direct workbench equivalents. Browser-path students skim those worksheets for context; do labs 1.3 and 1.4 in the workbench.

What's next

Lab pack 2: Boolean Arithmetic. The 4-bit adder grows to 32 bits.