A teacher’s skills are important

A teacher’s technical skills are important. My background in the private sector, coupled with my education, gives me a broad base of experience from which to pull. The best way to judge a person’s technical skills is to view the work that they have completed. Here are a few short examples of my work.

At Arrick Robotics, over the summer of 2003, I designed a curriculum that uses robots to teach programming to high school students. My idea is simple: If students see movement in immediate response to their efforts, then they will be more interested and more motivated.

At Ericsson Research and Development at Texas, I was a Software Engineer. I coded in a functional programming language called Erlang. In my first month at Ericsson, my Masters Thesis was front-page news on the Erlang.org web site. You may still be able to find a small link to it if you search for “Andy Allen.” This made me something of an Erlang guru locally. I also presented a proposal for a patent based on a new LAN topology using Blue Tooth.

Unfortunately, Ericsson has cut almost the entire design team of over 400 people that I worked on. This was a part of a major restructuring in which Ericsson cut more than 35,000 employees total.

At UTA, my Masters Thesis was the “Probability of Error Data Type.” This is a new data type for use in programming mobile robots. It transfers the responsibility for dealing with uncertainty from the programmer to the compiler. The following excerpt from my thesis shows a small portion of the mathematics involved in the deriving stochastic equations.

While working at Allegiance Telecom, I worked first in Systems Development, and then in Special Projects. My job was to design a CALEA (government wire tapping) solution. Here are small sections of code that I wrote, and the decided not to use. Note that this is not a complete section of code, but a few snippets thrown together in a pseudo-random, pseudo-obfuscated way that simulates a complete program. They are in MS Visual C++. I have permission to use this code only to show the nature of my work at Allegiance Telecom. It may not be copied or reproduced in any format.

/**********************************************************************/

/* MODULE: MLOG.C */

/* */

/* LANGUAGE: Microsoft Visual C++ Version 4.2 */

/* */

/* used with permission */

/* Modified by Andy Allen, Allegiance Telecom, Dallas */

/* Project CALEA */

/**********************************************************************/

/* This program record incoming and outgoing PINs */

/* Numbers, start times, stop times, etc. */

/* */

/* It also bridges onto the call and records the B channel audio */

/**********************************************************************/

/* Include Files */

/**********************************************************************/

#include <windows.h>

#include <stdio.h>

#include <conio.h>

#include "include\platform.h"

/**********************************************************************/

/* External Functions */

/**********************************************************************/

extern word xlog(FILE *stream, XLOG *buffer);

extern unsigned long VxD_Open (HANDLE* VxDHandle, const char* VxDName);

/**********************************************************************/

/* Local Function Prototypes */

/**********************************************************************/

void Xmit_Info (/*FILE *,*/ word);

/********************************************************************/

/* Function: void Xmit_Info (FILE *stream, word CR) */

/* Purpose: Send an info message to the network */

/* Note: this eventualy gets us the numbers on an outgoing call */

/* Parameters: CR is the call reference (integer) */

/* By: Andy Allen */

/********************************************************************/

void Xmit_Info (/*FILE *stream,*/ word CallReference)

{

byte ProtocolDiscriminator; /* protocol descriminator */

byte MessageType; /* message type */

byte BUFF[2]; /* buffer that contains message body */

int SIZE; /* size of message body */

ProtocolDiscriminator = 0x08; /* BRI */

MessageType = 0x7B; /* INFO */

BUFF[0] = 0xA;

BUFF[1] = 0xB;

BUFF[2] = 0xC;

SIZE = sizeof(BUFF);

TRANSMIT_MESSAGE(ProtocolDiscriminator,

MessageType,

CallReference,

SIZE,

signalling[index]);

#define TRANSMIT_DATA(P1,P2,P3,P4,P5)

tx[P5].header.Type = P1;

tx[P5].header.Id = P2;

tx[P5].header.Ch = P3;

tx[P5].header.Data_Length = P4;

if (tx[P5].header.Data_Length==0) {tx[P5].data[0]=0;}

IDI_PutVoice(VxDHandle,P5,&tx[P5],sizeof(IDI_MSG_HDR)+tx[P5].header.Data_Length)

/* SNIP */

} /* End of function Xmit_Info */

After an enjoyable stay at Allegiance Telecom, I resigned due to a serious illness. Everything is under control now.

While at Arrick Robotics, I worked assembling robotic systems. This included both electrical and mechanical components for precision positioning systems and mobile robotic platforms. Work included precision machining using milling machines and lathes. I assembled more printed circuit boards than I could count.

The family atmosphere made it amazingly worthwhile.