Computer engineering: Can we reimagine the trade-offs that limit flash storage devices?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 computer science and ICT.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Bryan S. Kim, a computer engineer at Syracuse University in the US. He is exploring better ways to build data storage systems to balance the trade-off between capacity, reliability and performance.

• This resource also contains an interview with Bryan and offers an insight into careers in computer engineering. If your students have questions for Bryan, they can send them to him online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Bryan will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Bryan’s research and challenges them to explore which of their electronic devices use flash storage.

• An animation about Bryan’s work is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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