WEBVTT 00:00:10.920 --> 00:00:13.200 Hi, my name is Madison Maxey. 00:00:13.260 --> 00:00:15.520 I have a company called Loomia, 00:00:15.520 --> 00:00:20.940 and we focus on making smart fabrics for smart clothing and smart soft good products. 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.580 The sky's the limit when it comes to textiles. 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:28.920 My name is Danielle Applestone, and I'm CEO of Othermachine Company. 00:00:31.540 --> 00:00:34.260 We build a desktop milling machine. 00:00:34.260 --> 00:00:41.320 A milling machine takes a rotating cutting tool and moves it through material to create a 3D object. 00:00:42.540 --> 00:00:46.580 Under the hood, all computers do the same four basic things. 00:00:46.580 --> 00:00:48.160 They input information, 00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:50.740 store and process the information, 00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:52.880 and then, output information. 00:00:53.399 --> 00:00:56.899 Each of these things is done by a different part of the computer. 00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:04.540 There are input devices that take input from the outside world and convert it into binary information. 00:01:04.860 --> 00:01:08.040 There is memory to store this information. 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:12.000 There's a central processing unit or CPU, 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.540 where all the calculations are done. 00:01:14.600 --> 00:01:21.180 And, finally, there are output devices that take information and convert it into a physical output. 00:01:22.100 --> 00:01:24.100 Let's talk about input first. 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:30.460 Computers can take many different types of input, like the keyboard of a computer, the touchpad of a phone, 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:33.400 a camera, a microphone, or a GPS. 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:39.379 But even the sensors on a car, a thermostat, or a drone are also different input devices. 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:45.619 Now, let's look at a simple example of how input travels through a computer and becomes output. 00:01:47.100 --> 00:01:53.419 When you press a key on your keyboard - let's say the letter "B". The keyboard converts the letter to a number. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:58.430 That number is sent as binary, ones and zeros, into the computer. 00:02:00.380 --> 00:02:05.460 Starting from this number, the CPU calculates how to display the letter "B" pixel by pixel. 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:11.440 The CPU requests step-by-step instructions from memory, which tell it how to draw the letter "B". 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:16.729 The CPU runs these instructions and stores the results as pixels in memory. 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:22.329 Finally, this pixel information is sent in binary to the screen. 00:02:22.640 --> 00:02:29.520 The screen is an output device, which converts the binary signals into the tiny lights and colors that make up what you see. 00:02:32.140 --> 00:02:36.420 This all happens so quickly it feels instantaneous, 00:02:36.420 --> 00:02:42.220 but to display each letter a computer runs thousands of instructions, 00:02:42.220 --> 00:02:45.000 starting from the moment your finger presses the key point. 00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:53.260 In that example, the output device was the screen, but there are many different types of output 00:02:53.260 --> 00:02:57.640 which take a binary signal from the computer and do something in the physical world. 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:02.980 For example, a speaker will play sound, and a 3D printer will print an object. 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:09.420 Output devices can also control physical motion like a robotic arm, the motor of a car, 00:03:09.420 --> 00:03:12.180 or the cutting tool of the milling machine that my company makes. 00:03:13.730 --> 00:03:18.759 New types of inputs and outputs let computers interact with the world in entirely new ways. 00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:24.579 This has been helped out by improvements to the speed and size of the memory and CPU. 00:03:24.889 --> 00:03:28.779 The more complicated a task is and the more information that is input or output, 00:03:29.299 --> 00:03:32.739 the more processing power and memory a computer needs. 00:03:33.949 --> 00:03:40.689 Typing letters on a screen may be easy but to do complicated 3d graphics or record a high-definition movie, 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:46.440 modern computers often have multiple CPUs to process all that information 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:49.600 and many gigabytes of memory to store it. 00:03:51.410 --> 00:03:57.040 No matter what it is you want to do with the computer, every single action is about: 00:03:57.710 --> 00:04:00.159 inputting information from the physical world, 00:04:01.460 --> 00:04:04.700 storing and processing that information, 00:04:04.700 --> 00:04:08.260 and getting some output back into the physical world.