UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
The Department of Computer Science & Engineering

In computer science, Pipelining is a set of data processing algorithms where the output of one is the input to the next. This is often used in transforming data from one type to another. For example, if we have a picture of a person, and we want an image of it reflect across the Y axis, and rotated 90 degrees, we have to apply the "reflect accross y axis" algorithm first, followed by the "rotate 90 degrees" algorithm.

If we apply them out of order, we end up with something different:

This same concept applies to our everyday lives in the context of designing buffet tables where people get food in the proper order or on our income taxes where a line depends on the result from previous lines, and yet feeds the input of a later line. We can also see it in doing laundry - if we have 5 loads of laundry to do, while one is in the washer another can be in the dryer, creating a sort of assembly line process.

You will be applying this concept to designing a conference center. You must design the layout of the building and each of the rooms so that the flow of people is most efficient. Show the flow of people through each room and hallway with directed lines. You want to avoid the paths people use to reach places crossing each other as much as possible. You should also avoid people returning to previous steps and large amounts of congestion (bottlenecks). A sample conference schedule and lunch menus is provided below. Use this to help determine what must go in each room and where. Note that contrary to the image processing example above, if we do things out of order we don't end up with a different answer but we do end up with angry humans in attendance - and maybe thats even worse :). If you're changing the purpose of a room during the conference, keep in mind that you have multiple piplelines going on in parallel! You have the attendees and you have the staff, and they shouldn't conflict (eg - if the staff has to carry a thousand chairs down the hallway at the same time sessions are letting out, that's bad).

Conference Schedule:

7AM - 8AM - Registration - Room _______

8AM - 10AM - Track 1, Session 1 - Room ________
8AM - 10AM - Track 2, Session 1 - Room ________
8AM - 10AM - Track 3, Session 1 - Room ________

10AM-10:30AM - Coffee Break (served in _________)

10:30AM - 12PM - Track 1, Sesson 2 - Room _______
10:30AM - 12PM - Track 2, Session 2 - Room ________
10:30AM - 12PM - Track 3, Session 2 - Room ________

12PM - 2PM - Lunch

2PM - 4PM - Track 1, Session 3 - Room ________
2PM - 4PM - Track 2, Session 3 - Room ________
2PM - 4PM - Track 3, Session 3 - Room ________

4PM - 4:30PM - Coffee Break (served in _________)

4:30PM-6PM - Keynote - Room ________

Buffet Style Lunch:

• Baked Chicken
• Mashed Potatos
• Pasta with meat sauce
• Tapioca Pudding
• Apple Pie

Coffee breaks include coffee, juice, and light snacks. I'll leave the exact details to you.

What to submit:

• The building plan you have come up with for how the rooms should be organized. You may use multiple diagrams to make things clear if you need to. You should show paths of people through hallways, getting items for lunch, etc... You'll have to design the buffet tables for lunch and coffee breaks along with the buildings organization. Be sure to consider the conference schedule in your plans.
• An explanation of how you expect the flow of people to proceed throughout the day. Explain how the choices you've made have averted possible disaster.

You may work in groups of two (2) or three (3) in completing this lab. The lab is due at the start of class Wednesday, July 13.