I got I asked my class to play LightBot and then asked them:
"How this is like and not like "programming"
I then asked them to think about and email me an answer to:I was on the Battleship NJ (commissioned in 1943). They had a "computer" on board to calculate the angle and direction of the big guns and could hit a target miles away within a few yards!!! Pretty impressive when you have to consider they had to take into account the ships speed and direction, wind speed, waves and the recoil from the guns firing. The whole "computer" was built using gears which controlled BIG motors to move the gun.
Here's a pop quiz (you will be graded on this and it will go on your PERMANENT record :)What is the oldest computer we know about?
What is a computer?
I then added the caveat, non-biological computer, as a bunch came back with the answer "the brain".