Scholars were expected to complete the following reading assignments before arriving for the CURIE Academy. PDFs were provided for all of the readings. The first reading served as an introduction to the field of computer engineering and briefly describes the concept of abstraction, the distinction between hardware and software, and the computer engineering "stack" spanning problems, algorithms, programming languages, instruction sets, microarchitecture, circuits, and devices. The second reading explained what is meant by the Internet of Things and captures some of the magic of these devices, while the final reading discussed some of the troubling challenges related to security within the context of the Internet of Things.