"i'm given this assignment and i;ve no idea to starting it all.."

No idea of starting it (or) No idea how to start it ? OK was just joking.

As Ijaz said you need the major hardware function blocks even to just display 1+1 = 2. If you have not done any MCU programming earlier, it would be a good idea to FIRST click the Tutorials link on this page and familiarize yourself with 8051 - that will be the starting point of the assignment.

Raghu