Ben Brigman

Blog

• 15 Nov, 2013

• Today we continued simulating changes in hunger using Vensim, and then learned about AgentSheets. Vensim and AgentSheets are very different in how they show represent data; Vensim shows a system, while AgentSheets shows agents physically moving and interacting. I prefer Vensim, but AgentSheets might be easier to use for the modeling projects. My partner for the project is Ayla. We haven't decided which project to do yet, but we are leaning towards Cops and Robbers.

• 23 Nov, 2013

• During class today we learned more about AgentSheets and made a simulation of tourism on an island populated by cannibalistic natives. I am beginning to feel more comfortable using AgentSheets to create models, but I think AgentSheets is limited by its defined nature. During a loop, if a condition evaluates as true, none of the conditions following it will be evaluated. This makes it hard to do multiples things every time interval. After we finished talking about AgentSheets, we started working on the command line and using SSH and SFTP. We learned how to use a program called Cyberduck for SFTP. These are useful tools that have already helped me create this page.

• 7 Dec, 2013

• Today we worked on our modeling projects. Ayla and I decided to create the Cops and Robbers model. We are nearly finished with the project. The only thing we have left is to create graphs and evaluate the data. We decided to use AgentSheets for the simulation, despite worries about the ability of the program to perform in the ideal manner. We ran into problems with loops and displaying data in a graph though.

• 14 Dec, 2013

• Today Ayla and I finished our Cops and Robbers modeling project. We went through the rules and corrected a couple bugs in the code, and then ran a few simulations to find the optimum number of cops and robbers. We then made graphs of the data. After that, I spent some time working on my website.

• 1 Feb, 2014

• Today we started learning how to use JavaScript. I am excited about this because it's useful and fun. I can't wait to learn more about JavaScript. We also presented our project today. The presentation went well, considering we weren't able to show everybody the project because the computer froze.

• 8 Feb, 2014

• Today we learned more about JavaScript. I like JavaScript because it is able to be used by anyone with a web browser; no extra software is needed. I also learned that JavaScript can be used to operate a web server using a module called node.js. We talked about objects some today, and I thought these were interesting and want to learn more about them.

• 1 March, 2014

• Today we learned about parallel computing. We also worked in the command line a lot. I was able to jump right in and learn about parallel computing because of my experience using the command line. Parallel computing is interesting and seems useful. I'm excited to learn more about it.

• 8 March, 2014

• Today we talked more about parallel computing. We also learned about how CPUs and RAM work and learned how to build a computer. We looked at code for a parallel computing program, and it was interesting to see how the code created threads and communicated between them. When we talked about electronics, I was able to understand easily because of my experience in electronics.

• 15 March, 2014

• Today we finally looked at C code. This was my first experience with C, so it was exciting. We have done a lot of talking about parallel concepts, but we haven't done any actual programming. I am excited to start doing this.

• 29 March, 2014

• Ayla and I started our project today. We finished most of it, since there was already a framework provided. We had some trouble setting things on the page using JavaScript, but we figured it out with a quick search. We just need to make a few improvements, like setting the initial strike to be drawn on top of the trees and fixing the "Trees Burned" count.

• 5 April, 2014

• Our model is finished. We had a few problems with it today. I tried to change the probability of each tree burning so that it would decrease with the distance from the initial strike, but it didn't work and it broke the model, so I had to fix that.

• 12 April, 2014

• Ayla and I presented our project today. It went pretty well. Our project met all the specifications, and while it was by no means the best, it wasn't the worst either. We spent some time improving the layout of the page to look better and to be easier to use. One of the groups used jQuery to make their page interactive, which I thought was really cool. I want to learn how to use jQuery sometime.

• 7 July, 2014

• Today was my first day back at Shodor for the summer. Needless to say, there was a lot to do. For most of the morning, Joel taught us about Subversion and version control. After copying the contents of my public_html folder to a subversion folder, I started working on the image manipulation tutorials for Inkscape and Gimp found on the Shodor website. I am still working on both, but as of now I like Gimp much better. It is easier to use and makes more sense to me.

• 8 July, 2014

• Today was filled with a lot of new information. Joel started teaching us PHP, which was interesting because PHP is very different from the other programming languages I've seen and used. It's used on servers, and has a focus on dealing with arrays and data. I think this will be useful to learn, but the language feels old, especially with the requirement to prefix variables with a '$.' I made a page that uses PHP to randomly select a background color and started working on a calendar and a dice statistics project.

• 9 July, 2014

• Today we learned more about PHP and continued working on our PHP projects. We learned how to use PHP to set and use cookies and to read from and write to external files. I haven't used these in my projects yet, but I might tomorrow. I finished my Dice Statistics project and started working on the XML Blog projects, which I should complete tomorrow.

• 10 July, 2014

• Today we learned more PHP, including how to use POST and GET to supply data and how to access XML files. This helped me make and improvement to my Dice Statistics project. The user can now specify the number of dice to be rolled and the number of times they are rolled. I am also almost done with my XML Blog project. I made the XML and PHP files; I just need to add CSS to style the page and it will be done. Tomorrow I plan to do the Background Selector project after finishing the XML Blog and possibly adding a percentage or graph feature to Dice Statistics

• 11 July, 2014

• This was the last day of my first week back for the summer. It was a busy week, filled with lots of new material. Today we learned how to use and set session variables. I haven't used these in my projects so far and I don't think I will. Instead of finishing my XML Blog project, and doing the background selector, I focused on the Dynamic Pages project. My website is now on one page with dynamically loaded content. In the future, I plan to keep the common sections of the website in one file and just have the other files load the unique parts of the page.

• 14 July, 2014

• Today we spent some time learning about SQL. While SQL seems very useful, it is also kind of hard to use. With more practice I should be able to get used to it, though. After lunch, I worked on my Background Selector project. I have a seperate page for this, but I might add the feature to my main site soon. I also started the Dane Joe project, but I didn't get much done on that. Tomorrow I will either do the Dane Joe project, improve some of my earlier projects, or improve my web page by adding different themes.

• 15 July, 2014

• We started the day by learning more about SQL and databases.I might implement a database in my Dice Statistics project tomorrow, but I haven't actually used any yet. I completed the Dane Joe project today, but I spent way more time on it than I needed to. I kept getting errors on one of my lines, even though all the resources I checked said my code was valid. I ended up having to write the code in a slightly different way, but it finally worked. I still don't like PHP.

• 16 July, 2014

• My morning today was spent doing workshop documentation for the Forensics Science workshop. It wasn't bad, but there's not much to say about it. I helped some kids with their Vensim models when they were struggling, but otherwise, all I did was write and take pictures. After lunch, I tried to get caught up with the rest of the class. Ryan helped me by showing me the code the class worked on earlier and helping me change it and my database so it would work. I also made some progress on the Calendar project, which I had forgotten about. I'll hopefully finish that up tomorrow.

• 17 July, 2014

• Today I spent most of my time working on my Calendar project. I was stuck on it for a long time, but once I realized the best method to use, I was able to finish pretty quickly. Now that all of my PHP projects are completed, I'm going to work on implementing some of them in my website. Dynamic pages is already used for my site, and I think I will implement the background selector as well. I could set an option for the background selector to random and then implement the random hex color generator too. It looks like tomorrow is shaping up to be a fun day.

• 18 July, 2014

• Today I improved my website by reordering the files in my public_html folder. I now have folders for CSS, the PHP tutorials we did with Joel, the PHP projects, the Fire project, and my main site. I spent most of the morning organizing this and then fixing all of the files so they would still work. After lunch, I started work on a project Phil gave to bookmark files. I haven't done too much on it yet, because I spent most of my time trying to make sure one user wouldn't get entered into the table multiple times. I think I have that part working though, so I have a good start.

• 21 July, 2014

• This morning we talked about object oriented programming in JavaScript with Keith. It was pretty complicated, and I don't like the way JavaScript implements it. After lunch, Ron and some interns gave an engineering presentation. We talked about legos and center of gravity, then made bridges on a bridge building applet. This was fun because it was a hands-on activity and was a change from the typical lecture/project system.

• 22 July, 2014

• This morning we talked about regular expressions. Regular expressions are pretty cool and I think I will be using them in the future, but they are really complicated for their purpose. I'm glad I get to have a reference sheet for them. In the afternoon, we built towers out of straws and pipe cleaners and tested them to see whose design could hold the most marbles while having the greatest height. My team – consisting of Jopsy and Rosemary in addition to myself – placed in third.

• 23 July, 2014

• This morning, an intern taught us about using AJAX with Javascript and jQuery. I had fun fun with this, and I plan on messing around with this in the future. I had some trouble at first, but we figured out all the errors I was getting were caused by including a 'www' in the URL. In the afternoon, we talked about electrical engineering. I already knew most of the stuff we learned, so I helped Sai when he was having trouble.

• 24 July, 2014

• Today I helped built a LittleFe computer cluster. This took up most of the morning, so after that, I worked a little on my stocks project. After lunch, I helped shoulder-surf the web design class. I got a lot of practice in GIMP today, and I felt confident helping the students. I also feel comfortable using GIMP, so I think I'll mess around with it at home some.

• 28 July, 2014

• Today I worked on my stocks model, and, after much trouble, got it working. I am excited about the resumé building exercise tomorrow, and if I have any free time I will work on the snowflake project. Hopefully I will be able to get a lot of it done, because I don't want to have a backlog of projects.

• 29 July, 2014

• This morning we first worked on our resumés with Kristen, the listened to a talk by a former Shodor employee about job interviews for big, West Coast tech companies. We learned a lot of interesting tips, and then spent some time on a programming challenge he gave us. Zach and I worked together to solve the problem, and we created a good solution. In the afternoon, I spent some time on my resumé and then worked on some python code.

• 30 July, 2014

• Today I worked on my Koch snowflake project. It was hard work, but I finished it. I would like to reiterate that drawing with JavaScript sucks. Most o the trouble I had came from the drawing part, not the recursion part. I'm glad I got the project done, though, because it's pretty cool.

• 31 July, 2014

• Today I spent a lot of time redoing my website. First, I added the head element, as well as the header, menu, and footer, to my index.php file and then removed those parts from the other pages. That made it easier to implement my next task, creating a drop-down menu bar. These tasks took up my morning and part of the afternoon. In the afternoon, I decided to create another drop-down list for my portfolio. This one didn't go as smoothly, and I also messed up the navigation menu as well, so I think my day tomorrow will be spent trying to fix my menus.

• 1 August, 2014

• I spent the day today working on my website. Nearly all of my time was spent on drop-down menus. After nearly three hours of working, I figured out that my navigation menu was wrong because I was using header instead of empty links, which was causing the links in the menu to render wierdly. Unfortunately, this did nothing to help my portfolio menu. My whole afternoon was spent working on that. I finally got it to work, but I am still confused as to how, because it only started working when I commented out all the code for it. I was excited and checked out my new, redesigned website, when I discovered that my blog was unintelligible now. If you can read this, I've fixed it, but if you can't, sorry.

• 4 August, 2014

• Today I spent most of my time fixing my website. I figured out that my CSS wasn't working because I forgot to close an element in my html. After fixing this, my code worked pretty well. I spent the rest of the day fixing the colors on my website to look better with my website. It's mostly working now, except the portfolio doesn't display right on small windows.

• 5 August, 2014

• Today I spent some time finishing up my Gimp and Inkscape projects. I redid a my blimp and all of the inkscape images, then I added an image gallery on to my website. I got Miguel's help using jQuery for that. In the afternoon, I did documentation. I helped a few kids with Agentsheets too.

• 6 August, 2014

• This morning I finished up my HLD and my image gallery. I'm proud of how my gallery turned out. In the afternoon, I started my Fashionista Phil model for Agentsheets. Even though it's simple, Agentsheets makes it really hard to accomplish. Hopefully, I will have the model complete by the end of the week, but I'm not sure how complicated it will be.

• 7 August, 2014

• I worked on my Agentsheets model today. If you haven't been able to tell, I hate Agentsheets. It seems like every idea I have to implement part of the model won't work because of some feature of Agentsheets. I had to redo my whole model because I learned that global variables in Agentsheets can only store numbers, not strings. I did manage to finish a lot of the project, though.

• 8 August, 2014

• This morning I finally finished my Agentsheets model. It mostly works, but there is a glitch where one color sometimes takes over, and I can't figure out how to fix it. In the afternooon, I did documentation and watched the SSP students present the models they created in Agentsheets and Vensim.

• 11 August, 2014

• I created my alternate stylesheet today. Even though the design is basically the same as the main.css, I spent a lot of time on it. I put a lot of work into choosing colors that looked good with each other, and I was able to fix both the portfolio and navbar display issues. I looked at the tutorials for responsive web design today, but I didn't do any work on it.

• 12 August, 2014

• Today was spent making my website responsive. I was able to make the navbar and portfolio display at any width, and I made the blog look better on mobile screens. This wasn't very hard, but it took the whole day because I spent a lot of time helping Francisco and Andrew with their Agentsheets models. Andrew's model is hard, since there are a lot of complicated functions that are supposed to be included in the model.

• 13 August, 2014

• Today I finished my resumé and helped out Andrew and Francisco. I helped Andrew create his Agentsheets model and Francisco create his Agentsheets model and make his website responsive. I am finished with all of my work except for one more reflection!