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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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