Blog

• Oct. 4th 2014

• I have learned the rules and regulations that take place at Shodor. I have also learned the work ethics and proper behavior in the work place. I now better understand the basics and the daily activities I need to complete at Shodor.

• Oct. 11th 2014

• I learned the three words that explain the scientific process, which are: expectation, observation, and reflection. I learned that there are many answers to one problem but some answers are made because of human error. There is a range from what we believe will happen and what will actually happen. Along with this, I learned that computers may answer a problem we have in a way that humans are not used to.

• Oct. 18th 2014

• I learned about models and how models aren't always accurate. I also learned how to make models in Excel and how to make data appear nicely and easily.

• Nov. 1st 2014

• I learned how to program in Terminal. I learned the words and short codes that are used in Terminal too. Terminal wasn't a difficult program to learn and use. I also learned many useful tips on web design codes.

• Nov. 8th 2014

• Today I learned how to use Vensim and create a model using it. I was able to create a system model of a disease spreading and modify it to be more accurate to how the situation would really look like in the real world. We added things like the death rate to the disease and the chance of people getting healthy again after being sick.

• Nov 15th 2014

• This week I learned about Agent sheets. I learned how to create an "agent" and program it to interact with other "agents". I was also taught how to display "agents" in a graph from a model I created.

• Nov. 22 2014

• I have started my project with Anup. I am doing the Vensim half of the project. I have completed a good amount of one of the two models I have to create, with little difficulty.

• Dec. 6th 2014

• I have finished the first model and almost all of my second model. All I have left is to find the number of tagged seals and fish. This task is very frustrating and difficult.

• Dec. 13th 2014

• I have found the values of tagged and non-tagged fish and seals that get the populations in the target ranges. I have also fixed some mistakes in my model. I worked on my website and I presented my project.

• Feb. 7th 2015

• I learned many new and interesting things today. We started to use Java Script, and we learned what type of syntax that needs to be used so Java Script can understand. Syntax is another word that I learned today. Syntax are the words and codes we use in a selected program. Then I was told about strings and numbers and I discovered how they worked using the console. Lastly I learned about the use of comments in Text Wrangler and how it makes it easier for a human to look at another human’s code.

• Feb. 14th 2015

• Today was much more fun than last week. We did more hands on activities and less watching. we talked about the concept of loops, which are very confusing. I understood the concept after Phil explained it to me but that wasn’t the only thing we did today. I made a magic ball model that gave twenty random responses when you clicked on the button. I learned “if” and “else” statements, and I was successful in incorporating those statements in my programs.

• Feb. 21st 2015

• Today at Shodor, I continued to learn more about loops and how they can confuse me more! But after a few models and explanations from the instructors, I think I understand the concept. We also built upon a model that simulated bouncing particles. I was able to get my background color of my model to change colors on its own and I was very pleased with that. I helped Braxton to get his model to do the same as well. Today wasn't as interesting as the previous weeks.

• March 7th 2015

• Today we started our group project! This project was on seals and fish again. I was hoping for a new topic about architecture or building because I am very interested in those things. My partner for this project is Lyndon, and he is a great partner. We quickly got our planning done and started to fiddle with the model in no time. Menefese told me about a program called Brackets, which is an alternative to Text Wrangler. He told me it has some advantages but it looked more complicated to me. Also, I learned a great lesson today: copy and paste is your best friend when making a model.

• March 14th 2015

• This was a day I missed and I made up later. I catched up on the work that was supposed to be done this day. It took me a while to find some of my partner's work, because my partner was not in the office. I helped Mike's group with their seals and fish eating habits. Today was a day of quick and fast work on our projects.

• March 21st 2015

• Today we presented our projects. Our project presentation ran smoothly with little to no problems. We were able to talk about what we wanted to about our project and answer any questions that were asked by the mentors and fellow apprentices. I also learned how other people solved problems they came across that we found difficult to solve. I saw a person make his program look 3-dimensional with water and fish that looked real! However, I think he was missing some of the components of the project. Overall, today's presentations were very interesting and well made.

• April 11th 2015

• Today was our first day back in the classroom since our last project. We started our topic of parallel programming by discussing the vocabulary that will be used over the next three weeks. I learned what nodes, clusters, and supercomputers are. Aaron talked about how some of the interns get to build and work with supercomputers. I think that sounds amazing and could be a great opportunity to create something really great.

• April 18th 2015

• Today was an interesting day. We went further into parallel programming and used a program called C. In C, we made a program called Hello World, and we ran the program through BCCD. We then used Hello World to find the number pi. We discussed how we could use these programs to find the area of a circle. Today was all about real-world problem solving.

• April 25th 2015

• This blog post will be all about the world’s best supercomputers. Some of the best supercomputers are: the Tianhe-2 in the National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou China, the Titan in DOE/SC/Oak Ridge National Laboratory United States, the Sequoia in DOE/NNSA/LLNL United States, and the K Computer in RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science Japan. The Tiahne-2 has an impressive 3,120,000 cores. The rest of the supercomputers fall much shorter, like the Titan, which has 560,640 cores. The Sequoia has 1,572,864 cores and the K computer has 705,024 cores. The Blue Waters does not place anywhere on the list of the top supercomputers in the world. I am not completely sure of the reason why this supercomputer is not on the list but I am going to try to explain it. The Blue Waters supercomputer was built to accomplish goals that differ from the goals that are stated in the TOP500. Also Bill Kramer, the Blue Waters Project Director, doesn’t like what these type of message that is being put out from these lists. He says that some supercomputers have the ability to do other things than are not tested in the TOP500 competition. The TOP500 neglects some supercomputers because these computers were designed to something different.

Summer Blocks

• June 15th 2015

• Today we did something different than what we normally do. Instead of reading and using the HLDs to make a program, we made the HLDs. We got to choose from four scenarios and I chose the one called Fashionista Phil. I had to design the instructions for someone to use to make a solution to the problem. I had to send my draft to Amalan to correct and improve. I had some difficulties understanding how to start thinking about teaching someone how to get to the solution.

• June 16th 2015

• Today we started creating a program to the HLD that was created by another apprentice. I got the scenario called Art Walk, where I have to maximize foot traffic and art pieces in an art gallery. I have to make people see at least 50% of the art in the gallery and have them leave the gallery unhappy if they cannot move because the area is too crowded. I have had lots of difficulty starting this program. I am using AgentSheets but I am not very experienced with AgentSheets. It was difficult for me to get used to the format and logic behind AgentSheets. At the end of the day I had to take pictures and write an overview of a web design workshop. I get a decent amount of my program done.

• June 17th 2015

• I was not in the office today because I was sick.

• June 18th 2015

• Today I got a lot of work done. I was able to complete my art scents, my wait times for art and guests, and I have my guests view multiple pieces of art in my program. I have started to add a crowd tolerance to my guests. I will have to finish the rest of the project tomorrow. I helped Menefese figure out how to create a timer for his guests and he helped me a lot with starting my crowd tolerance and my guests wait time. Phil also helped me get everything started with this difficult project. I still have lots of work to do with my curator, unhappy guests, and my gallery exit.

• June 19th 2015

• Today I finished my AgentSheets Project on Art Walk. I had a lot of difficulties with the counter and having my guests know when they have seen 50% of the art in the room. Me and Menefese helped each other a lot in solving our problems. Braxton also helped me a lot with my counter problem. I got my guests to leave through an exit, look at art, count themselves, stop the program if too many people become unhappy, and stop the program after thirty days. Phil helped me with my problem on figuring out how to make guests recognize art they have already seen. Overall, I think this project was very difficult, especially compared to the other scenarios. AgentSheets also provided other technical problems that forced us to quit AgentSheets and reopen it in order to continue.

• June 22th 2015

• Today we started our tutorials on InkScape and Gimp. I finished the InkScape tutorials but I didn’t finish the Gimp tutorials. I made multiple logos, which include the Target, Nike, Honda, and the NBC logo. I also made my own logo, which can be seen at the top of my webpage. It is the head of a man with a turban and a beard. Surprisingly, It took me a long time to create the my logo, but I am still proud of the result image. I learned a lot about InkScape and how I can use it to create images that can be used anywhere, like my website, a poster, or a business card.

• June 23th 2015

• Today I finished my Gimp tutorials. Personally, I do not like Gimp at all. I think it’s very frustrating and not user friendly. I like InkScape much more because it’s not too complicated and I can do what I want in it. I also started the HLD for my final website design. Hopefully my website looks nice and not too messy by the time I am done with it! I also added many things to my portfolio on my website. I added all my InkScape and Gimp creations, and I also added a banner to the top of my webpage. It has my name and my logo on either side of my name. I matches the colors of my webpage and I think it flows nicely with the other elements of my website.

• June 24th 2015

• Today I finished my HLD for my final website design. I also added a lot of things to my website thanks to Miguel. For starters, I made my website able to change background and content colors. When the user presses refresh while on my website, the color scheme of the webpage will change. So far there are only five color schemes that can appear: blue with orange, purple with gold, green with red, pink with brown, and black with yellow. I also made my banner change colors so that it matches the color of the background. I helped Braxton and Jack add these features to their websites.

• June 25th 2015

• Today my final HLD for my website was approved by Keith. I have already put that HLD and my Art Walk simulation on my portfolio. I also presented the Art Walk simulation to Phil and he approved it. He says there are many variables that come into play when something unrealistic happens in the program. For instance, if the guests could remember what part of the art gallery they have already been to, then there would be more happy people who have seen half the art in the gallery. I also added a lot of css code to my website. I made the text boxes have curved corners and made the "logo" box have two Carolina symbols. Lastly, I made my tabs change color when you hover over the tab.

• June 26th 2015

• Today was a relaxed day. I created another logo, which I am very proud of. It has a drawing of a lion’s head above my middle name, Singh. Singh means lion in english so that’s why the lion is there. It can be seen on the homepage of my website. I also helped Mike fix his whole portfolio page so that he has all his projects on it in a neat way. I am excited that today is the last day in the first block, but nothing eventful happened today.

• July 6th 2015

• Today was the first day for block two. We learned regular expressions in the morning. Phil taught us using a website called regexr. It was easy at first, but as Phil taught more and more commands, I got more confused. Also, I missed some of the lesson because I had to meet with Ron about the engineering workshop next week. Ron told us how we will have to help Hershel (one of the interns) teach the workshop. Me and the four other apprentices helping will learn how to teach the concepts over the week. At the end of the day, Amalan taught how to create shapes in a canvas using java script. We made a square, lines, a semicircle, and a smiley face.

• July 7th 2015

• Today I helped Ron and the other four apprentices with presenting the projects for next week's workshop. We discussed how we should pressent the lego project. We used the applets together and helped Narga know how to teach the high school students. Rohin also figured out he could present the project on making bridges that can carry weight. At the end of the day, Joel taught us PHP. I made a program that changed the background color when you refreshed the page. I also tried to make a calendar using PHP but I did not have time to finish it.

• July 8th 2015

• Today I helped Irene and Hershel present the daredevil project for the engineering workshop. I helped build the ramp and take the necessary measurements to complete the project. I also finished my calendar using my PHP. This took me a long time but I am now happy with the end product. I also learned more about cookies and how to implement them into my html and php projects.

• July 9th 2015

• Today I did the lesson on density with Ron for the engineering workshop. We discussed how we can calculate density of an object by calculating the displacement of water when the object is dropped in a cup of water. After that, me and the other apprentices helping Ron went back to the classroom to continue our php projects. I started my dice project and fixed my horizontal navigation bar on my website (which took me a long time).

• July 10th 2015

• Today, me and the four other apprentices participated in the Thermodynamics/Heat Transfer lesson. We learned about how heat transfers between objects with different specific heat. We also gave feedback to Ron about the workshop and what could be changed to make it better. In the afternoon, I worked on my dice project and Joel taught us more about databases in php. We made new tables, added more information to existing tables, and discussed how to display those tables.

• July 13th 2015

• Today I worked on my dice project and my new databases project. My dice project is very close to completion; I just have to do some debugging. For y project, I made my items table, which include my item name, price, and quantity. I als started working on trying to format my items on a webpage. I am looking forward to shoulder surfing this week for the high school engineering workshop.

• July 14th 2015

• Today I helped teach the engineering workshop. In the morning lesson, Aiden and I taught the class about center of gravity and the balance of structures. We used legos to model if a structure would topple or stand. For the afternoon lesson, I shoulder surfed while Rohin taught the class about compression, tension, and triangles. Teaching an engineering workshop was really fun, and I hope I get to teach in the future.

• July 15th 2015

• Today I worked on my online store project. I all my items to display in a table, along with the corresponding prices and quantity. I helped Menefese work out his order page, so tomorrow I can add an order page of my own. In the afternoon, Mobeen showed us svn, and how it is useful to edit documents using the source code. He also taught us the importance of documentation and creating wikis about our projects.

• July 16th 2015

• Today I continued to work on my online website. I added a checkout page and a submit button. Now a user can select how much they want of an item and proceed to the checkout page. It took me a while to get the checkout page to work but Brendon came in and helped me. He showed me how to use post and SESSION to make the checkout page work. Phil also helped me with displaying the items the user chose.

• July 17th 2015

• Today I documented the engineering workshop the whole day. While I was documenting, I also helped Hershel teach the students about how density, mass, and volume can help you decide if a boat can float. At the end of the day, the students got to build boats and put marbles in them to decide how much weight it could hold. The student's boats could hold up to 150 marbles, but the apprentice boat help almost 400 marbles!

• July 20th 2015

• Today we received a new group project by Aaron. My group includes Aidan and Braxton, and we decided to chose the bouncing ball project. Our project was give to us in AgentSheets, and we have to remake it using Javascript. Me and Braxton wrote the help document today and Aidan started thinking how we will set up the program. Hopefully we will finish the project on time and have a good final product.

• July 21st 2015

• Today we continued to work on the Javascript project. We started the detailed code plan and started creating the canvas and settings. Aidan made the canvas able to spawn balls on click and me and Braxton made the CSS and the settings box. to control the balls. In the afternoon, I worked on my general store project. I was able to add dollar signs infront of all my prices and I made my checkout page add up all the prices of the ordered items. Keith Also taught us how to use objects and give them properties.

• July 22nd 2015

• Today Braxton and I finished the detailed code plan for our group project. Braxton and I also added a time step button to our bouncing balls project. I also added some color to the background of our page. We had our detailed code plan approved by Aaron so I then started working on my other projects. I added CSS to my dice statistics program and I worked on my store project. I added a login button and my logo to the top of the page. I also centered and edited my tables to fit the page better.

• July 23rd 2015

• Today my group finished most of our javascript project. All we have to do is add one more button that will change the canvas color and add the project to our websites. I also added a login page, a sign up page, and a welcome page to my turban store. People can now sign up and be greeted by the welcome page. I plan on working on the sign up page tomorrow to finally finish off this project.

• July 24th 2015

• Today my group members and I finalized our JavaScript project. I added the project to my website after I added some final touches Aaron recommended. I added new items to my shop. Some of which included a diamond and platinum turban. I made my sign up page able to recognize if two people use the same username and if the user did not fill in all the input boxes. I still have lots of work to do for this project but hopefully I will finish it in a few days.

• July 27th 2015

• Today we started the engineering lessons in the morning. We started by learning how we can use legos to see if a structure will stad or topple. We also learned that if the vertical line that goes through the center of mass also goes through the base, the structure will stand. Later, Rohin taught us about trusses, compression, and tension. In the afternoon, Amalan taught us about recursions in JavaScript. We built a function to calculate factorials.

• July 28th 2015

• Today we did more engineering stuff in the morning. We split up into groups and started building towers, out of coffee stirs and pipe cleaners, to hold a cup of marbles. The team that had the best score, which was calculated by the amount of marbles held and the height of the structure, won. At first, my group was just made up of me and Aidan, but our first two models were a disaster. Because we built two models which didn't end out as planned, we did not have enough building materials to make another structure. So, me and Aidan joined Rohin and Lyndon's group. Our score ended up as zero because we added too many marbles before our structure collapsed (by "we" I mean "Rohin"). Even though we tied for last, I still had a great time building the structure. In the afternoon I was at the receptionist's desk, working on my turban store.

• July 29th 2015

• Today I helped a group do the daredevil project in the morning. We did all of our test runs and found an equation of our ramp. Once we did that, we now know where a marble will land as long as we know the height of the place were the marble is dropped. Later, I continued to work on my general store and my website so that I will be ready for my presentation on Friday.

• July 30th 2015

• Today we built circuits in the morning. Ron taught us about resistors and capacitors. We built a simple circuit with an LED light, but then we built a more complicated one that made the light flash. In the afternoon I finished my store (by finish I mean I am happy with what I was able to complete with the time I had). I also did other work so that my stipend sheet would be complete.

• July 31th 2015

• Today is my last day at Shodor as an apprentice! I am going to apply to become an intern so hopefully I get accepted. In the morning I build boats with Aidan, Rohin, and Ojas. Our boat was made almost entirely out of cups. But we still ended in third place overall and first place in estimating how many marbles our boat could hold. In the afternoon I presented my work for the summer.