Joseph Ma

Blog

Oct. 10th 2015
Today was our first day, we were introduced as apprentices. We first started off with something of an introduction, where we got a partner based off of the color of our notebook, and interviewed each other. We presented our partners afterward. We took a short break and got into what Ernie called Doom and Gloom, which were basically just the rules and guidelines of being an apprentice in Shodor(the do's and dont's). Later, we got our login credentials and created our passwords. We also learned that we were going to have to make a website. Right before it was over, we were told that we would get our mentors the following week.
Oct. 17th 2015
Today, we started off with Dr. Panoff giving a lecture on "Science:How Do You Know". He went over some vocabulary- necessary, sufficient, consistent, conclusive, error, uncertainty, convention, definition, construction, evidence, and proof. We used these words and Dr. Panoff showed us how we could apply them to computational sciences. He explained how there are multiple paths to get to the same result, and that if we just step back and look, we can learn so much more.
Oct. 24th 2015
Today for the beginning, Joel taught us how to access the Shodor server from our homes, that way we could work on our projects on our own, at home. Joel showed us that by using software called Win-SCP, we could access the Shodor servers at home. I had to take extra good notes because I forgot to bring my laptop and had to work on all of it on my computer once I got home.
November 7th, 2015
Today, Dr. Panoff showed us his Rabbits (predator and prey) model on Microsoft Excel. I didn't know how to use Microsoft Excel like he did, because I didn't know the capabilities of Excel. We were told that we were taught one whole semester of Calculus BC, which is pretty cool. This week, most of the things we did were examples of system modeling.
November 14th, 2015
Today, right when we came in, we worked with our pods to think of some things that would fit into a chart that Dr. Panoff showed us. We looked for ways to model physics, chemistry, biology, and other things using a rope, straw, and linear graph. One of the major things we learned about was Vensim. Dr. Panoff showed us how to use GUI and how Vensim could interpret that and give us a graph and a chart (if you plug it into Excel).
November 21st, 2015
Today, we learned about agent programming, using AgentCubeOnline to simulate the spread of a disease from sick persons to healthy persons. We modeled sick people and healthy people, and how we could show that with the commmands given in AgentCubeOnline. We also learned about expectation, observation, and reflection, and how the correlate with each other. I also heard about the first group project and I am ready to get it done.
December 5th, 2015
Today, we started working on our group project. We had the whole day to work on the project. My partners are Ben and Jim. We decided to go with a predator/prey/population model to describe ecosystems. We worked on making an HLD to show what we were going to model, and drew out and incomplete Vensim model and started an AgentCubeOnline model.
December 12, 2015
Today was our last full day to work on the project. Jim was absent today because he overslept, but he did his work at home and we communicated via Google Hangouts. He finished up the Vensim model. Ben was working on the Excel document the entire time and it was phenomenal. He included scrollbars and made some excellent graphs. I worked with Herjot, Iain, and Ernie to make a nice website with very cool CSS. Iain was the one who made it all possible and he is really a superb programmer.
December 19, 2015
Today, we had 2.5 hours to polish up on our project. My entire group was here today, and everyone looked pretty sharp. I had to work on some finishing touches to make my website more pretty, while Ben finished up the Excel document and graphs. He even added scroll bars to make it more advanced and a better model for data. Jim worked with Dr. Panoff to add some nice touches on the AgentCubeOnline project, such as the foodclock, which killed an animal after X amount of interactions with outside force.
February 6, 2016
Back at Shodor!!! Today Anya taught us about Javascript and for the first half of the day we got to learn more about it with an example using Aaron's Bouncing Particles model as well as the helloWorld program. We got to coding and learned some basic JS and some commands.
February 13, 2016
This week we learned even more about coding in Javascript. During the earlier part of the day, Anya taught us about loops and gave us some good examples and practice. After lunch, Aaron started to teach us about arrays and how they could be applicable in real world scenarios and explained how they worked.
February 20, 2016
Today, Aaron taught the class. He told us this was our last session programming, and that next week we would work on something else. We learned about markers and data types. He touched back on what Anya taught us last week. I played around with Bouncing Particles and Two Fish example models, curtesy to Aaron, and we learned more about how we can alter JS from our own code, and modify other's' code.
February 27, 2016
I had Junior Eastern Regional Orchestra auditions and couldn't make it. On my makeup day, Ernie gave us a brief talk about what happened, and told us that we had a new project to do, our second group project, where we have to model a forest fire using Javascript.
February 27, 2016
This week we started working on your project. Varsha and I started brainstorming for ideas that we thought was could use. We got the information down in our notebooks and told Ernie aobut it. Ernie said it was too complex so we simpled it down a bit. We started our HLD after lunch and we got to about step 4 before we had to leave.