Today I worked on the Gimp and Inkspace projects that I needed to finish from the first block. I also modified my model website by form validating the pages and making sure that the appearance was is organized and consistent. Since today was my last day as a Shodor apprentice, I got to present my projects from my summer block. I also got to see my fellow apprentices present their projects.I am pleased to see all of the work I have done from my fall, spring,and summer blocks. My experience as a Shodor Apprentice was very rewarding because I got to learn more about computational science, programming, and web design.
Today I worked on some of the projects from block one and I finished editing my project website. Now, my project website has a separate page that displays all of my Gimp and Inkspace projects. In addition, I worked on validating my webpages, and making sure that I had all of my projects finished and up on my website
Today I worked in my AgentCubes model because the leaf agent disappeared, so I had to restart a new model. In the new model, I realized that I need to put some sort of limit or something so that the caterpillar agents won't keep replicating.I also worked on my website by adding bootstrap.
Today I worked more on my agentcubes model because I was having an issue with the caterpillar agent. Although the caterpillar statements were true, the caterpillar agent would not create or erase new agents. I asked for help from one of the apprentices and I learned how to use the method function to make the agent work correctly. A second thing that I worked on today was my website. I created another test website in which I created a carousel that showed all of the pictures of my projects. However, I still need to work on scaling some of my images because some of them still appear to be to big for the carousel.
Today I finished three projects which were the seven object collage, favicon, and cosmic turtles. I learned more about how to use Gimp and Inkspace to modify pictures. It took me a while to create the favicon because of all exporting, but it was surprisingly easy to make. Lastly, I tried to use bootstrap for my webpages,but so far I only changed the font. Tomorrow I will try to work more on that,and the rest of the logo's. Another thing I need to fix is the cosmic turtles page because it appears in the middle of the page instead of being merged left like the seven object image.
Today I finished making my vensim model. I also created a webpage for the agentcubes and Vensim model. I added the vensim model to my webpage and I included a picture to go along with it. In my webpage I tried to get CSS to work with the HTML ,but I could not. Lastly, I validated the webpage, so now there are no errors.
What did you learn?
Today we watched a film called "Code:Debugging the gender gap." In this film I learned about important woman who were involved in programming since the beginning of computers and technology. This was surprising for me, because I had never heard of women like Ada LoveLace and Grace Hopper. Ada Lovelace believed that machines could be used to carry out algorithms instead of just calculations. Grace Hopper helped develop a programming language.
How do you feel about the issues presented?
I think that the issues presented were very important.I was shocked to hear that the number of women in programming was rising up until the 80's when it started declining. Another thing that they pointed out in the film were all of the toy ads for girls. Even though I knew they existed I didn't realize that they were so recent. I think that these are real issues that need to be resolved because in programming its important to keep everyone in mind. This is why it is so important that the teams of people that are creating apps or websites are diverse because they bring new ideas that make the team more successful.
What might be helpful to improve diversity in STEM?
If more computer science and programming related courses were offered in schools, then more students would be motivated to pursue careers in STEM. This would improve the diversity in STEM because more students from different backgrounds would have a chance to learn the same things. Another thing that would improve diversity is if there were more role models and programs that would encourage kids to learn more about science and technology.
What can be done to improve inclusion in STEM workplaces?
One thing that would improve inclusion is if we moved away from stereotypes. In the documentary there was a part that showed how people perceived programmers. If there was more acceptance in workplaces, then minorities would feel less intimidated by working in STEM workplaces. In the film there was a company that they had mostly white male engineers working for them, so they decided to make a program that would bring in a more diverse group of people. This program was successful because it brought in more women and people of all backgrounds to the workplace.
Today I focused on my Vensim model. I started off with two variables which were caterpillars and birds. I did this to make sure that my equations and graph would function correctly, so I used these as a base for my whole model. At first I had some difficulties with the equation and initial values for the variables because the populations would exceed the maximum numbers in the graph. To solve this problem, I went back to the predator-prey model that we made with Dr. Panoff a few months ago, and I used it to fix my errors. Once my model was functioning correctly I added the leaves, rainfall(or water), and snake variables to my model. Tomorrow I will continue working on my vensim model by adding the equations and graph to my new variables.
Today I worked on my agentcubes and vensim models. I still need to create a graph for the vensim model, so that I will know if the variables are working correctly. Once I get the caterpillar and bird variables to run correctly, I will add the rest of the variables. Another thing that I started working on was inkspace.In inkspace I followed Ernie's demo to create a seven object collage. Creating the collage was not hard, so tomorrow I will start working on my icons and logo's. I also need to complete a website for my models sometime this week or next week.
Today I worked on my HLD document from block one. I also started working on my agent cubes model. In Agentcubes I added the bird agent and I set a percentage,so that the new agents like leaves would not be created too fast. I also added and fixed the form validation project to my portfolio. Tomorrow I am going to work on my vensim model, and I will add a counter to my agent cubes model, so that the population of the agents won't exceed a certain amount. In vensim I will try to create the variables and work with a change per time arrow.
Today I starting working on block one projects because I was not here for that block. The first project is creating an agent cubes and vensim model. It took me a while to come up with one because I kept changing ideas. At first I wanted to create a farming model that had several agents like water, farmer, animals, and crops, but it did not work out in the vensim model so I changed my idea. Instead,I am going to create a model that shows a food chain or ecosystem with leaves,caterpillars,birds,snakes, and maybe people. So far, I created the agents and I am almost finished with the if/then statements. Tomorrow I will see if the model actually works and if I need to make any modifications. If my model does work, then I will change the number of agents that appear, to make the model more realistic. I think the hardest part will be getting it to work on vensim, but the wolves and rabbits model will be helpful in creating my new food chain model.
Today Rene Daughtry from Cisco came to Shodor to give us a presentation on the Internet of things. He started his presentation by asking us about networks. Then he told us about the history of Cisco and how much progress they have made in the past thirty years from huge computers to smaller smartphones.Mr.Daughtry also explained human networking by showing us the importance of knowing different people and being involved. He also encouraged us to pursue different stem careers being there is a growing demand for ICT skills(Information Communication Technology). Next, he explained the importance of a personal brand because on the internet people can use certain posts against you which could cost you your job. Lastly, Mr.Daughtry answered a few of our questions and recommended that we make a linkedin account, so that we could start building our resume,and networking.
Today I worked on my diceroll database project. I was still having issues with the diceroll funciton occuring whenever the user clicks a button but I fixed it with a simple button function. Another thing I was having issues with were the undefined variable errors, but I asked Ernie and he helped me fix it. Lastly, I was having a probelem with an error that occured when you opened the page, so I fixed it with a loop statement.
Today I worked a little bit on my dicerollDB.php5. I also worked on some of the other projects from my first block by adding a button that takes you back to the porfolio page. Another thing that I did today was work on my webpage. I am still having some issues with the changes only appearing in safari and not in chrome. One thing that I plan on working on tomorrow,is making my website look better, and validate a few of my webpages that I haven't done.
Today I worked on making a button that allows the user to select how many times they roll a dice. Although I made a button, I am still struggling with making the button work with the function. Another thing that I worked on today was a button for all of my projects that allows you to go back to the portfolio. I found a button function that works, but it only allows you to go back to the last page ,not the portfolio. One thing that I can improve tomorrow is the hexcode, because when I was making the button function it made the hexcode number appear more than once on the webpage.
Today I worked on improving my dicerollDB.php5. I finally got rid of the errors that kept occurring with the the favColor, shoeSize, and fName columns. A second thing that I did today was complete the last rows in MySQL Guide. Lastly, I tried to improve my website by changing the background color, and borders. It worked in safari, but when I searched my webpage in chrome,it stayed the same. Two things that I could work on are the button for the number of rolls (in my dicerollDB.php5) and changing some of my projects ,so that anyone can see them without a shodor login.
Today I worked on improving my dicerollDB.php5. I made a connection between the user input and Mysql, so anytime the user inputs information, all of the data gets put into a table. It took me a while to do that because the favColor and shoeSize columns would show up as errors. Another issue that I am working on is making a button that lets the user roll the dice a certain number of times.
I worked on the DiceRoller.php5 today. Using the w3 schools example I connected my diceroll table to the php dice roller simulation. It took me a while because I couldn't figure out what I need to show on my diceroll table ,but I eventually came up with the columns that would show any data inputed by users. A second thing I worked on was my website, and making sure that I added my summer projects to my portfolio. I still need to validate a few of my projects and add descriptions , so that people can understand the projects better.
Today I worked on the DiceRoller Database prep work. I worked on creating a new table, based on the coinfip table. One thing I learned today, was how to join two tables. Even though I already joined two tables before,I was still struggling with remembering how to do it, but eventually after joining tables over and over again, I finally got the hang of it.
Today I modified my diceroll.php5 by creating a new folder in my newdev folder. I added the HTML Forms to ask Shoe size and Favorite color. Then I made sure that the HTML was properly validated. Next, I worked on the Dice Roller Database Prep work. I tried to create a new table for the Dice roller that showed the results for the results of a dice roll.
Today I learned more about SQL. I created another table like the one yesterday, but in this one I inputed more information. Using the SQL guide I learned how to select certain things from a table to get the data that you need. For example, if you have a table that shows the results for a coin flipping experiment and you want to see how many times you flipped tails, then you would use SELECT and COUNT. In the People4 table that I created today, I learned how to input data into a table.
Using the SQL syntax guide I learned about SQL. Today we also created a table that displayed data in sequel pro. Another thing I learned today was that Shodor uses a relational database and that the DBMS that Shodor uses is MySQL.
I worked on the background selector today. At first I was getting some errors and I didn't know why,so I had to restart. Then, after getting some help I made another background selector. I still had some errors, but I learned that thet were because I was missing some semicolons or brackets. After working on a few projects I learned that errors can occur for the simplest things, so you have to check each line to make sure that what is written matches what you want to say in the program. A second thing I learned was how to make a drop down menu in html work with php.
Today I worked on more of krista's projects. I think I completed the dice statistics project because I finished making the table for it. In the Dane Joe project I still need to get the input values from HTML to the php function. Another project that I worked on was the Background selector. For the Background selector, I created a a drop down menu, but I need to change the background color so that it matches whatever the person chooses in the drop down menu.
Today I worked on some of krista's projects. I think I made some more progress today than in the past few days. For the coin statistics project I finally made a function ,that calculates the sum of the two rolled numbers, work. A second thing I did was create a table in which the results could be recorded.
We had a workday today, so I got to work on my projects. I am still struggling with PHP, but I worked on the Dane Joe project from Krista's projects and I think I got more accomplished in that project. In the Dane Joe project I made a function that changed the the first letter of a name to uppercase, but I couldn't create a connection between the HTML and PHP so that the user could input a name and change the first letter. Today we also had a presentation on how to prepare for an interview. I learned useful tips on how to present yourself in an interview, what to expect, and important questions to ask/answer. The presentation helped me understand what people need to do in order to get a positon in a company,or or college. A few things that I learned are: to prepare a resume, bring note taking supplies, and body language.
Today we worked on Forms and Form Validation. Using a sample form, I followed along with Ernie's demonstration to understand GET and POST. We used an if and else statement in the php to change the name "forTest" to "forms", so that it would match the file that we would be editing. Next, we had to get our inputs from the HTML using the GET method for the first file. For the second file, we used the post method to post our inputs from HTML. Since I I had ODAA today, I got to help with the Exploration in Engineering workshop and documentation. I learned how to correctly write the documentation by using the shodor wiki. I also learned more about the workshops at shodor.
Since today was a work day, I worked on my Dice Statistics project. The goal is to create a dice roller that will roll two dice. Once the dice are rolled, the numbers that are rolled have to be summed together and recorded.So far, I only have the loop to roll the two dice, but I need to make an array to record all of the outcomes that have to be summed together. A second thing I worked on today was the Programming concepts syntax guide.
Today we worked on the Dynamic Web page project with a demonstration from one of the interns. I also worked on my Random Hex Code project. For the Hexcode project, I had to use the random function and a loop to create a random six digit number. Once I had the random number, I created an array to change numbers 9-10 to letters A-F. After I made the hexidecimal, I embedded PHP into HTML to make the background colors change everytime the page was refreshed. This project helped me understand loops and PHP embedding more.
Today we worked on the coin flipping program that we made yesterday. The assignments for today were to use PHP embedded into HTML and PHP rendering HTML. I also worked on the programming syntax guide and learned the that most of the math operators are the same for all three of the languages. If and else statements are the same too because they are called the same thing in the three languages. Some differences would be that Bash also starts differently than the other two languages.
Using PHP, I created a coin flipping program that counted the number of heads and tails that were flipped. This program also calculated the percentage of Heads or Tails, and the total amount of times that the coin was flipped. I also practiced using If, else statements in the program. One example of this would be if the coin was flipped heads, then it would count one more towards heads.Otherwise the program would count one more for tails. Today I learned about the hexadecimal numeric system which is commonly used in CSS to change font or background colors. Hexadecimals go from 1 to 15 , but letters A to F are used instead of numbers 9 to 10.
Today I started my first summer block. The first assignment was to fill in a programming concepts syntax guide.While I was filling out this guide, I learned the differences and similarities between Javascript,PHP, and Bash. Javascript and PHP were more similar in commenting, math operations, and variables. Commenting for Bash is different because for a single line comment you would use "#" instead of "//". Also, in Bash, for math operations you would need Parentheses around the math operations. The second assignment today was to make a flipping coin model.This was very helpful for me in understanding PHP more, especially in knowing the correct way to type things in. One thing that I noticed about PHP is that it starts with <?php and it ends with >? unlike the other languages.
I could not attend class today.
Today we worked on our parallel computing notebooks. I learned how supercomputers can be used in any career from movie productions to chemists to actual supercomputing engineering. One career that I looked at was biomedical engineering. I was surprised to learn that supercomputers can be used to create heart simultions. Supercomputing is used in other careers to create simulations like this because its harder to study a real heart or a real chemical reaction than it is to create a model. A second thing I did was create my own super computer. It was difficult to pick certain parts because there are many factors that go into buying parts including cost, use, and how it works with the rest of the parts. We also watched a video on Bluewaters which is this supercomputing company. It was surprising to see the supercomputer being built, and seeing all the work that it takes to maintain one.
I learned about Parallel computing which is when a group of computers is working side by side to solve a problem. Each computer works at the same time, so that more work could get done sooner. It makes everything more efficient, but more dependency is required. If one computer is working on something it needs to communicate to the others, so they are dependent on one another. This can lead to issues if the messages are not sent correctly. I also compared serial and parallel workers when we worked on our Parallel Computing Notebooks. Serial workers can do the same amount of work that parallel workers do but it would take longer. A second thing we did was make parallel and serial recipes. I noticed that soemtimes having more workers/computers can lead to idle computers which aren't working because another task has to be accomplished before they work.
Today my partner and I worked on our forest fire model. Although we could have changed our water agent more, we still did a good job with making sure that the burning trees affected the trees. I feel that we did a good job at presenting our model but one thing that I would have changed would be to mae the forest bigger and add somenthing that would make the trees regrow.
We continued working on our forest fire model. We had a few difficulties with making the changes from predator-prey to burning trees and trees. A second thing we had difficulty on was figuring out how we wanted to model to look. One thing that we did to solve this problem was to draw out a graph and go over what changes we ahd to do to make it look like that. Afterwards, we had two of our agents to work but one of them wouldn't funtion correctly so we decided to go line by line to find any problems with that agent.
Today we started our forest fire project. I worked with Gustavo on making a model that shows how fire affects a forest. We had another important factor to work on which was water. In order to make the model we had to use the programming conceps that we learned and use the program ESlint to make some changes to the code that we were given. For our model we used the predator-prey model from before, but changed the predator to burning trees, and prey to trees.
I learned some more about programming concepts. In the program Atom I learned about how to use a tool called ESLint. This tool will check syntax mistakes. If I add something or forget to put brackets somewhere,it will give me a warning or show that there is an error. A second thing I learned about today was a For Loop which is a block of code that repeats a variable. For Loops can also be used as a place holder for an array.
Today I could not attend to class because I was sick
Today at Shodor we went over programing concepts. I learned new terms like phase shift, text highlighter, and web inspector. A web inspector allows you to inspect a webpage to see what the code for it looks like. Text highlighter allows you to differentiate between the different rules. In the program Atom I learned how to change a line of code. An important thing I learned was version control, and making sure I keep up with all the changes I make to my files.
I presented my project with my partner Luka today. I think for the most part we did a good job presenting and both of our models represented what we wanted to show. A few things we could have improved on would be to make the time factor on our vensim model work better with our model because we had a few issues with it. A second thing we could have added to our models would be to make both of them more similar to each other. We could have added other factors like the moving out, or transferring factors to our agent cubes model. In addition, some research could have been made about actual highschool dropout rates, and graduation rates to make our simulation more closer to reality. Overall, I learned a lot about how to use the vensim model and how difficult it can be to work with a time factor.
Today my partner Luka and I worked on our project. We had a few problems with our model on Vensim because the model showed zero freshmen but we knew that in our model, having zero freshmen shouldn't be possible. To solve this problem, we created a new model from scratch and then changed the rates to more realistic numbers of freshmen, sophomores, etc.
Today was the second day we were supposed to work on our group projects. I was not able to be here but we did discuss the ideas for the group project. We decided to make our model based on a high school. Students moving into high school and students transferring out of high school.
Today we were supposed to start working on our vensim and agent cubes group projects. I could not attend today's meeting, but friend chose me to work on it. Luka also told me more about the project and what we had to get done.
I used vensim to create another model but this time I created two models that depended on each other. One of the models was the population of rabbits that there were while the other model showed the population of wolves. The number of rabbits would go down with death or if there were more wolves. This also affected the number of wolves because if there were less rabbits than there would be less wolves. On vensim when one thing changes another it is shown with some curved arrows. A second thing I did today was create a model on the agent cubes website. By using simple commands like "if you see a certain color than do this," I got to make a model that showed flies going around in a room. If the flies got near the window then they would be erased. This model is another example of the "If, then" statement.
Today I learned about a simple equation that can be applied to anything. The equation is: what you Have is equal to what you Had plus any Change that occurs. A second thing I learned is that Preview, view, and review are other forms of expectation, observation, and reflection. I also learned about successive approximation,which is when you make an approximation and then another and so on and each time you make improvements. One new that I did today was use a program called vensim to create a model. The model I created showed the equation have=had+change with the variables rabbits and wolves. For example, a the wolf population would increase each time the rabbit population changed or increase. If the rabbit population decreased, then eventually the wolf population would decrease too.
We talked about new vocabulary words like circular reference, G.U.I, visualization, developer and other words. One interesting fact I learned today was the meaning behind the variables m and b in the formula y=mx+b. I also learned how to make a scroll bar(slide bar) on excel and how to use it with any data I collect. On excel we also worked on the "If,then, else" statement , which is an example of branching or nesting.
Today I did a coin flip experiment using excel. I noticed that for ten flips the outcomes were more scattered together versus 100 coin flips where the numbers were closer together. I also learned about pseudo random numbers. Pseudo random numbers are numbers that appear to be random on the computer but are actually not random at all.
I learned more about the rules and expectations that have to be followed. I saw a powerpoint on ethics and appropriate office behavior. One interesting thing I learned today was that if you look up the mass of the moon or or earth or any other planet the results will be slightly different. This will be because the numbers will be written in scientific notation and therefore sometimes the numbers will be too big so they will have to be cut off or rounded differently.
Today was my first day at the Shodor Apprenticeship program. I met some of the staff and I am excited to learn more about computational science. I have never heard much about computational science and I hope to learn more about what it is. I learned some of the rules that have to be followed in order to be in the program. Another thing I did today was make my own Shodor account.