Today I continued working on the New Portfolio Website and the CSS library Project. I used CSSWAND which is a copy and paste css library. It contains a number of effects on different triggers like loading or hover. It can be used for buttons links or inputs. I found it very useful for making my website feel much smoother and nicer to interact with.
Today I started the day working on my resume and then went to planning my presentation. For the presentation I had to present for 15 minutes and 5 - 8 different projects. I started out planning which projects to present. Then went down the list of questions to figure out what to say about each project in the presentation. The presentation went well and today was the last day of the Apprenticeship for me although I still do have some more work to do for it.
Today I spent the whole day working on one page of my new portfolio webpage. It was very hard work and I worked pretty productively but still didn't get that much done. I had to make a lot of custom art for the website and also spent a long time brainstorming for the art.
I started today by finishing the dice roller project. Then I spent most of the day working on finishing up some older projects and getting organized. I figured out what is left for me to do and started on some of those things. After working on a few things for a few projects. Then later in the day after lunch I talked with Ernie and asked him a ton of questions about a variety of projects. Today I also felt wasn't a very efficient day and I think the reason for this is because I dodn't know what I should be doing at most given points so I think the questions I asked Ernie and the organization I did will really help with those issues.
Today I watched a video from a previous apprenticeship program teaching people how to write a good resume. I spent quite a bit of time working on that. I went quite slowly with it and then I came to a standstill. After sitting around and thinking for a while I decided it would be best to move on to something else so I made a bit of progress on the Database/php project.
Today we continued the demo from yesterday by learning how to use php to add data to a database. First we did it as part of the demo and then we started to impliment it on our own projects. I got pretty far in it but I still have a few bugs I have to work out onext week.
Today we continued working on our website the uses html forms and php to work with a database for the first half of the day. Then for the second half of the day we did a demo with Ernie to lear how to get data from a database using php. There were a lot of errors and it was very exausting.
Today we continued to learn SQL but today we are working again with php and HTML to combine all three to make a website that saves peoples entries to the database. Then we can get info from many people and automatically add it to the database so we can access it later and can actually store user input.
Today we continued to learn even more SQL. Today was more fun although it was more confusing. We continued working in a new section of the syntax guide and learned more SQL. I didn't do any catching up today but didn't fall behind anymore.
Today we started learning how about databases. Shodor uses mySQL databases. We got a syntax guide and have been using it to learn mySQL. I am very excited because this is very useful and an important skill. I didn't get as far as I wanted to today so I will have to slowly catch up over the week.
Today I went back to the js and php syntax guide. I still love learning more php and although the functions and other things I learned were more complex than the previous php in the guide so it took longer because I had to do more research. I didn't get as far as I would like with many of the projects so I will be doing a fair bit of work over the weekend.
Today was much less fun and muuch more frustrating than yesterday. I had a lot of fun working but I ran into a lot of problems and took forever to fix them. I only finished one mini project today but I also learned a lot about how php works.
Today was a lot of fun as I worked on the Kristia's projects which are a collection of mini projects that touch on many of the aspects of php we have learned this block. I enjoy projects like this as long as I don't have any long lasting bugs that I get stuck on for way too long.
Today I worked on my final website plan. I worry that I am not working fast enough and I will won't have time to finish everything by the end of the block so I am trying to devise a plan to finish work faster. I din't work on the syntax guide at all today because Ernie said it wasn't a priority.
Today we did a longer php demo with Ernie where he showed us how to make a php rendering system. That is what I spent most of my time on today. After finishing that project I continued working on the syntax guide which I am getting very close to finishing. I didn't get to it over the weekend but I am going to finish it tommorow.
Today we did a longer php demo with Ernie where he showed us how to make a dynamic website using php. Then I spent the rest of the day continuing to work on the syntax guide. I am making good progress but sadly didn't finish. I will probably finish it over the weekend so on Monday I can continue to other projects.
Today we did a small php demo with Ernie where he showed us how to make forms using php. Then I spent the rest of the day working on the syntax guide on the php section. I am making good progress and I hope to finish the guide tommorow. I have learned a lot about php and it's limits. I have had a lot of fun learning php and can't wait to continue.
Today we did a small php project demo with Ernie and then spent the rest of the day on the syntax guide project. I finished the JavaScript portion of the project and I am now working on the php section. I am hoping I can start moving faster through the php because I feel like I am moving too slow and hopefully I can use the js as a base for the php to move faster.
Today we spent the entire time continuing working on one big project. The project is the js and php syntax guide. Today was almost entirely individual work and we continued to go down the guide and wrote code to learn how to use a large variety of functions.
Today we spent the entire time working on one big project. The project is a js and php syntax guide. For the project we go through a long google doc and fill in boxes with js and php code to show how to do certain things in those programming languages. even in the js section of the document there are many new things to learn how to do. The project is a research project so for most of the learning of the languages we have to figure it out on our own. Although we did have a few dementrations and explanations done by Ernie.
Today I got to do more of the fun work the fun work. I worked more on the javascript agent model for the entire day and made a lot of progress. I am getting extremely close to finishing the model and am very excited.
Today I got to do the fun work. I worked on the javascript agent model for the entire day and made a lot of progress. Work like this is my faavorite kind of work because you come accross a really annoying bug and it feels great when you finally fix it. I spent a lot of time fixing bugs which is fun not only for the previously mentioned reasons but also because it requires a lot of creativity to come up with solutions and figure out what the problems may be. I am getting close to finishing the model and am very excited.
Today I worked on adding onto my old forest fire model plan to make it much better. Then I started implimenting that plan. I completely made the system model and started working on the agent model.
I called yesterday "Too much Gimp" thinking it would be the most I do in one day. I was very wrong. I started today early and ended late. I had a lot of fun finishing the second wave of Gimp projects and enjoyed working on them a lot. I then spent way too long adding them to my portfolio website.
Today we had a tutorial in gimp where we made cosmic turtles. We learned how to use the select tool transformation tools and many other tools. I learned a lot from the tutuorial. After that I worked on making another collage and new web banners from the images I made in inkscape and the photos Ernie found for use to use.
I spent a long time today planning for my final portfolio webpage and designing the page layouts. I worked hard to try to make mockup images of the website. I am drawing a lot of elements for the layout and colors from the dynamic webpage demo because I really like the look of the template website.
I started today by finishing off the Inkscape project by putting the images on my Summer portfolio website. As well as adding css so they fit on the page.
After spending way too long on that I started work on the website template tutorial which took a little over two hours. The tutorial was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from it. The website template I made following the tutorial looks very good and I look forward to the website I will make using it.
Then I used the rest of my time planning my new portfolio website
Today we started a new project of making svg and png images useing the program Inkscape. We had to make many different images. For each vector image I mad 2-3 images and then restarted because I didn't like the way they looked. I am not too happy with many of the final outcomes. All in all today wasn't very productive and it was very tiring.
Today we started a new project of sizing and cropping using Gimp. For that project we also had to make a website displaying the images we created. I also continued my planning for the modeling project.
Today we started the Summer Block and we started a new modeling project. We started off today by talking about how the summer block is going to work and then introduced a new modeling project. For the project we have to make an agent model a system model and a website. For the model I decided to make a model of a forest fire spreading through a forest.
Today we continued the topic of super computing and parallel computing. Aaron taught the lecture on parallel computing. Then we did a lot of work with littleFe and using a command line. We ran models of galaxys and learned about how parallel and supercomputing works including the logistics of it.
Today we started the new topic of super computing. The first thing we did was watching a video by Aaron about what supercomputers are used for and why they are used. Then we did a bunch of tasks that taught us about supercomupting/parallel computing and how it works as well as what it is good for. We used a lot of different models to teach us about things like using parallel computing to model more, faster or better, communication, dependencies and domain decomposition.
Today we all presented our second group project. I am very proud of my project. All of the other projects were very impressive and gave me a lot of ideas that I might want to try something similar in the future.
Because of COVID-19 we had to do our meeting via google hangouts. This made working difficult but it was easier than last time becuase we have had time to figure it out.
Today my partner and I finished our project and our website. We had a few bugs and the gravity system is very complex but we finally got it working. I also learned how to make and use checkboxes which are very useful in js and HTML.
Because of COVID-19 we had to do our meeting via google hangouts. This made working quite difficult because we had to do everything remotely and couldn't just talk in person. Additionally two people working on the same code was very hard to figure out.
The project we decided on was to model the orbit of planets in our solar system around the sun. We did all the research we needed in order to correctly model the planets. Today we only drew the planets and gave them a velocity. He didn't actually implement gravity yet.
We started off today talking about how Shodor is being affected by the COVID-19 virus. We talked about how so far Shodor isn't closing down or anything but are listening to recommendations from the CDC and the Durham as well as North Carolina Health Departments. Then Aaron and Ernie talked through some more logistics and how they are going to be handeling things like not doing all of your blogs or missing more than 3 meetings.
After that we got right to work on our particle models. I made many new iterations of the Model and am now up to ten. My newest version today has many interesting features tha my newest model last meeting didn't have. These features were very fun to implement and included things like a Play/Pause button, a Bounce/Loop button and multiple particles. I had to try many new things to do this and learned a lot about Javascript and programming concepts.
At the end of the meeting Ernie and Aaron told us about our new Group Project 2 and who our partners are. I'm very excited.
Aaron started by review a few things with us and then we jumped strait into working on our particle model. We finished 2 new versions and almost finished a third one. The first version we finished made the canvas larger and added and connected the javascript file. The next version added one randomly placed and colored particle in the canvas. The fifth version added a lot. It added an HTML button element for the reset button and a function that resets the model, as well as a HTML button element for the Step button and a working step function.
We started out today by talking about the expectations and a few of the things we will be doing durring the spring block. Then Dr. Panoff gave a talk about why Shodor teaches programming concepts in the way they do. After that Aaron introduced us to the project we will be working on throughout February which is a bouncing particles simulation. We started this project by looking at the preview webpage linked to on the Apprenticeship document to see what the final result of the project will be. Then we downloaded a basic template which gave us most of the HTML and CSS code we will be using. Then we started planning and working on the project making backups along the way. We took Notes on Programming practices, Tools and concepts.
Today was our final workday for our first group project. Bo and I did finishing touches on the website and then we planned out our presentation. We decided to both pilot and present because he worked mostly on the system model and I worked mostly on the agent model. We split up the talking points of the presentation based on who could answer what the best. Our presentation went very well and everyone else's projects were very important. I think their thought process was interesting and very different than mine. I made a large list of things I want to try in my future models. These were all things that I saw in other peoples models or thought about after seeing their models.
I haven't yet added any content besides placeholder content to the website yet because I haven't gotten a chance but I am hoping to tonight or tomorrow. The HTML I started with from the website was from the Html tutorial homework I got to do from Ernie. I learned a lot on the way. I learned a few new Html tags today, and learned how to make a dropdown menu using CSS. I rather like the look of the website and am very proud of it but it is very similar to other websites I have made where each element is pretty separated from another and next website I make I would like to try to make a more connected layout. I think that would be a nice challenge for myself.
Today was another workday for our first group project. My partner, Bo and we have been making models that model an ocean environment. Today I was working on the agent model and website. There were a lot of issues with both that I had to fix, and I learned a lot along the way. I started working on the website last night and I got started but I made most of my progress today. I worked on it this morning before coming to Shodor and here at Shodor. I did a lot of work and was quite successful. I created and formatted a website. I like the look of the website and Bo and I chose an ocean themed color pallet for the website. The website has a header, a dropdown navigation menu, a main section and footer.
I haven't yet added any content besides placeholder content to the website yet because I haven't gotten a chance but I am hoping to tonight or tomorrow. The HTML I started with from the website was from the Html tutorial homework I got to do from Ernie. I learned a lot on the way. I learned a few new Html tags today, and learned how to make a dropdown menu using CSS. I rather like the look of the website and am very proud of it but it is very similar to other websites I have made were each element is pretty separated from another and next website I make I would like to try to make a more connected layout. I think that would be a nice challenge for myself.
Today I also did a few things for my agent cubes model. For one I added death to the model as well as tweaking some of the percentages in the model to make it work better and be more stable. This was a big issue because the first few times I ran the model I ended up with high reaching stacks of small fish from them reproducing too much and Tuna not eating them fast enough. That is luckily now a rare occurrence.
Today was a workday for our first group project. My partner is Bo and we are making models that model an ocean environment. Today I was working on the agent model while he was working on a system model. The smallest organism is our planned model was phytoplankton and then zooplankton but after spending the first half of the workday trying to get these organisms to exist and interact I decided to not include them in the agent model.
Then the second half of the day I built the rest of the model which I actually had more bugs than I expected with but I worked through many of them. The new model only includes small fish, tuna and sharks, but not phytoplankton or zooplankton. There is also a counter that graphs how many of each type of animal there is. Each animal has a large variety of things that it does/can do and the model uses a lot of hillclimbing.
Today we learned about agent models and then I made a very complex agent model using AgentCubesOnline that I am very proud of. It had many different shapes of people that all acted differently and hill climbed. I also spread a value throughout the surrounding world. This healthy sick model had susceptible people, doctors, infected people, exposed people, recovered people, and dead people. Then at the end of the day we learned about and started brainstorming for our first group project.
Today we built on the modeling that we learned last week, with vensimPLE. We did this by planning and building multiple different but similar models in vensim based on stories we where given. This included making a Model of Durham's population, which I made two versions of: a basic one that only had the variable of people moving to Durham, and a more complicated one that had the variables: people moving to Durham, people moving out of Durham, fraction of people in Durham dying and fraction of people in Durham giving birth. We also made a model of temperature decreasing linearly, the exponential decay of Fermium-252, and two new versions of our rabbit population model.
We planned the models in our notebook where we first drew the system dynamics model and then came up with the equations for each level and rate. For our simple population model of Durham's population we also sketched out our expectations for some of the graphs made by the model. The models we made using system dynamics related to the Have=Had+Change we learned about last week because the levels are the have and had while the rates, which are affected by variables are the change.
Today we learned about modeling, using objects to model different things, and two modeling tools on the computer. We started out the day learning about how what we Have = what we Had + What changed. Then we made a lot of different iterative models. We started out in Microsoft Excel and made multiple models. We made a model of pets(cats and dogs), coin flips using random numbers, dice rolls and then a magic 8 ball. Then we made a new Excel workbook where we made a model that showed how heat travels and uses color as a numeral. Then we made two rabbit population models one in excel and one in vensimPLE.
Today Dr.Panoff finished his How do you Know? presentation, and then we did experiments on numbers, numerals and how computers interpret numbers. We did experiments in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets that showed how computers can only calculate and deal with numbers that are Base 2 so many big calculation errors occur. We also learned about the 3 ways that computers approximate numbers. It was a fun and interesting class.
I missed the second day of the Apprenticeship Program on Saturday, October 19th, so I had to make it up over the course of the week. I have been quite busy so I only had time to work on it on Monday and Wednesday. It took a very long time and it was a lot of work but I got it done in about 7 hours total.
I learned I didn't learn very much from the recorded videos because I have already seen a similar demonstration. During SSP I had a very similar presentation also done by Ron. The actual recorded program was very little individual work but had quite a bit of lecture and presentation in it. The videos were very long and I had to plan my time is such a way that I watched each video to the end so that I didn't cut a lecture in half.
There was also a decent amount of homework for thisweek that took quite a bit of time to finish. I am also ahead on homework by quite a bit and AARON AND ERNIE ARE AWESOME!
Today was the first day of the Apprenticeship Program for 2019-2020 Ernie said it would be really boring and though some of the parts were it was very exciting and some parts were interesting. It really made me look forward to the rest of the program and beyond. We went over the apprentice hand book and did some other basic things like a tour of the new space. I was sad to hear Aaron wasn't feeling well.
I learned a lot of new things today and learned more about the things I already somewhat knew. By things I mean things about the program. I learned a lot of how the program works through the lectures and through the Apprentice Handbook. Dr. Panoff and Ernie both gave lectures today. I also learned more about some processes that I had heard about from other interns or had seen on their webpages, a great example of this is blogs like this one.
Sadly I have to miss next Saturday because of a prior agreement. I have to write an email to Ernie and Aaron about that. I also might have lost all the projects and the webpages I made during the Computing MATTERS and Shodor Scholars programs. I have to email Joel about that. All in all today was a great start and I am very excited for things to come!