Feb.4th 2017

Today, we reviewed some programing concepts we learned in the fall. Then, we learned about more programing concepts like syntax and version numbering and how you can apply them to programming code. After that, we downloaded a predator-prey model and changed elements within it to make it a disease model. It was fun seeing the elements change as we went farther in the day. I hope to do some more of this in the future, when I am better at programming.

Feb.11th 2017

At the beginning of class today, we reviewed the concepts that we learned last week. Then, we used the console from the web inspector on Safari to learn the Javascript language. We learned about what certain symbols mean like the strings of text and assignment of variables. After that, we applied what we learned to a predator prey model and change the model more in depth than last week. Now, I know more about HTML, Javascript and how the computer languages share simular concepts.

Feb.18th 2017

Today, we learned about more programming concepts and how specific characters are used differently in the syntax of other languages.For example, you have to put a semi colon at the end of a phrase to make it valid in Atom. We also learned about functions in html and how functions are called and defined. That helped us change the functions of the predator-prey model and helped us prevent the cells from dying of hunger and getting eaten by other cells. It was a very interesting concept that we learned today I hope to learn more in the future.

March.4th 2017

Today, we started our project for the forest fire model and I had to work by myself today. It was a tough day for me because I didn't know exactly where to start. I had to start over several times and finally, one of my classmates showed me where to start. Thanks to him, I can finally work on the project with some progress, instead of working on the project without progressing and not understanding anything. I just hope I get more progress next weekend with my partner and hopefully have a more enjoyable experience.

March.11th 2017

Today, we completed our forest fire agent model. The fire agents and the firefighters move around randomly in the agent world. The firefighters have a percent chance of putting out the fire next to it. The cells respawn trees in the agent world after they burn down. It was a really good experience for me, since there weren't a lot of problems with our project. My computer kept crashing on Atom, but it finally stopped after the first hour or so. I learned that collaborating with someone makes programing so much easier. Now for next week, We just have to get ready for our March presentation.

March.18th 2017

Today, we presented our projects for March. Everyone had really good models and I could tell they did a good amount of progress on their models with the time that they had. After that, Levi told that we had to make models to analyze the information from these models. It defninetly opened my eyes a little bit when it comes to programming and I relized that there is so much more to programing than just making things.

April.1st 2017

Today, we learned about some basic parallel computing concepts and how they are applied in workjobs. We learned about communication vs computation and how communication or dependencies can increase the amount of error in doing a task. For example, we had to record our percentages with an actual whole number instead of a decimal. We also learned that parallel computing or working can cause many possible "what if" scenarios and you can't just have a simple way of completing something. I hope to learn more of the parallel concepts so I can understand parallel computing a lot easier.

April.8th 2017

Today, we learned about the world's fastest supercomputers that use parallel programing. The supercomputers are more powerful and have many essential parts that makes them run efficiently like the multiple motherboards that use cores to process information. We also learned about the specifc ways to measure a computers performance and ranking with terms such as Tflops and the number of cores in each computer. I feel like I know a lot more about the basic parts of a supercomputer, what their function is, and how they are use for parallel programming. The more I learn about parallel programming, the more I realize how modern computing is majorly affected by parallel programming.

April.22nd 2017

Today, we learned about virtualization and made a virtual computer that uses Linux with the Virtual Box program. To make the virtual computer efficient, we had to set a certain amount of parts in the computer and also wouldn't mess up the real computer. For example, the number of cores had to equal the real computer's amount of cores or less to not make the program slow down. We also learned about how computers can use parallel programming to split up the work for MPI or Message Passing Interface programs. It was a very interesting experience because it was cool to see the different programs running at different speeds. I hope to learn more things at Shodor that will help me in the future and in the computing world.

July.10th 2017

After being away from for two months, I came back to Shodor to start the summer blocks of the apprenticeship program. In the morning, we researched different programing languages such as Javascript and PHP to make a guide of the concepts for us to look at in the future. In the afternoon, we were learning how to make a coin flip model using the PHP programming language. Even though I was doing the steps correctly, it was hard to understand the all of the functions that we made so far and why we needed to do them. Also, the Shodor working environment is totally different in the Summer and our work is supposed to be more self-guided. Over the summer, I think that working at Shodor will help me get more used to working in a real working environment.

July.11th 2017

Today, we made a new coin flipping model with the PHP coding language. We continued to work on our syntax guides for the languages that we researched and started our new projects that we got assigned. The first one is hard to understand since I don't really understand what a hexadecimal is. I want to start dedicating some of my time to learn and practice programming because these projects are really hard to do without a good understanding of the language.

July.12th 2017

This day at Shodor was a very long one. In the morning, I had to sit at the reception desk for three and a half hours. I only took one phone call for the entire period and the laptop at the front desk barely worked. Then in the afternoon, I completed my Hexadecimal code generator with some help from Ernie and one of my peers. I'm glad that I coded most of the project correctly and I hope to complete many more in the future.

July.13th 2017

Today, we made a dynamic webpage in the morning and Miguel walked us through it. He used some functions that I was not familiar and it was somewhat hard to understand what he was doing. This afternoon, I worked on other projects such a page that switches the first and last letters of a first and last name. The projects were getting more complicated for me and I had to use a tremendous amount of thinking when I was trying to build them. Hopefully, I can understand these programming concepts later in the future when I am more experienced.

July.14th 2017

Today, we worked on our projects for the whole day. It was a frustrating day for me because I couldn't code as much as everyone else and I felt I was behind. I made some decent progress on one of the projects, but I feel like I could do so much more on it if I had more programming experience. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish these complex projects next week with some help. I don't have as much experience in programming as everyone else, but I'll still keep trying to improve over the summer.

July.17th 2017

Today, we learned how to valdiate a form using the GET and POST method in PHP. The GET and POST method are pretty basic methods that can stop hackers from changing the form on the website. It was very interesting to learn about some different ways a person could hack a website with a form. In the afternoon, I started the xml blog and the XML mark up language is very simular to the HTML mark up language. I also used the POST method for one of my projects.

July.18th 2017

Today, I was working on one of my models that I needed to finish today to get started on my other projects. I was in a bad mood this morning because my example project wouldn't show the code when I opened it and it deleted all of the code when I saved it. I still managed to figure out my problem and I got some very good progress on it. This afternoon, we learned skills that we could use in interviews such as having professional attire and a clear, sturdy tone when talking. I also learned a lot about what to do before an interview and how to prepare for one.

July.19th 2017

Today, I finished my background selector by implementing the $_COOKIE function into the code with help from my peers Huny and Mihir. They also showed me a more simple and efficient way of running the project. I tried to work on my projects in the afternoon, but the computer at the reception desk wasn’t working properly. I also had my interview later in the afternoon and it was made me very nervous. I learned that I was too unprepared to answer the questions with solid thoughts and I was lacking confidence in my answers, which was shown through my nervous body language. There are a lot of things that I am learning at Shodor, and this experience is an amazing one.

July.20th 2017

Today, I completed a lot of my projects by using new functions that I've learned this week. The string functions str and substr were very helpful in completing my letter-switching model. The GET and POST functions were also helpful in completing my other projects. I also some of the htmls for my projects with some help and I need to finish the rest of them on my own time. The PHP language was hard to learn at first, but I feel like I know a lot more about after today.

July.21th 2017

Today, I validiated the html of my projects for the second block and I put them on my website. The validation was pretty easy becasue I just moved and add html elements in the code. Then, I moved them to my website folder by downloading the files and putting them into the folder for my website. This was hard to do at first because I couldn't transfer files between folders on the Shodor server. These two weeks were a struggle for me because of the projects, but I finally did them and I hope to learn something different next week.

July.24th 2017

Today, we started the third block for the Shodor apprenticeship. I started the morning with a documentation of the IPhone Development workshop. It took me a few minutes to learn what I was supposed to do because I came in right at 9 and I had no time to check the Shodor Wiki for the information of my duty. In the afternoon, the class worked on the SQL language and I was catching up on some things from last week. I'm happy about this week so far because the SQL language looks easy to learn and everyone is having a fun and easy time learning it.

July.25th 2017

I had a pretty relaxed day today in class because I was learning the SQL language. The SQL language is a lot simpler than PHP because its purpose is to store data in a database and interact with it. The functions are also easier to learn and understand because the query allows the user to experiment with functions by showing the results of the functions every time a function is entered. The other part of the class was making a relational database, which doesn't look too much harder from what I'm doing right now. Hopefully, I can catch up with my peers later this week.

July.26th 2017

Today, I watched a video on building a relational database in the SQL language. We built multiple tables that based off our original table. the It was less complicated than I thought it would be. Creating the tables and linking them is easy, but getting the information from the PHP forms to the SQL database is harder. I just finished making the SQL tables today and I have to connect them before I get to the next part. SQL is much harder to work when you have to use PHP with it and this will probably be the most difficult part for this project.

July.27th 2017

This morning, I worked on connecting my SQL database to my PHP Dice Roller model. As I was trying to insert the PHP data into the SQL model, the SQl syntax kept getting an error for some reason that I couldn't figure out. The syntax looked fine to me, but I guess I have to look at the tables I created when I have more time to do it. This afternoon, I had to do my reception duty at the front desk and I finished my syntax guide while doing it. This guide wasn't nearly as long and tedious as the syntax guide in Block Two. I also worked on some parts of my website and made some descriptions to make the website better.

July.28th 2017

At end of this week, I finally finished my dice roller database project and my SQL syntax guide today. First, I got rid of the error in my SQL syntax by rewriting the tables in my database. Then, I made a table in the html to display the submitted data in an table on the website. I had a fun time building the connection between the database and php model because I learned a lot about how SQL tables should be linked in a relational database. Next week, I'll look forward to improving my website and doing some other projects in Block 3.

July.31th 2017

In the morning, I worked on fixing and adding things to my website. I added some descriptions for part of my projects, but I couldn't do all the descriptions today. I also had to fix some of my older models that were before the summer blocks. I also had to do more advanced things on my dice roller database project that was not had long to complete as before. I hope to change the look of my website this week and add several features to it.

Aug.1st 2017

This morning, I did my documentation for the Shodor Scholors Program workshop. The students learned important concepts while doing activities that required critical thinking in the process. In the afternoon, I learned how to output the average of a field inside of a SQL table. When I learned this, I allowed my Dice Roller Database to output the average shoe size of the submitted shoesizes everytime a form is completed. Tommorrow, I want to do the website tutorial and redesign my website to add to my website.

Aug.2nd 2017

Today, I finally learned how to output data from my SQL database onto the model webpage. This morning, I had to join the tables of my database together, store it in an php array, and put the array in a table. The whole process was so long because I was struggling with joining my tables together and I finally got some help at lunch time. Later in the afternoon, I got the model to output the average shoe size and the most popular color of the model's data. Even though I didn't get to work on my website today, I'm happy that I accomplished a lot more on my database model.

Aug.3rd 2017

Today was a very long day for me because I was trying to use a CSS library for my website. In the morning, I was researching the CSS library Bootstrap for my project. It was difficult to understand because the library needed to use a lot of things in Javascript, which I was not familiar with. I also couldn't understand how to put a navigation bar on my website since the bar was messing up the webpage after I did it. I want to work on this at home because I feel like I need to undertand the css library so I can hopefully do the project tommorrow.

Aug.4th 2017

Today was a very good day for me as I made some progress using the CSS library Bootstrap on my website. I worked on my main webpage and looks a lot better than before. The whole process was much better than yesterday because I actually learned how to reference the Bootstrap files. This was also a sad day for me because some of my fellow apprentices will be leaving the program today and I've made good friends in this Shodor apprenticeship.

Extra Blog

At the end of Block 3, a Cisco Engineer named Renee Daughtry came this afternoon to speak to us. He talked about how technology is rapidly affecting all the different types of jobs that are everywhere. There are robots that do jobs that exist already in our world today, and they are creating more jobs for people that want to manage these robots. He also talked about how certifications from big companies can make your job resume more impressive and raise the income for your job offers.

Aug.7th 2017

Today, I started the final block for our apprenticeship program with making the HLD or High Level Design document for the redesigned website. I didn't know we actually had to make an HLD for the website design before we started building it, but it was pretty easy to do since I knew the new features that are in the redesigned website. The only thing needed to do on the HLD was to add a mock website image from Inkscape or Gimp to show an idea of what I wanted my website to look like. In the afternoon, I learned about Inkscape and worked the graphics that were supposed to be done with Inkscape along with the mock website image. It wasn't as fun as I thought it would be because the tools are sometimes hard to use when you want to make a specific shape. Tommorrow, I will probably work on the graphics more so I can finish the website HLD and move on to the other projects in Block 1.

Aug.8th 2017

Today, I decided to work on the Inkscape graphics later and start doing the HLD for the Agent and Vensim models. It was diffcult to get an idea for the project in the morning because I wanted to have an idea that was interesting and fun, but not too hard to do at the same time. The ideas that I thought of at the time were not interesting to me or were too complicated for me to make an Agent or Vensim model out of it. After lunch, I finally thought of modeling water pollution for my two models because the effects that chemical spills have on plant and animals was interesting to me. I plan to keep working on the HLD for my models tomorrow.

Aug.9th 2017

This morning, I had to document the SSP workshop for their morning activity, which was not very fun. It was mainly boring because the workshop students did an activity that I did in the spring as an apprentice. The activity was using a virtual computer to run Virtual Box and running the program GalaxSee to show an example of how parallel computing is used for programs. In the afternoon, we had a guest speaker called Kristen come to Shodor to talk to us about our resumes. We first discussed why resumes are important for applying for future jobs and we worked on making our resumes for the rest of the afternoon. Tommorrow, I'll go back to doing the work for Block 1.

Aug.10th 2017

I couldn't get much work done for today because of a couple of events that were unexpected. First, the power went out when I was done with my HLD and just starting my AgentCubes model. The power outage lasted for about two hours and I couldn't work on any of my projects for the rest of the morning. When I could start doing my work again after lunch, the Shodor Interns and Apprentices had to watch a movie called Code, which addresses the issue of women and specific races being treated more unfairly in jobs dealing with computer science. At the end, I did not have a lot of time to work, so I couldn't do as much work as I wanted to today.

Aug.11th 2017

Today, I worked on my AgentCubes model in the morning and it was somewhat difficult. I mostly knew what I was doing for the agent rules, but sometimes I just needed to do simple things in order for the agents to work properly. I was used to making projects by coding and the simple AgentCubes modeling was messing up my thinking process for making the model. In the afternoon, the kids form the SSP program presented and they all had good presentations. After The Shodor staff talked about the apprenticeship and they could be the next apprentices for next year.

Code: Debugging the Gender Gap

This afternoon, we watched a movie called "Code: Debugging the Gender Gap" and I've learned from this movie that women are sometimes viewed as being less capable than men in the coding world. Women can also be less motivated to pursue a STEM career than men because the people around them don't encourage them as much. Knowing about these issues, I feel bad about these issues because I know that I don't want to me or anyone else to be treated that way. To increase the diversity in STEM, everyone should feel more comfortable in their intro classes to coding because learning code for the first time can be very confusing and frustrating. A way to increase inclusion in these careers is welcoming new people that have less experience than others. If they can be included in working together on a project, they will gain more knowledge and become more experienced.

Aug.14th 2017

Today, I did my last ODAA duty as an Apprentice, which was morning reception. I couldn't work on my AgentCubes model beccause the front desk laptop was outdated and couldn't load the AgentCubes software. Since I couldn't work on my project then, I decided to work on the Inkscape graphics for Block 1. Since I've only used Inkscape for a short amount of time, making the name logos with the unfamiliar features was a little bit harder longer than I expected it to be. When I finally had time to work on my model, I was adding and testing new things to make the agents function properly. After this was done, The AgentCubes model was basically complete and I added the description to the AgentCubes model. There are some minor things that could be changed, but I'll change them later once I do the other projects in Block 1.

Aug.15th 2017

For the whole day, I worked on making my Vensim model for Block 1. Using Vensim to make the model was a difficult thing to do because the parameters for the slider bars are usually way too big to run the simulations. For this reason, the populations of the Vensim models were hard to balance on the graph when using these sliderbars. I think that it might not be possible to balance the Fish and Plant populations in the graph since the fertilizer variable greatly affects the death rate of the fish and the birth rate of the plant population. I'll work on this tomorrow and see if the Venism model can be balanced.

Aug.16th 2017

Today, I finished balancing the Vensim model this morning and I started working on my Inkscape Graphics in the afternoon. I didn't want to start building the website for my models until I finished doing the other work for Block 1. The Inkscape graphics that I made today took a long time to make because I was having a tough time combining the shapes I used to make these graphics. The whole process for making these graphics when you have to use the same tool several times for the shapes that are parts of a bigger shape. After these Inkscape graphics, the rest of the Block 1 work shouldn't be too hard to finish and I can improve my website a little more.

Aug.17th 2017

Today, I finished my Inkscape graphics in the morning, which took a decent amount of time since I wasn't too familiar wth the Inkscape tools. Then, I had to watch a video of our instructor Ernie doing a demonstration of how to use Gimp. The whole video was an hour long, so it was boring having to watch the whole video when I just wanted to start my projects. When the video finally ended, I had to watch the presentations for a few of the apprentices. The presentations were pretty good and I realized that I needed to prepare myself and my website for the presentions after I did all of my work. When I get home today, I will finish the rest of the Summer projects that I need to do and get ready for the presentation tomorrow.

Aug.18th 2017

Today will be the last day of the Shodor Apprenticeship Program and it was stressful. In the morning, I finished the rest of my projects and I was doing the website for my models. I knew that I had to work at my absolute best today for me to finish the rest of my work. Now that the apprenticeship is over, I hope to take the programing knowledge that I've learned and use it to learn better skills in the future. I was always interested in programming, but I didn't know much about it. Now that I know more about it, I definitely can see it as something that I can do in the future. One day in the future, I hope to come back to Shodor as an intern with improved skills and more knowledge.