SUMMER BLOCK THREE

August 18th 2017

Today was presentations day! I presented 5 projects that I did this summer. The five projects I presented were: my Final Website, my Dice Roll Database, my Dane Joe name switcher, my Calendar, and my graphics. I think my presentation went well. I think I could have explained more about what I learned with each project. For example, I could have talked about the PHP functions I learned while doing the Calendar program. Today was the last day of the Apprenticeship program. I hope to come back to Shodor soon as an intern.

August 17th 2017

Today I finished my Dice Roll Database. I was able to figure out the errors with my SQL Query, and outputted the number of rolls from each user. After that, I added a query to output the average shoe size and the most popular color. For the rest of the day, I polished my website, and went through all of my summer projects before my stipend meeting. Then we watched Leanne's and Ritvik's presentations for their summer projects. After this, I had my stiped meeting with Kristen.

August 16th 2017

Today I worked on my Dice Roll Database project. First, in the morning, I started by connecting my PHP code to my database in MySQL. After doing this, I was able to transfer any information that was entered in my PHP form to the database. After I completed this step, I asked all the apprentices and interns to fill out my PHP form. After lunch, I had reception. I continued working on the Dice Roll Database during reception. I was able to create the table to display all the users names, favorite colors, and shoe size. I am still working on outputting the number of rolls.

August 15th 2017

This morning, I continued working on the DiceRoll Database. I added the connections all of the input boxes. After that, I worked on syntax guide, and completed it. Later, I uploaded all of my projects to my portfolio. I completed my Bootstrap website today. I made an AboutMe page, a Blog page, and a Portfolio page. This website is just an example page as a part of my library research project. For the rest of the day, I worked on my website, and cleaned up any pages that differed from the rest of the website.

August 14th 2017

This morning, I started out by working on my DiceRoll Database. I created all the tables in my Database. I also added new input boxes for Favorite Color and Shoe Size. I read through the W3 Schools tutorial which explained how to connect to a database in your PHP code. After I read that, I connected the database which had my tables to the Dice Roll PHP program. After lunch, I finished up my website. I changed the gallery page and fixed the logo. After that, I worked on my Bootstrap website. I didn't want to take the easy way out and make my entire website in bootstrap, so I just made an example website using Bootstrap.

August 11th 2017

Today I was absent because I had to travel to attend a religious event. I worked a little on the DiceRoll Database at home.

August 10th 2017

This morning, I started out by working on my syntax guide. I still had a few parts which were incomplete. After this, I continued to work on my website. I worked on the sizing of the logo, and centering in the page. I changed the layout of the blog and portfolio as well. In the afternoon, I had to document the SSP. While I documented, I helped the SSP students when they had questions. They were working on building models in AgentCubes and Vensim.

August 9th 2017

This morning, I watched another one of Ernie's tutorial videos. I learned how to use INNER JOIN to connect different tables. After this, I worked on redesigning my website. I did this last block, but I decided to do it again because I wasn't satisfied with how it looked. I changed the logo and colors, and adjusted the location of the navigation bar. I also changed the fonts and added a picture. For the rest of the afternoon, Kristen came in and taught us how to write a resume.

August 8th 2017

This morning, I watched some of Ernie's tutorial videos. I learned how to create a relational database, and used Sequel Pro to enter a few commands. This took up most of the morning. After that, I had reception. I worked on my MySQL syntax guide at reception.

August 7th 2017

Today was the first day of Block 4, or my 3rd block. This block, I am working on the block 3 material, which is learning about databases. The first thing I did this morning was watch the Day 1 video from last block. In this lesson, I learned about what databases are, and what MySQL is. As a part of the lesson, I used Sequel Pro to make a table. After that, I started my MySQL syntax guide. I had to enter different commands into the Query to learn how they work. I worked on this for the rest of the day.

SUMMER BLOCK TWO

July 21st 2017

This morning I had documentation. I documented the Middle School Web Design workshop. They learned about Javascript today, as well as SFTP file transfer. After documentation, I worked on editing my website. I fixed the blog and portfolio pages and I added a drop down menu. Later, I had to form validate my Coin projects since I didn't do that yesterday. After that, I was part of the Jury for the middle school Forensics workshop. They investigated a "crime" throughout the week, and then held the trial today. Today was the last day of the second block.

July 20th 2017

Today I worked on redesigning my website. I changed the width of the content, and changed the colors. I moved the Navigation bar to the top of the page, and added my logo. So far, I have only edited the index.html, so the blog and portfolio look a little messy. In the afternoon, I helped out the interns in the Engineering Workshop. The workshop students had to build a boat, so Leanne and I had to cut the materials to give them. After that, I had to clean up my HTML code. I entered the code into an HTML validator, and had to fix the errors. I cleaned up the code for all of my PHP projects. Tomorrow I am going to work on the blog and portfolio pages of my website.

July 19th 2017

This morning, I had morning reception. I worked on my Programming Concepts Syntax Guide while I was sitting at reception. At 10 o'clock, I had my mock interview with Jennifer. We had to dress up as though we were actually going for an interview, so I wore a suit. During the interview, Jennifer asked me a variety of questions about myself, and my interest in being an Intern. After my interview, I returned back to reception. For the beginning of the afternoon, I worked on, and completed, my Syntax Guide. After that, I had a meeting with Ernie. I form validated all of my PHP programs to make them secure. I had to sit in the workshop for about half an hour to cover documentation for someone. For the rest of the day, I began trying to redesign my website.

July 18th 2017

This morning, I worked on my Calendar program. I added the code for months with 30 and 28 days, as well as added the input drop downs for the user. These drop down menus allow the user to choose a month and the day they wish the month to start on. I made a table to display the calendar, and added a title. I finished the Calendar program around 10, so I resumed working on the Programming Concepts Syntax Guide from the beginning of the block. This is the last assignment I have to complete for the block, and I plan on working on editing my website afterwards. After lunch, Jennifer gave us a lesson on Interviewing Skills. She taught us about what to do during an interview, how to prepare, attire, and post interview formalities. Tomorrow, we will have a Mock Interview with Jennifer and Levi, as though we were interviewing to be an intern. This took up most of the afternoon, so I just worked on the Programming Concepts Syntax Guide for the last hour.

July 17th 2017

This morning, I started by finishing up my Background Selector. I learned how to use the $_COOKIE function, and was able to store the color choice the user entered. With this, if the user leaves the page and then returns, the color stays the same. After this, Ernie taught us how to use the $_GET and $_POST function. After this, he taught us form validation so that we can make sure our forms are secure. After the lesson, I worked on my XML blog. First I had to research because I didn't know what XML was. Then, I made the XML file, and the PHP file. I was able to complete most of this before lunch. After lunch, I had some trouble with the loop, because I used the same tag multiple times for different entries. Then, I learned that you have to reference each tag similar to an array. Towards the end of the day I worked on the Calendar program. This is the last of Krista's projects. I started the main function, and set up the loops. I was able complete most of the code for the months that have 31 days in them.

July 14th 2017

I took off today because I had to attend a religious event. I had been working on Krista's projects all week, and had already started on Part 2. I didn't have to make up anything since I was ahead of schedule. I will continue working on Krista's projects when I return on Monday.

July 13th 2017

This morning, Miguel gave us a demonstration of how to make a dynamic webpage. This means using the $_GET function to retrieve information from files in PHP and HTML. The result of the lesson was a working dynamic webpage. After that, I worked on my Dice Statistics model. I originally made it using arrays, and only two dice. After I made a working model in which the user could input the number of rolls, I redid the main part of my model. I added another input box for the number of dice and made the main program with only one for loop. After I finished the Dice Model, I began working on the Background Selector. I got the drop down menu to work, and the colors to change. However, I didn't quite get the cookies part yet, so the color doesn't remain the same if the user leaves the page.

July 12th 2017

This morning, Ernie gave us a lesson on how to embed HTMl in our PHP, as well as render the PHP. We used the Coin Flip model to do this. I had some trouble embedding the HTML because I was calling the function in the wrong spot. After the lesson, we were free to work on Krista's Projects. Today I worked on the Dane Joe name switcher. This program switches the first letter of your last name with the first letter of your firstname and vice versa. After I made this program, I worked on the CSS of my programs and made them more aesthetically pleasing, as they were quite bare before. This took up most of the afternoon. For the rest of the day I started thinkng about how I could attempt the dice statistics program. I brainstormed some ideas about which functions I would need to use in this program. I will work on coding this tomorrow.

July 11th 2017

Today was filled with a lot of coding! The first thing we did today was the Coin Flip program. We tried to create it yesterday, but it didn't work out as expected. We restarted, and created it from scratch. The program was successful, and displayed the percentage of heads and tails, as well as the total number of flips. After that, we worked on our Programming Syntax Guides for a while. Then, Ernie assigned us the next PHP projects: Krista's Projects. The first one I worked on was the Random Hexcode Generator. This program generates a hexcode, and then changes the background color to fit that hexcode. I was able to generate the hexcode quite easily, but I had to get some help from Miguel on the CSS part since we hadn't learned that. Later, Ishaan showed me how to make my code more efficient and simpler. Tomorrow, I will continue working on my PHP projects.

July 10th 2017

Today was the first day of Block 2! This morning Ernie went over how to treat our peers in the Office. I got this information last block, so I was able to start working on our first assignment early. He also went over how to use CyberDuck and how to link Atom to CyberDuck. Our first assignment was the Programming Concepts Syntax Guide. In this assignment we had to learn the syntax for three different languages, Javascript, PHP, and one language of your choice. I chose Python since I didn't know anything about it before. For each language, we had to write the syntax for a certain function or structure. For example: loops, arrays, and creating your own function. I finished Part 1 before the morning break, so Ernie gave me permission to start working on the 2nd and 3rd parts. Afterwards, we set up our NewDev folder in our public_html. This is where we are keeping our PHP projects. After lunch, we started working on a coin flip model. The first part was relatively easy, but it started to get a little confusing and many of us weren't able to understand what we were writing. Ernie decided that we would try working on this again tomorrow. For the rest of the day I worked on my Syntax Guide because that was the only project we have been assigned so far.

SUMMER BLOCK ONE

June 30th 2017

Today was the last day of Block 1! This morning I worked in Inkscape. I changed a few of my banners because I didn't like the design. I rescaled a few images that weren't the appropriate size, and I added my favicon to my website. Later, I looked through all of my assignments to make sure I had everything. Unfortunately, AgentCubes was down all day, so I wasn't able to fix one issue I had. For the rest of the day I learned PHP! I learned about arrays, loops, and OOP. This was my favorite part because I got to learn a new language.

June 29th 2017

Today morning I worked on fixing my Gimp/Inkscape assignments. I realized my banners weren't that great, so I edited those. I also re-scaled some pictures that weren't the right size for my website. After that I worked on my models. I added some changes to my AgentCubes model, including three different types of cars. I also added slider bars to make it more interactive and I added descriptions and directions. Afterwards, I worked on my HLD for my updated website. I created a mock website layout in Inkscape.

June 28th 2017

Today morning I worked on my Gimp assignments. I created my own version of the Cosmic Turtle demo, in which I had three birds on top of the Road image. After that, I worked on scaling different images and changing the quality as a part of the Gimp tutorial. I created two web banners of that picture, and uploaded them all to my website. After that, I made banners out of all of my logos. I also made my favicon today. In the afternoon, I had documentation for the Web Design workshop.

June 27th 2017

This morning, I did the full Cosmic Turtle Demo since I didn't finish it when Ernie was teaching it yesterday. After that, I worked on updating my website and models. I learned how to scale images, and worked on scaling all of my logos so that I could upload them to my website. I made a new html page, a gallery, that can display all of my images. I also made an html page for my modeling project.

June 26th 2017

This morning Ernie taught us how to use Gimp and we worked on the Cosmic Turtle project. Today, I finished working on my Agent Cubes Model, and fixed any issues I had. Then I finished my Vensim model, and continued working on my Inkscape projects. I made my initials logos and my image logos.

June 23rd 2017

Today Ernie started off by teaching us how to use Inkscape. We experimented around with all the different tools in Inkscape. We ended up creating a 7 object collage, with each object using a different tool. For the rest of the morning, I worked on creating my name logos. After lunch, I had reception, so I just worked on my models for the rest of the day.

June 22nd 2017

Today was mostly a work day. I started my Vensim and Agent Cubes models today, but I spent most of the day watching the tutorial for how to create a responsive web page. We are watching this tutorial so that we can adapt our own websites to work on phones and tablets as well. As a part of this tutorial, we had to make an example website so we could see all these aspects put into use. I made this website with no issues. However, when we had to upload this to our portfolio, I started having troubles trying to access all the images in my public_html. I finally figured out that this was because some images were in a folder, which changed the name and location of the file. After fixing this issue, I ran into a problem with some of the icons displaying at the bottom of the screen. I wasn't able to solve this problem today, but I will continue working on it tomorrow, along with trying to finish up my models.

June 21st 2017

On June 21st, I stayed home sick, but I was able to finish my HLD. I finished the behaviors section for both the agent model (in AgentCubes) and the system model (in Vensim), which I sent to Ernie for approval before I could start creating my models.

June 20th 2017

Today started off by teaching us how to use Cyberduck. To increase efficiency on our computers we aren't able to directly log in to our network accounts. Due to this, we have to use Cyberduck to transfer our files to our public_html. I went home early this day because I was sick, so I didn't end up making much progress on my HLD.

June 19th 2017

Today was the first day of the summer program. Ernie called in this morning and talked to us for the first half of the day. He started out by discussing Respect in the office with us, and how we should treat the staff, interns, and the workshop students. Next, we went over the outline for what we will be doing in the first block of summer. We were assigned a modeling project to begin working on today. We first had to come up with an idea for our model. I decided to do a model about global warming, and how different sources cause an increase in carbon dioxide levels, which then impact the environment. I ran my idea by Ernie, and then began working on my HLD. For the model project, we have to create a system model and an agent model, which represent a "have=had+change" situation. After creating my HLD, I asked Caroline to proofread it, and she gave me input as to how I can make my model better. We will be working on our models for the next two weeks, along with other projects.

SPRING BLOCK

April 22nd 2017

Today is our last day of Shodor for the Spring semester. We used a new program called Virtual Box to run Linux on a virtual computer. This means its not connected to a hard drive or network. We used ethernet cables to connect our computers in a cluster. We used a program called GalaxSee (which was coded in C++) which showed a certain number of stars in 2 galaxies which were moving in different directions. We used different Linux commands to show different situations in the galaxy model, with a different number of stars and how many seconds it would take. We disconnected our computers from the Shodor network, so our computers were only connected to our cluster. My cluster only had 4 people, and each of our computers only had 2 cores. This made our programs run a little bit slower if we tried to add more cores than we had a capacity for. When we ran the programs at the same time, some of the galaxies would run on someone else's computer other than mine. For example, if both Caroline and I ran a galaxy with 4 cores, all 8 cores ran on Caroline's computer and none ran on mine. We also looked at a program called Pandemic which is basically a disease model. Instead of stars, we could change the number of people.

April 8th 2017

Today we continued working in the Parallel Computing Notebook. We learned about Super Computers and examined the Top500 list for fastest super computers in the world. On this list, we analyzed how you can measure which computer is better, using number of cores or efficiency. Later we realized that the Blue Waters computer, which is the largest super computer on a University Campus, wasn't on the list. This was because the company didn't agree with the the way the Top500 calculated which one was better. We then talked about the LittleFe, which is a super computer. Shodor has 4 LittleFe computers and we got to take a look at the device. We looked at the Motherboard and the different parts of the Motherboard. Later we "shopped" for different parts of the LittleFe, trying to see if we could keep the cost under 3k dollars. After that, we used the Terminal Application on Mac to experiment with Linux commands. Today was interesting because we got to look more into the actual devices behind the computer and the hardware as opposed to the software. We were more hands on with tangible technology which was fun.

April 1st 2017

I missed today so I had to catch up with the audio recordings. Today we started working in the Parallel Computing Notebooks. I got the basic outline from the Shodor Apprentice Docs page; the notebook contained many parts of the project. This was an introduction to Parallel Computing and learning about cluster computers, many computers working on a task together.

March 18th 2017

Today William and I presented our Forest Fire Model. We tweaked the html page, and added the model to our website. The only changes we added were a few color changes. Our presentation went pretty smoothly. The only thing was we didn't practice it, so our transitions were a little choppy. We learned a lot from this project about using Javascript and how similar it is to other coding languages we have used in the past. We also learned how to change an existing program to become something that suits your purpose.

March 11th 2017

Today was my first day working on the group project for this month. The project is a Forest Fire model. In our model, the entire world is a forest filled with trees, and the fire spreads through the forest burning trees every timestep. The firefighters are already in the model, and there is a certain percent chance that the firefighter will put out the fire. Eventually, the firefighters will be able to put out the entire forest fire. This was mostly coded in javascript, using the existing predator prey model we already had. We also used CSS and html for other aspects of the website. We used different colors to show the forest fire in an array and to graph it quantitatively on a graph.

March 4th 2017

Today was the first day of our spring group project, the Forest Fire model. I was absent, so my partner William started the project. I looked over the HLD at home that William shared with me, which helped me understand what we would be doing in the project. William decided to do a forest fire model with firefighters putting out the fire. I will work on this more next week in class.

February 18th 2017

I missed today so I had to catch up with the audio recordings. We worked more on coding Javascript, including the disease model from last week. This will be the basis for our spring group project.

February 11th 2017

Today we adapted a predator prey model and turned it into a disease model with sick and healthy people. We used html and javascript to make this model. We used html to create our index and javascript to actually create the model. We did all the programming through Atom. I also learned how to use a web inspector in Safari to see errors and such. We also used the web inspectors to test out different math functions. To adapt the Predator Prey model, we had to edit all of the Variables to fit our Disease model. We also had to comment out aspects of the Predator Prey model that didn't apply to our Disease model such as food. To do so, we used the Find tool in Atom and replaced variable.

February 4th 2017

I missed today so I had to catch up using the audio recordings. Today was an intro to using Javascript. We used a program called atom to code in JavaScript. The model we would be making is a predator prey model. I enjoyed learning how to code in Javascript, and I noticed that the syntax in different languages (C++, HTML, and Javascript) are actually quite similar.

FALL BLOCK

January 21st 2017

Today Caroline, Divya, and I presented our first group project, The Life Cycle of the Fish! We presented our model in Vensim as well as our model in AgentCubes. The presentation went smoothly and we were able to answer most of the questions with ease. We talked about how our Vensim model showed the more simplistic fish cycle whereas the AgentCubes model was more complex and was a more accurate representation of the story we wanted to tell. This is because our AgentCubes model factored in predators in each section of the ocean as well as a fishnet. The Vensim model just went through the different stages of being a fish.

December 17th 2016

Today was another workday for our Group Project. Caroline and I worked on adding additional components to our AgentCubes model. We added in factors such as a fishnet and added a hillclimb. The fishnet caught mostly large fish because we wanted to show that the smaller fish could escape out of the holes in the fishnet. We mostly worked on perfecting our model to make sure it worked well. We drew our own animations for the fish to make it look more realistic.

December 10th 2016

Today I worked on my Group Project with Caroline and Divya. Our Project models the Life Cycle of a Fish. We created a Vensim model and an AgentCubes model. I mostly worked on the AgentCubes model where we had different shapes to represent the stages of a fish. We also had three worlds which represent the three sections in the ocean.

December 3rd 2016

I missed today so Divya updated me about our new group project. In this group project we had to use Agent Cubes and Vensim to make a model and my group chose to model the life cycle of a fish. This model would show all the steps of the life cycle from the egg hatching, becoming an adult, and then eventually dying. Our AgentCube model would have more aspects include laying eggs and predators.

November 19th 2016

Today we started modeling in AgentCubes! We made two models; one model was just a shape moving randomly in the world and the other model was about disease. The disease model shows healthy people getting sick as well as sick people recovering. We also learned how to display a graph and add in a counter to show how many people were healthy and sick at a given time. I had the most fun so far today because we actually got to build a model.

November 12th 2016

I missed today so I came in to get help from Aaron on how to use Vensim. I learned about the different tools in Vensim such as a box variable and using arrows to show a connection, as well as adding fractions. In Vensim I created a simple life cycle model which modeled the life cycle of a rabbit as well as a Healthy Sick model, which I adapted to include a death fraction.

November 5th 2016

I missed today so I listened to the audio recordings to create the excel projects. On Excel I learned how to add a slider bar and I also learned about iteration. I made a few models in excel including one with simple programming concepts and one about iteration. The iteration model also had a color diffusion model in it. This model a number as a color and showed a square represented as the average of the squares around it.

October 22nd 2016

Today we started to learn about coding in Microsoft Excel. We did a little experiment with a flipping coin program. The program simulated a coin flipping several times, with 0-0.4 being heads and 0.5-1 being tails. Then we compiled our answers and compared averages.

October 15th 2016

Today we talked about different types of models, and necessary vs. sufficient. We also talked about How Do You Know? We looked at different sites to test the reliability of different sources. For homework we had to look up different statistics to share and compare answers.

October 8th 2016

Today was my first day at Shodor! We set up our accounts and Aaron gave us a tour of the office. Everyone introduced a partner to the group and we got to know each other. We went over the basics and the handbook today.

This website was created by Ameya Rao. Special Thanks to Shodor Staff.