Summer Block 3
Guest Presentation - Mr. Rene Daughtry
Today, August 4th, we had a guest speaker come in from Cisco to speak to us about the Internet of Things. Mr. Rene Daughtry, the speaker, taught us about a lot of valuable things. He started off by explaining what he did. He talked about how he had gone into a room of people who didn't know who he was and asked them to guess what he did for a living. Many people said different things - like a garbage man or a mailman. While they were completely genuine perceptions, they weren't correct. Mr. Daughtry explained to us that other people's perceptions of us were not always correct and that was okay. Perceptions and how others viewed us was a recurring theme in his presentation. From that, the discussion of social media and our presence online stemmed about. He explained to us how, in this day and age, hacking was such a common thing. And, the colleges and places we want to apply to in the future would search our name online and find companies that looked into our social media. Sometimes, the reputation of a student on social media can be a make or break of their getting into a school or company they wanted.
He also talked a lot about jobs and the increasing need for jobs involving technology and engineering in our world. One thing he said that really stuck with me and that I really liked was his explanation of technology advancing in the fast food industry. He spoke to us about how there were machines that took orders of people and accepted their money as well. He said that in the future, the person making the food in the back might also be replaced by a robot. While that means that the $7 an hour jobs might not be necessary, that means that there will then be $30 an hour jobs to maintain those machines and program the code behind them. Back to perception, he also spoke a lot about LinkedIn and how crucial it was in this technology advancing world to keep an online resume, since everyone is just a Google away. He gave us the homework of going home and creating a LinkedIn and keeping that updated. I already had a LinkedIn, but it was primarily so that I could view other profiles on LinkedIn. I want to soon write a resume and put some of my credentials on LinkedIn.
He talked about how it doesn't matter so much who you know, it matters who knows you. He spoke about how he had recommended and connected with many people through LinkedIn. He led that into the high school internship program that Cisco offers. He spoke about how beneficial things like that were and how good they looked on applications. At the end, he answered a lot of questions and gave his information to us to send emails to him. Overall, I thought the presentation was very beneficial and he did it really well.
Aug. 4th, 2017
Today was my last day as a Shodor Apprentice. Ernie told us in the morning that we would be presenting at 11. I had written my script the day before and planned everything that I wanted to present, so in the morning before that, I worked on making my Bootstrap website look nicer and more presentable. I also practiced a couple times for my presentation. When it came time for presentations, I volunteered to go first. I started by introducing myself. After that I explained what we had done in block two and the projects that I was presenting from block two. I explained the projects, the code I had used to solve them, and the difficulties I had in the making of the projects. Then I moved on to block three and described my SQL and the Dice Roller Database. I ended my presentation with the website I had made in Bootstrap. I explained how it was different from my current website and the implementations I had make to change it. I finished with a short conclusion and thanks.
I've realized that over time I've gotten less anxious to publicly speak and it went pretty smoothly and I thought I had done alright. If I could go back and change anything about my presentation, I might want to present the idea that I had for AgentCubes, even though I wasn't there for the block that we did the projets in. I would also speak slower and use less "um"s, because I know that and talking fast frequently mess me up in presentations. After lunch, we had a guest speaker, Mr. Rene Daughtry, come in from Cisco and speak to us about many things. I wrote an extra blog on the presentation. I thought it was really interesting and a really well done presentation. Even though I will no longer be an apprentice, I definitely want to apply to become an intern at Shodor in the future.
Aug. 3rd, 2017
Today, I had morning reception. At reception, I started by working on my Bootstrap website. I had already finished all of the project requirements for this block, so I worked on making my current projects better and more presentable. Google Drive wasn't loading properly at reception, but I also wanted to complete a script for my presentation I'm doing tomorrow. Tommorow is my last day as a Shodor Apprentice! My Bootstrap website was at first just a bunch of randomly placed Bootstrap code that I thought was interesting, but didn't look good or really work properly at all. So, I deleted most of the useless bits of code and watched part of a tutorial and researched Bootstrap to turn what I had into a functional website. I modeled my Bootstrap website after the one that I currently have. In the afternoon, for the first part, I worked on my Bootstrap website and making it look nice. For now, I've done the research, but over my travel and at home, I definitely want to work on my website and Block One stuff, because I think the things other people worked on were really fascinating. Also, one error that I noticed on my website while editing it at home was that, while the CSS of my website works really well with the Macs at Shodor, there's an issue within my website that causes the navbar and most of the changes I've made to go back to their original state and change around. Hopefully, while it's a problem I still have to fix, it's not a problem that I'll encounter while trying to deliver my presentation tomorrow.
In the latter part of the afternoon, Dr. Panoff asked for someone to help with shoulder surfing in SSP, so I volunteered. I actually helped one girl a lot this time! I had a lot of fun shoulder surfing and thought it was really cool how I was the one helping her learn all this really valuable information. When the Scholars kids were doing their reflections, I had my block meeting with Kristen. Unfortunately, this was the last time that I would meet with her as an apprentice, but it was still good to talk about what I've been doing and what I hope to do in the future. Along with shoulder surfing and watching the workshops that the interns teach, it would definitely be really cool to be involved in teaching or helping the workshop kids in the future.
Aug. 2nd, 2017
Today, I started by going through and writing my Quality Assuarance Document. I made all of Ernie's requirements sections and I explained what problems I had and how I had fixed them. After that, I searched CSS libraries and learned how to work with them. For my library, I chose to use Bootstrap. So that I wouldn't mess up my whole website, I made a new folder with other documents for Bootstrap. My Bootstrap website is still very much a work in progress, but it's going alright. After lunch, I continued to work on Bootstrap and making my website with it. Also, Caroline and I shoulder surfed for the Scholars Program at the end of the day. While I didn't help them a whole lot, it was interesting to sit in, since I did SSP last year at this exact time.
Aug. 1st, 2017
I started this morning by finishing going through the entirety of my website and fixing spelling and grammar errors. After that, I went and checked all of the links I had linked to make sure they worked. I also made sure that the navigation links between Home, Blog, Portfolio, and Projects worked consistently on each page. I also made sure my projects in my portfolio all worked and that the descriptions were all accurate. I went through all of the requirements Ernie put for the Quality Assurance Document. The only part of it that isn't fully working for me yet is the requirement for all users to be able to access my website part. For some of the morning, I duplicated all of the files and folders in my newdev and gave them the suffix "_public" to differentiate them from the newdev files and then moved them out of my newdev. Unfortunately, it still makes the user have to sign in with a Shodor account in order to view files that are in my newdev. I worked on the QAD for almost the whole morning.
After lunch, I worked on designing my website. My website works consistently in Google Chrome and Safari. Instead of the blogs just all being written out and ordered by date in one big page, I made 4 separate documents for the blocks. The blog has buttons that link to the summer block, the fall block, and the two summer blocks I've done. It looks a lot more organized now and it's easier for me to keep track of things. I edited some other CSS things in my website as well. Caroline had her mock interview in the afternoon, but also had reception, so for 30 minutes or so I took over reception for her. Tomorrow, I'm going to work on fixing the issue with user accessibility in my newdev and finish up the libraries task Ernie gave us. I also have scheduled my final stipend meeting with Ernie for tomorrow after lunch.
Jul. 31st, 2017
At the end of Friday last week, I spoke to Ernie about the problem that I was having with my database in MySQL. He let me know that it wasn't supposed to happen and gave me a hint on how to fix it. This morning I started by fixing it. I just had to make it so that it would only connect on an if statement. Leanne was having the same problem, so she helped me a little bit. Once the last id was properly working, I fixed the form and the CSS. Once I got everything working, I had all the apprentices put their information in the database and then I went and had the apprentices do the same. It all ended up working without the extra spaces in between their results! After that, I wrote the code that we had to query and put it in my syntax guide for reference. Then, I started working on my website. During the afternoon, I was mostly editing the CSS for my website and reading through my blogs, since we had to fix all spelling and grammar errors. It was kind of tedious and boring to go through the blogs, but I'm glad that I fixed the errors I did. After that, it was time to write our blogs and go home.
Jul. 28th, 2017
Today, I finished working on the dice roller database program. The program has forms where the user can put in their information. The user puts in their first name, last name, favorite color, shoe size, and how many times they want a dice to roll. Then, a table is outputted below with the rolls of the dice and all of their information. That was the easier part of the project. The more challenging part was to take the data that the user was inputting and save it to different tables in a database in Sequel Pro. The program I wrote uses PHP, HTML, MySQL, and links them all together. It was really difficult to start off, but I understood it more and more as I worked on it and I learned a lot from it. I worked on the program the entire day and finally finished towards the end. W3 Schools was very helpful in writing my program. After I finished, I went around and asked all of the apprentices to test my program, since that was the next part of the challenge. It all worked! There was a space in the People4 table every time someone inputted their information, I think just because of refreshing and stuff. I'll ask Ernie about it and fix anything if what's happening means it isn't completely working. After I finish all of that, I also have to ask all of the interns to put their information into my program and see if it works. Once I finish all that, I have to stand on one leg and flap my arms like a chicken and then I can start working on analyzing the data that I've collected. The analyzation of the data should be fairly easy, since we've previously used everything that we need in our syntax guide.
Jul. 27th, 2017
This morning, I was working reception. To start off, I went back to my PHP projects I had done in block two and checked the validation on a couple of them. I wasn't sure if I had finished validating one or two of them, so I finished the HTML validation. On Tuesday, I had made an HLD for my website and what I wanted to accomplish with the design of it. Today, I worked on implementing the designs I wanted in my website. I had previously made my vertical navigation bar into a horizontal one. I edited the CSS of my nav bar to make it more aesthetically pleasing and easier to work with. I also added a dropdown menu for Shodor Resources, instead of having it written out on the side. When I came back from lunch, I continued working on my website. I got a lot of parts of it to work the way I wanted it to. I also want to make a logo and make a couple more simple edits and I'll almost be done. After working on my website, I went back to work on the MySQL diceRollerDB program in PHP. It was challenging at first, but after talking through it with Ernie, it became a lot easier and I could keep working by myself individually. Hopefully, I'll finish the diceRoller program and get it fully working by tomorrow.
Jul. 26th, 2017
Ernie gave us a few challenges with PHP and MySQL to work on for today. To start off, we made a new database folder within our newdev. Within that folder, we put a copy of our dice roller program from Krista's Projects. We then edited the dice roller so that the user could only input numbers from 1 to 100. We also made a form and if(isset) statements so that the user could input their favorite color and their shoe size. Then, the program outputted their results. After that, we programmed in MySQL. We created a new table called DiceRoll. We were supposed to use the statements we had used to make the CoinFlip table and edited them to make the DiceRoll. The primary difference between the two tables was that CoinFlip outputted either heads or tails and DiceRoll outputted any number from one to six. Once we wrote all of the code in Atom, we copied and pasted it to MySQL and got it to work. I finished that earlier in the morning. For the rest of the day, I worked on another challenge that Ernie had given us if we were "Feeling Adventurous". It was fairly difficult to work with but I talked to Ernie and he'll help me with the bit I'm stuck on tomorrow. I also spent some time helping Felix and Caroline work on their PHP projects.
Jul. 25th, 2017
Today, we started by working on our MySQL syntax guide until Ernie was ready. Once he was ready, he started giving us a demonstration on relational databases. We used Atom to type out and save all the code that we were putting in the query in Sequel Pro. We made four different tables: People4, Shoe, FavColor, and CoinFlip. Within the tables, we made fields (columns) for what we wanted to define. In our People4, we made an id column and in the other three tables, we made peopleID columns. For People4, we included fName and lName; for Shoe, we included size; for FavColor, we included color; and for CoinFlip, we included results and position. Ernie earlier drew out a map on Google Sheets of how the relational database would work and we referred to that document throughout writing our code. Along with the tables we created, we also added the code for a primary key in People4 and the code for foreign keys in the rest. Once we all had that code, we put the bits into the query and fixed errors until it was up and properly running and all of us had our tables made. After that, we inserted the Google Sheets data into the proper tables and looked at how they all referred back to the People4 table. There was an arrow next to each row of information that, if clicked on, took you to the specific person who inputted that data. By the time we had finished all of that, it was time for lunch.
After lunch, we did a much shorter and more basic demo with Ernie on calling individual fields within tables and joining them together. Once we finished the demo, we worked on our MySQL syntax guide until we had finished all of it. I finished the syntax guide ahead of time, so I started writing the HLD document for my website that the people in block one had already done. Once I finished my HLD, I started working on my website and implementing the changes that I wanted to make. Tomorrow, we'll work on programming PHP with MySQL and doing different projects that we already know, but storing information about them in a database.
Jul. 24th, 2017
Today, we started working on databases. Ernie gave us a quick briefing on databases to start off. We all downloaded Sequel Pro and used the code Ernie gave us to make a table within Sequel Pro. Just like we did with PHP, we got a MySQL Syntax Guide. The table that we made was a table called "People" that listed everybody's first name, last name, favorite color, shoe size, and their result for a flip of a coin. Within the syntax guide, we were given many different functions and we had to figure out the code for them and list the results and the working code. Once we wrote the code, we had to run it through and make sure that it actually worked. Because we got to run it through with examples and make sure that all of our code was correct, I liked the Syntax Guide for MySQL a lot better than the one for PHP. I finished day 1 for the syntax guide early, so I started reading the five page document that Ernie linked for us. After a while, Ernie started explaining ER Diagrams and how they worked while Huny drew the examples up on the board. We're doing a demonstration of it tomorrow. Once we learn about relational databases, we can start working on day 2 of the syntax guide.