David Keatts -- Shodor

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My name is David Keatts. Through Shodor's apprenticeship program, I have learned how to use these programs:

Through Shodor's apprenticeship program, I have also learned to program in various computer languages:

Lastly, I have also gained various skills while at Shodor, some of which are:

Basic System Administration
Clean Programming Markup
Group Communication
Independent Learning

Future Goals

My experience at Shodor has been educational, auspicious, and pleasurable. I have learned how to use many additional computer programs to accelerate my productivity. To list some skills that I have gained and reinforced through my Shodor apprenticeship, I have skill in website creation, graphic creation, computer model creation, and mathematics. I've also learned about work ethics and how to work well with others.

I have learned much, and I plan to learn more. I wish to expand my knowledge in the areas of programming and website creation, specifically Bash, PHP, and XML. In school, I plan on taking Advanced Computer Programming and two math classes (Algebra II and Pre-Calculus). At Shodor, I wish to work on projects on those three subjects, and expand to others that I haven't yet been introduced to.

I have no absolute career goals in mind yet. I know that I enjoy and profess in general programming, but I don't feel that one specific task has seized me. I will continue to expand my programming knowledge with an open mind.

General Information

My name is David Jonathan Keatts. I am a student at Riverside High School and a Marching Pirate in the Riverside Marching Band and Symphonic Band. I am interesting in Computer Programming and Orchestral Music. This is my main website for my computer-related information.

For other things, you can see my other website.

Update: my other website is no longer maintained.

Computer Code Interest

For my age, I am fairly knowledgeable on computer coding. I have learned numerous different programming languages inside and outside of school, and some in Shodor. My first programming language was HTML, and it's probably the language I use most often. Some programming languages I know are:

Music Interest

I play many interests and listen to some generally forgotten genres of music. This isn't to say that any of the music is bad or shouldn't be listened to, especially since most of it doesn't have lyrics, so you never really have an explicit tag.

I am currently enrolled in a high level Symphonic Band at Riverside High School, as well as my school's Marching Band. I play 2nd Soprano Clarinet in both bands. I have 3.5 years of experience in the band, 1.5 of which being on Clarinet and 2 of them being on Alto Clarinet. I also play the piano. I have 6 years of piano experience, but I no longer take lessons. However, I do still play my piano. I also play the trumpet and congo drum. I wish to expand to Alto Saxophone.

I listen to largely orchestral music, rather than the modern genres such as Rock, Pop, Rap, etc.

Recently I have opened up a music stream with my music library. It is hosted directly from my home computer. If you wish to listen, to my music stream, you can download this m3u from here. If the M3U doesn't download correctly, try again later.

Vensim

Vensim is a program to create math based workflows to generate interpretable graphs. It is writted for Mac OS 9, which means that it is old and buggy. I also doubt that the average computer user has used Vensim, so rather than providing a vensim file, I'll provide a screenshot. In this screenshot, I have modeled the "medication level" of someone who is taking a medication of 750mg every 8 timesteps. They also start taking at timestep 4 and periodically excrete a percent of the medication. The image is here.

Microsoft Excel

I have some experience in Microsoft Excel that allows me to create tables and charts that dynamially update as you change information via a friendly interface of objects, such as sliders. One of my first excel documents was to model the spread of disease. This worksheet can be downloaded here.

Graphics

I have intermediate skills in graphic design with many programs such as Inkscape, Adobe Flash, Adobe Fireworks, and basic skills in GIMP. Currently, this website does not have as many graphic elements as I'd like to see, but previous website designs of mine have leaned towards heavy use of graphics.

Agentsheets

I have learned basic skills in Agentsheets which allow me to create simple Agentsheet models. Although I do not use Agentsheets frequently, I still retain the knowledge of how Agentsheets functions. A sample of my Agentsheets expertise can be found here.

Netlogo

Although my skill in Netlogo is fairly basic, my skill in Netlogo is far superior to my skill in Agentsheets. I have created numerous models using Netlogo, and I understand how a great portion of the Netlogo script (the code) works. A sample of my Netlogo expertise can be found here here.

Shodor Class -- 09-05-10

During this class, we learned about using an old Mac OS 9 program called Vensim to create non-graphical models. By non-graphical models, I mean models that don't have pretty interfaces that show you things happening, such as Agentsheets. Although, the interface you use to do all of the math is actually fairly visual. It involves creating lots of variables in boxes, and using arrows to connect them. Back in the Mac OS 9 days, this was probably great. It can create charts and tables, so it pretty much falls into the same category as Microsoft Excel, just with a lot less support!

Shodor Class -- 08-04-26

Today the class learned about using equations and sliders in Microsoft Excel to create dynamically updating graphs (or as Excel refers to them, charts) as well as tables. I like using Microsoft Excel, but not actually because of how it functions or the interface, but just because, being part of Microsoft Office, is the standard format. But, I do like Microsoft Excel for complex number crunching. I've used it before for game-related number crunching, and it works quite well. I imagine that it would excel (hah... hah...) in any area involving using lots of variables in one large equation.

Shodor Class -- 08-03-01

This week I expanded my Netlogo project. My original Netlogo project demonstrated populations of males and females moving and reproducing. In my new Netlogo project, I added a contagious disease, a quarantine zone for the disease, and doctors to cleanse people of the disease. I am going to use this model as a "cheat sheet" for my group project. By this I mean I'm going to use the scripting in this one as a reference in case I forget how a certain code functions, or how to use code to achieve a certain effect, etc.

Shodor Class -- 08-02-16

This class we learned about CSS. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is used to stylize your web page. Like HTML, I already knew about CSS beforehand, but I refreshed my knowledge and learned some addition CSS while I was at it. Now my web page is using two to three times as much CSS as it was before, and I plan to use even more. I did however run into some CSS problems that I haven't been able to fix so far, which is part of the reason that if you're not using the Safari web browser the links on the top of the logo might be mis-aligned.

Shodor Class -- 08-02-08

Today, I continued to develop a three-column layout for my web page at Shodor. I hope to expand this into multiple skins and multiple pages later. Before now, I've been using a two-column layout, which is not capable of showing as much informatino as a three-column layout. Because of this, there is now some information that wasn't previously here. I added some websites that I frequent and some website badges.

Shodor Class -- 08-01-19

This week I learned about using Agentsheets. Agentsheets is a program that allows you to create simulations. Agentsheets uses predefined If, Then statements to determine what to do. So far, Agentsheets seems like an easy way out of making simulations, and for lack of a better word, looks a little childish. The fact that you use a graphical interface rather than a text-based code certainly doesn't help.

Shodor Class -- 07-12-22

During this class, we learned more CSS and the advanced few of us learned how to hide and show divs in HTML. Divs group objects in HTML, at which point you can treat them as whole objects. I utilized this by treating the paragraphs on this page (one of which you're reading now) as divs. We also learned javascript, which you can observe by clicking on the titles of the posts. I also added a linkbar to the left of the page.

Shodor Class -- 07-12-08

Shodor Class -- 07-11-12

During this class, we learned about Inkscape and GIMP. Both programs are used to create and manipulate images, and both are ported over from other operating systems using X11, but there are two important differences. Inkscape uses vector graphics while creating images and GIMP uses bitmaps. I personally prefer Inkscape because of it's usage of vectors, and it's more like Adobe Flash than GIMP. I might try GIMP some more if it weren't so confusing to me.

Shodor Class -- 07-10-27

Over the course of October 27th we learned Shodor's rules and basic HTML. I, however, learned HTML when I was 11, and that was four years ago. Although I knew all of the tags, there is one thing that I learned. I learned that the line break code is br /. Before now, I've always used br, and they both function the same, but I like keeping my code clean and etiquette.

My History in Math and Science -- 07-10-27

I feel that my experience in Science and Math is advanced for my age group, however I believe I could excel beyond the stage that I currently am at. I am currently a freshman at Riverside High School (One of Durham County's best public high schools, if not the best).

I am in Honors Biology at RHS. Honors Biology is the most advanced science class a freshman is allowed to take. In middle school as well, I was in the most advanced of the advance science classes. During the '06-'07 science fair, I was granted an honorable mention for my science project "How pH affects Aspirin". During Summer of '07, I went to the Shodor SSP program and learned about many different science-related subjects, most of which were aided with the use of computers.

I am in Honors Geometry at RHS. Sadly, however, this is the second most advanced math class, and I feel that I should've been placed in the most advanced class. In middle school, I was placed in Pre-Algebra while the rest of the "smart kids" were placed in Algebra. At the time, I didn't think much of it, but I regret it now. In 8th grade I was given an award for being the smartest of that specific 8th grade algebra class.