Journal
Daily Journal: consisting of my thoughts here at Cosmos
7/10/2023 - Monday
Well, I made it, I’m here, I didn't really expect it. It’s already been more than 24 hours here and I am feeling pretty comfortable with the environment and people. Obviously some things aren’t perfect, but making new friends, connections, and learning new things is great. The dorms are bigger than expected, the food is okay, the campus is nice, and the people are friendly, so that’s all good. Things that are not as great are the blankets, since they are hard, rough, and weird, but hey, I can use them as towels. Other than that, there aren't too many vegetarian options for the food. Another thing that is quite challenging is the card reader, it doesn’t read my card and I have to keep retrying and retrying. My card never works for entering the dining commons and the employees keep looking at the screen confusingly and tell me to swipe again and again. For academic things, we learned about the command line interface, graphical user interfaces, types of computers, programming, and more. The command line interface can be used to directly access something; I believe it’s the terminal or command prompt.The GUI is where the user interacts with the computer and there are graphics and all that, like regularly using the computer.
7/11/2023 - Tuesday
I spoke to my roommate who is in Cluster 8, Internet of Things (IoT), about what they did today and learned about the intricate things they learned in class, however, they did not perform any lab today. Today, Tuesday, since it is the beginning of Cosmos, they are as of right now just learning about C programming, which I found interesting since we are learning Python, but I assume it’s different since they working with different things and there are factors in programming languages that affect what you can use programming languages for. They also learned about what capacitors, sensors, and more are and how they work. My roommate found that the most interesting thing that he learned was how sensors worked and explained to me in a bit of detail how it takes signals using capacitors and makes that into digital signals for the sensors to work.
7/12/2023 - Wednesday
The novel, Outsmart Your Brain, which we are reading for our class, talks about if you are understanding a lecture when you think you understand. It talks about if what you are hearing is infiltrating your mind and if you are processing the information and understanding what is going on only by actively listening. The novel illustrates a picture where if someone came up to you and told you to explain a concept or answer a question correctly, and you could, that means that you understood the lecture properly and gathered and stored that information in your mind since you were able to answer or explain something without help, meaning that you understand the concepts. And I completely agree, I mean you can answer something correctly or explain a concept in depth without the help of a textbook or online help. Therefore, you understand it. Additionally, if you sometimes connect the topic with something related to the topic, and it is a correct correlation, then that is somewhat a sign that you understand the topic, lecture, and everything that is going on as you sit in your chair and actively listen. Understanding a lecture has many factors and it depends on what works for you, and if you can get something out of the lecture at the end of the day. One big way to test if you understood a lecture, is if you are able to re-explain the concept.
7/13/2023 - Thursday
Today we went to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for a field trip where we learned a lot about animals, plants, the environment, different parts of the world, the universe, and more. While we are learning about robotics here at UC Davis, it’s hard to connect what we are learning to the exhibits and topics there at Cal Academy. However, amid all the topics and experiences, is the anaconda tightening experience, where although it is a small type of robotic experience, it still has a connection to a robotic project. When you stick your arm in the machine, it senses the presence of your arm and starts squeezing it to a certain point and then comes loose after a little time. It is programmed to sense, trigger, and stop functioning for a duration of certain times. Additionally, the earthquake simulator uses robotics which they program to make people stand on the floor to experience the two big earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Since they can’t do the actual amount of the actual earthquakes, they program the machines below the floor to perform such motions that don’t simulate the actual amount of the earthquakes for a duration of time. I am fascinated with the big pendulum that Cal Academy has as I originally thought it was some sort of clock. However, after further research, I found out it’s neither a clock nor compass yet a Foucault pendulum where gravity makes the pendulum swing forward and backward with the rotation of the Earth on its axis which causes a little force resulting in the pendulum switching directions a bit, causing the metal pins to be knocked over at a certain time.
7/14/2023 - Friday
I am quite comfortable with working with basic motor commands in robotics while still needing to learn more about the other ones I don’t understand that well. I am very comfortable with using the basic movement controls for the motors, making the robot move in a certain way. Additionally, I am comfortable with strings in Biophysics but the syntax is a bit weird as it is Python and not Java which I am more used to. I don’t have any questions as of right now as these things are a bit basic. I didn’t fully understand what the instructors were talking about for cognitive illusions, but after further research on the topic, I realized that it’s basically a visual illusion that tricks the brain’s perception of things. I don’t struggle with this in class as I don’t see this appear in class, but if I were to, then it would make me have a less understanding of the topic at hand and learn the wrong thing. Overall, if I am confused then I would ask the instructor for clarification on the topic if this happens.
7/17/2023 - Monday
In our adventure through Python in biophysics, we are learning about how to use Python and the different attributes in it. Although I haven’t learned all of what is supposed to be done in week 1, I have learned much about types, functions, containers, and more. I have known most of the things taught in Python in Java except for dictionaries and tuples which I haven’t learned about before and are new. I can use dictionaries in Python to hold key-value data that I might need for other things in the program, depending on what my project goals are. From Dr. Dad-del’s story on stones, I learned about the importance of gathering information and knowledge from everything I do. I should grab the “pebbles” from every lecture and experience and keep those “in my pocket” for down the road. Applying this to my life, I should always pick out the most important things from a lecture, notes, reading, experience, etc., and have them with me always. If I had an interesting real-life or non-real-life story that had a very important moral, then if I would see Dr. Dad-del and it applied to the situation or circumstance, I would tell the story.
7/18/2023 - Tuesday
While working in the lab today for robotics I learned about how to use and format the color sensor so that the robot can pick up the reflected color and move in a desired way; using loops to make sure the robot will keep going until it reaches a certain color. Additionally, I didn’t realize that this was going to be hard until the end of the lab today where I didn’t finish the objective. It was one of the objectives on the challenge chart for robotics as we had to trigger music with the color on the floor which was a pain since it kept detecting the color of the floor and the numbers for reflected light kept changing since the time of day changed. However, when I encounter a frustrating situation like the one I did today, I either keep it in my head or I say “Why??” in a crying-joking manner, because for me, for some reason, it makes me feel less frustrated and I keep going to improve it. Usually, I do handle it well, but at times it can “get to me” and I just stop doing what I’m doing and give up for a few minutes or seconds, get frustrated, and then get back to work.
7/19/2023 - Wednesday
I don’t fully understand how to convert negative numbers, complex numbers, and floating point numbers into ones and zeros (binary). But I do understand how to convert these using my system. Negative numbers will have a negative sign with the number of ones contributing the singular number with hyphens in between to differentiate. For complex numbers, have a negative sign next to a zero. For floating numbers have zero represent decimal points. Well, as the one who created the presentation and presented it, with the help of my partner, on how to prepare and study for tests, he and I picked up on many skills as we had to reread the chapter many times and pick up concepts. To prepare and study for tests you want to use the three principles of memory which many good tactics use. These three principles of memory include memory as the residue of thought (think about meaning), organization helps memory, and retrieval practice. Additionally, use only what you make, meaning no found materials by making your own study guides because you study as you make them and learn better. There are more tips, however, these are the essentials and main points.
7/20/2023 - Thursday
To store pi, the computer converts it to binary code and stores it in a fixed number of bits, so that means that there are limitations. Floating numbers such as pi won’t be as precise since there is a limitation to the number of numbers the computer can store, so it is actually a rounded amount or the amount the computer can fit. You should use a list when there are various data types, want to change something. Arrays can hold large amounts of data and you can also turn that into a matrix as well. So more than one line of data. In some way, at least as of right now, I do compare myself to others in the classroom, as I feel like the slowest one in the class, at times, who doesn’t understand some things in Python while others do. It’s a bit of both healthy motivation and crippling stress as I feel motivated to keep trying, learning, and catching up in coding, however stressful as I feel like I’m falling behind and not doing as great.
7/24/2023 - Monday
Third week, time flies! Prime numbers are used in novel situations, such as finding a perfect number. According to further research on perfect numbers, there have been no findings on an odd perfect number, so it is very unlikely that there are odd perfect numbers. My thoughts on writing journals are mutual, I don’t find them necessary to learning but for memories, a bit like a diary but not a diary at the same time. I think that writing journals are a good way to remember the things you have done in the past when you read them later in the future, like photos! But with words.
7/25/2023 - Tuesday
The Exploratorium was an astounding place with many hands-on activities focusing on inventions and just science in general. Something that intrigued me the most was the machine that dropped dry ice into the water, causing the dry ice to act like a comet and perform a concept known as random walk. Since dry ice sublimates, especially when being directly in contact with water, it goes from solid to gas forming clouds and shooting the dry ice in various directions while bouncing off the walls. Additionally, there was a huge, well-built contraption in the Exploratorium that leads a ball down to the bottom, like a giant jungle with passages in it. Someone could use robotics to raise and lower the balls to a certain position and move the holder, containing the balls at a certain angle to tip the balls into the hole and that would make the balls start going through the passages, and then the robot could also collect the balls and redo the process so that a person doesn’t have to come after a certain time to redo it themselves. Also, however, while being at the Exploratorium, I couldn’t find anything that inspired anything for my robot project as it’s a game setter, there was nothing that focused on how robots move and work while raising or lowering something. There wasn’t anything on the construction of the robot that fits into what my partner and I are working on. Overall though, the experience was fun and worth it.