OBJECTIVE:  Write a paragraph for each chapter read in The Pattern on the Stone and explain how the text connects to your project or personal experiences. The entire class is reading this book, so summarizing isn't necessary. Help us understand your unique perspective and how you relate to the book.

CHAPTER 1:  The first chapter, "Nuts and Bolts", introduces the reader to how computers think.  Boolean logic is introduced, as well as the functions "And", "Or", and "Invert".  This is kind of like the base level and the smallest components that all sorts of programs can be created.  I relate to the ideas in this chapter because I think the best way to approach projects is by first dividing them into the smallest steps possible and then combine them in a logical and efficient manner.  I even take this idea a step further and use it in daily life, especially when I'm stressed or overwhelmed.  Breaking down bigger tasks into smaller parts, and even grouping these parts into different sections makes even the most daunting task seem so much more manageable.  

CHAPTER 2:  In this chapter, entitled "Universal Building Blocks",  the author talks more abstractly and introduces concepts such as game trees and binary rules.  He specifically brings up two types of projects that I have worked on as well: a rock, paper, scissors game as well as a digital clock.  Before reading this chapter, I didn't know that the way I created the rock, paper scissors game was called a "combinational function", so that was interesting to learn.  It was also interesting to see how the inputs and outputs of the game would look if it were a binary function, which is something new I learned as well. For the digital clock, I learned that it is called a "finite-state machine".  Prior to reading this chapter, I didn't know about these concepts and just worked on these projects based on my own logic, so I'm glad to have this deeper knowledge about things I have already created so I can apply them to future works.  I have embedded the game (which is interactive) and the clock below, as well as their respective code.  

CHAPTER 3:  The third chapter, "Programming", talks about how programmers use programing languages to communicate with computers.  It also talks about how the computer actually uses this information and turns it into something the computer understands to complete the task at hand.  Then it goes on to describe the hierarchy, or the process of how a computer works from the most complicated step down to the simplest step.  I will have to admit it will take me some more time to fully understand the finer workings of computers that were described in this chapter, but moving forward, I will keep the idea of hierarchy in mind as I create programs.  I also feel like my experience with learning programming languages so far is similar to what is described in this chapter, in that they are all similar in many ways so you become familiar with them faster as you go along. This gives me confidence as I continue to learn more complicated things as well as different languages.  As I improve my skills, I hope to become more of a "poet" as it was put so nicely in this chapter.