Journal Entries

7/10

I have used Linux before. I am a part of Troy High School’s CyberPatriot Program, and I specialize in Linux. I have very, very bad memories of struggling and dying inside working with it, so seeing it here at Cosmos shocked me for a second. Working with it here for the first day was not too bad, and the only bad thing about the Linux workshop was that everything was very laggy. 

7/11

I learned that my roommate really enjoys robotics, and also does FRC just like me. He volunteers at the Calacademy and at his church, he teaches younger kids about robotics using lego mindstorm. 

7/13

Today, we went to Cal Academy in San Francisco. At the Academy of Science, one thing that could be connected to a robotics project could be the fake animals in the animal exhibit. I think they are just taxidermy, and aren’t really that interesting. They could be turned into animatronics, which could be more entertaining to the museum guests. Some parts like the head of animals could move, like a lion baring its fangs. Something interesting there was the Dark Universe video in the observatory. At first I thought it would be a typical science lecture and would be boring. However, I found it to be extremely immersive and interesting, and I would definitely go to watch it again. It was Neil deGrasse Tyson narrating about the universe’s origin and how it is constantly expanding. I sort of fell asleep in the middle, and every time I woke up, I thought I was going to fall. It was a great experience there overall, and I would love to go back sometime. 

7/14

I got used to working with the motor commands quickly, but I struggled with the strings in BioPhysics. I will need to ask more about how certain strings work in some scenarios.

7/17

Some  new coding concepts included dictionaries, which I was used to. However, it took me a while to understand tuples. I might use dictionaries or lists to store amino acid letters to create DNA sequences.

7/18

When  encountering frustrating situations beyond my control, I try to find someone who can help me. I feel i let it "get to me" much too often.

7/20

Computers represent floating point numbers like pi  using binary fractions. I  should use a list  to contain strings and  numbers, while an array is used when a lot of  data that doesn't have to be changed is stored. I  compare myself to others in my class, and I view it as crippling stress.

7/25

Someone might utilize the gears in  all the exhibits we saw at the Exploratorium for the robotics  design. They help improve the strength and make ways to turn objects. I will implement it into the boba shaking mechanism.

7/31

From the robotics boba carrying project, I hope to learn the best way to make a robot that  can traverse bumpy terrain while also maintaining a good speed and tracking. From BioPhysics, I hope that I will get used to coding more. 

8/1

I got sick today and couldn't make it to the lessons to work on the project, so I just helped make the presentation for both. We have already finished the robot, but the presentation is still in progress and so is the BioPhysics code.

8/2

The philosophy is something that I find difficult to adopt.  Most of my life I have been comparing myself to others, so I find it hard to veer away from that. I think practice is the best way to impove my perspective on it.