my journal:)

I have so much work today, but it isn't actually that bad. I have a science test today, a math test tomorrow, and a precis for history due tomorrow as well. The science test will probably be hard and the math should be too, but I think (and hope) I will be okay. Computer Science has been pretty fun and I am enjoying writing this right now. I have an English essay in two weeks, and I'm hoping that I will end up doing well on that. For outside of school stuff, I hope that the Rays beat the Astros tonight because the Yankees play the winner of the game. I will write more when I have more stuff to write.

Today, I had a long computer science lab with Molly. We worked a lot on my website and looked at some Andy Warhol paintings. From the paintings we got ideas for the common themes of all the images on my website. We matched different colors together and the website looks very good. I am happy with my progress and will continue working on the project.

I have been working on my website this week, but the thing that took up the most time was probably my scratch project for the room that we are redesigning. I watched a video on how to use scratch and from there I was able to figure out most of it. I spent a lot of time on it this weekend (like four hours or so) and it turned out pretty successful. I am proud of my work and I am glad that Dylan worked hard on his project also. I think we are going to choose which one we want to work with and choose a path to go on. It should be a fun project and I hope it goes well.

This week, I didn't work as much on my website as I would have liked, but I did modify my "Let's Go Yankees" page. I reorganized the different images on the page and made them each link to a gif of a different player on the Yankees. I am proud of my computer science work to this point and I think that I am not working my website as much because there isn't so much I can do (of the stuff I can do, most of it would be during a lab in school). This week, I plan to keep working on my racing game and a work a little bit on website, like maybe adding a few things and fixing some bugs. I think I am at a very good point right now and I hope to keep up the work.

Today, I spent about two or three hours working on my Scratch Racing Game. The first task I had to achieve was making a lap counter for both the purple and blue cars. After I did that, I had to debug a lot of things because I had the same code in two different places which messed up the code as whole. It was frustrating debugging the problem because it took me a long time to figure out, but it was satisfying when I fixed it. After that, I made checkpoints on the track to keep people from cheating. I coded the game so each car had to hit all the checkpoints before a lap was counted. This step probably took the longest, but I was able to accomplish it eventually. And, last but not least, I made two backdrops that would appear depending on which car won the game (First to 2 laps). One said "Blue Wins" and the other said "Purple Wins". That step was fun and definetely the easiest step of today. Over the course of the week I am going to make the game and the backdrops look nicer, and once that happens, Dylan and I will link the game to MakeyMakey controllers so people can actually play our game.

Today in class we worked on the FizzBuzz Project. I worked with Dylan and we were able to figure out how to do it pretty quickly. We got the Fizz, the Buzz, and the FizzBuzz working perfectly fine, but there was a problem. When the FizzBuzz showed up, so did the Fizz and the Buzz by themselves. Unfortunately, this did not look good, so Dylan and I had to try to fix it. after class, I tried to do different things like saying "Don't Say" or "Hide" the separate Fizzes and Buzzes. These various probable solutions ended up failing. So, I decided that instead of writing "If Counter mod 15 = 0 say "FizzBuzz"", I said "If Counter mod 3 = 0 and If Counter mod 5 = 0 say "FizzBuzz"". This solution fixed the problem, and I was very happy it ended up working out. This was a very fun project to accomplish and it was awesome when I was able to complete it.

I didn't work much on my project this week, but this morning I did add one minor thing to my Scratch Racecar Project. I added that when the cars hit the white part, which means they've gone pretty far off track, they move the same speed as if they were on the green (grass). This helps the game a little bit because it used to be that once the car hit the white, it could not move, meaning the other car would pretty much automatically win. I will work on the project this week and hopefully try to link the controller up to the MakeyMakey controllers as soon as I can.

The Javasript for Cats artcile/information thing was interesting but also very confusing. I understood some of it and thought it was fun to be able to try out the functions and variables as I was tought it. This does not mean that I will immediately be a javascript genius, but I am a little bit more famililiar with it after the reading. I hope that I can continue to learn more about javascript so eventually I can use it effectively.

Today I attempted (and kind of succeeded) in making a calculator in javascript in Sublime Text. I wasn't sure how to do it at first, so I looked on W3 for help. I learned how to make a multiplication calculator, but I was only able to make one calculator (I decided to keep it multiplication). I may come in for a lab to work on it or try something else. I am proud of my attempts but not fully proud of the results. Click here for the calculator

Today, I worked on my racecar project on Scratch. I didn't work on the project itself, though, because I worked on making the MakeyMakey controllers for the project. I decided to use cardboard and tinfoil for the project and, after about an hour of work, I completed the process. It worked well which I am proud of. Unfortunately, it is very messy because of the amount of cords that are connected, but it works and that is what counts. I'm probably going to continue to work on the project this week if I can to prepare for the presentation of Friday in class.

Today, I presented my racecar project in Scratch to my computer science class. It worked, but I got some suggestions to add sound to the game. I decided to do it, and it actually turned out to be very easy. I found a racecar sound, edited it, and entered it into my code, and it worked. For the future, I may try to tweak the sound even more so it sound even better than it does now.

Today, tried to make a function in javascript, but I couldn't really figure out how to do it. I tried, but I knew I needed help. So, I went up to the 14th floor and had a lab with Molly. She showed me how to make the function, and it worked! I kinda get how to make a function but I definitely can't make it by myself yet. It is good that I have a "template" on my comouter so I can keeping learning how to work with functions in javascript.

Today is Friday the 13th, and today was still a really good day. I did a lot of computer science work. First, I edited my multiplication calculator with Molly's help. Then, I looked at my Islanders thing and decided not to change it because I wanted to work on an array. I had already gotten the links for the images I wanted, but I didn't know how to make a Javascript function by itself, especially with an array. I asked for Molly's help and she sent me a picture of her array so I could have something to work off of. It took me a while to make my thing, but it worked eventually. I had to debugg a lot (for around an hour) but I eventually got it to work. My array is a generator of different New York sports teams. I posted it along with my calculator and Islanders thing to my website.

Today I posted the mockup of my present idea for my mom onto my website. It was fun and it didn't take too long. There isn't much else for me to say except that I am really excited for winter break!

Today I made my disappear project featuring Diego Schwartzman. Miller and I were able to do a little bit, but we still needed some help doing the random positioning and the random sizing. Molly showed me how to do the positioning, and from there, I was able to figure out the sizing on my own. It was nice to able to figure it out myself because I will be able to remember it better and because it made me feel more accomplished.

I didn't make anything new today. This journal entry is meant to explain how my Diego Shwartzman project works. Once I made the function that created the Diego divs, I needed to make them change sizes and move around. What I did was I added the style elements to the function I made. I did the Math.random thing to pick random widths and heights and to choose random latitudes and longitudes. I made the Disappear button as well by making a button with a function that makes the opacity 0. This was a very fun project.

Today I worked on the Valentine for my dad and added it to my website. The way the valentine works is like this: I made an array with ten different images of or related to my dad. Then, I made a button that chooses a random image that is within the array when it is pressed. I also made a div with a title and a heart div. I'm probably going to keep working on the valentine until the Valentine's Day to keep improving it.

Today in class I worked on a design that I could eventually draw in scratch. I doodled the design below over the course of the class, and I think it looks pretty cool. When I work on it in scrtach, I will have to be able to draw one segment of it and then repeat that segment over again for any number of times. This should be a fun project and the end product will be very cool.

Today at home I did a drawing of a mirror mask that could possibly be invisible to security cameras on the streets. The drawing of the mirror mask can be seen below. The mask part is a bunch of little mirrors that line an ordinary mask. The other part is a little more complicated. It is a cube with two sides (the botton and an adjacent side) cut out. Each side facing out is lined with one mirror while the inside is made like a batting helmet in baseball so it fits confortably on the wearer's head.This clever contraption would reflect all light that hits it because the entire thing is covered by mirrors. This was a fun project.

After listening to the podcast about how algorithms are used in the sentencing of criminals, I realized how these algorithms can sometimes fatally convict someone of a crime they did not commit. When it comes to the conviction of different races, people of color are often convicted more often than white people. This could lead to an algorithm that is "racist". Because more people of color are convicted, the algorithm will be more likely to sentence a person of color than a white person for the same crime. I think that a reliance on algorithms is not the right way to go. Instead, the decisions should be made by using a combination of the algorithms as well as standard hearings. This would most likely paint a more accurate picture of the crime in question.

After reading the articles, I thought it was very interesting how much humans actually play a part in the education of AI and how they go about this task. I knew that people created AI and had to teach them, but I didn't think that all of this lasso-ing and boxing of different things was necessary to teach them. Simply put, I thought there was an easier way. Also, with the pornography and graphic stuff; I wasn't at all expecting that and I thought that part of the work was quite disturbing.

On a separate note, I worked on the glitch thing with Miller today, and we made the circles become colorful based on the position of the mouse. It is pretty cool and hopefully we can keep making it better. A link to the project is below.

Click here to see the project!!!