My Favorite Things

Well, ive been at EPGY for a couple of weeks now and im gonna miss it when i leave. My favorite things during EPGY were the activities and the classes (even though the food was pretty good).

Things i learned: A void function doesnt return anything. an integer function returns an integer. a function is a word that names something, while a data type stores information.

a function is a word that names something, while a class is something needed for the program to work.

a class is needed for the program to work and is the main idea of the code, while a data structure holds data types.

a function and anything closely related to it goes in curly braces.

the And Gate (&&) tells the computer that if both of the functions are working and true, this specific event will happen.

on the other hand, the Or Gate (II) says that if at least one of the functions is true, this specific thing will happen.

the best video games i played here at camp were probably This Is the Only Level, Armor Mayhem, and Effing Worms.

my favorite types of games are RPGs (role playing games)

here is a picture of my group and i at the Computer History Museum

Logic Game Simulator

this is a fun website that teaches you about functions in programming. it is really use full and it definitely helped me.

Computer History museum

so yesterday i went to the computer history museum about thirty minutes away from Stanford. it was a really fun and interesting experience. i got to sit in a Google street view car! yeah! i learned so many things about how computers first began, and the first programming , and the first typing systems. i highly suggest visiting this museum once in your life.

Once Upon a Time…

hey guys! today i played an interesting game. i’m not sure what it is called, but it is a story telling game. you are god, and you can move each person to different places in the picture to change the outcome in the future. this is a really fun game and i think people of all ages will find it amusing.

http://www.ludomancy.com/games/StoryTeller.html

 

Final Project Proposal-Riley and Raghav

The url beneath is a video that is similar to how we want our robot to work:

We are planning to build a robot that finds a ball in a specific order depending on the color. After it picks the ball up it will throw the ball.

This will be really cool because the robot will resemble a professional athlete.  Building a robot that can pick and throw a ball is very interesting. The robot will be on its own.

This is a Lego Robot Project.

Robot Arm

yesterday i was given a robotic arm to work with…

the robot arm would not follow the directions i gave it because the mad scientist Kevin:

 

 

messed with the arms code

so to fix it my partner and i had to fix the code. after a lot of testing and failure, we were able to fix the arm and make it do what it was supposed to do.

the robot arm would move left to right, up and down, and could grip things.

so the problem with the code on Eclipse is that it had a lot of errors. Eclipse gave us red lines which were errors we needed to fix, and it gave us yellow lines which were warnings that we could ignore. There were logic errors and compile errors. the compile errors were things that the computer noticed and needed to be fixed in order for the program to run. but logic errors were okay for the computer, but they didn’t make sense. these were errors such as: whenever you press the “left button” the arm would go up. but we were able to fix all these errors (with some help). we had to use libraries like the leJOS NXJ to allow the code to make sense to the computer.

the mad scientist kevin was actually quite mad. he had grammatical errors in his comments and the arm didn’t make sense at all in the beginning.

well stay tuned guys for more stories.

Tuper Tario Tros

hey guys! today i played a mario tetris game. you have to make blocks fall in the right place to allow mario to keep going. this is a pretty fun game. it is interesting and it makes you think on the spot. stay updated!

http://mariotetris.com/

 

Duolingo

today i tried a site called duolingo. it is made to help you learn a new language. this is not a game, and it could be fun if you are intrested. but on the downside it is not very efficient at teacvhing you a new language. oh well…

stay updated with my posts!

http://www.duolingo.com/#riles3240

 

 

Building My Robot

 

• my team is: team 2
• my team members are: Raghav, Aditya, and me Riley
• my robot is named: monster truck of fun!
• my experience with building my robot was really fun. this is how it went:
  • First we built the robot
  • Then we got the code from online
  • Then we created a new Java project called Bumper Car (because that was what the program was designed for)
  • Then we added the Libraries
  • Then we converted the Project
  • Then we uploaded the code to the Robot
  • The robot went forward, and whenever it hit a wall it would turn around and keep going. 

Java, Eclipse, and When Things Get Rough

 

• What is one way to start a new programming project in Java?
• What is an API?
• What is a getter and a setter (http://java.dzone.com/articles/getter-setter-use-or-not-use-0)?

getters and setters are accessors that are used in private classes instead of public class.

• What are the different languages for the Mindstorm NXT (http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2007/11/the-best-progra/)?

“The good news is that there are lots of replacement text-based languages for Mindstorms NXT, fromJava to Lua (or, if you want to stick with visual programming, you can also use LabView, the professional-grade language that NXT-G is based on).”

• What language will you be using to program your robot?

Java

• What is a prototype?

a prototype is a version of something that is simple and can be worked on and tested.

• Explain to someone how you swap 2 values in Java.

you have two “stalls” with each of them them holding a value. in order to swap the values you need to create a temporary stall to hold the value getting ready to be swapped. then you put value one in the temp and value two in stall one (which was previously holding value 1). then you put value one in stall two. this is the idea behind swapping.

• How does selection sort use 2 for-loops?

one loop finds the next smallest number, while the second loop actually swaps that number with the number in its spot.

• How do you print all the values from an array?

you say ‘System.out.println (array[]);

• What is the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat?

a thermometer tells temperature and a thermostat takes humidity. (maybe)

• Why is plagiarism bad?

it is not your work and is illegal

• How do you avoid looking like you are stealing someone’s code?

make it your own

• What are a few things you can do if you get really confused, lost, or stuck when trying to program?

you can look on the internet