Everyone Can Code Video

This weeks blog post assignment is to write different things about a video we watched. I am going to be writing about a man who invented an app with code to control electricity. I find it very interesting how you are able to control huge amounts of energy all from a tap on your phone. I think it’s really amazing to see people create things like these that can really revolutionize the world. The app he just created wouldn’t be possible without coding because coding allows certain things to connect and control other things, if it didn’t have that the app would be of no use. Keira (a girl who constantly appeared in the video) said that almost anybody can learn code, and that is helpful to know so that you always know that within time will come success in coding.

Work with Spreadsheets

In this weeks work for Computer Tech, we had to make a spreadsheet with information about something we were interested in. It had to include a graph, an image relating to the subject, the information itself, and a formula that you coded allowing the computer to do the calculation. Below is my spreadsheet:

My spreadsheet was about the population growth of different countries in North America. It included the Country and then the percentage of population growth. It also included and image of North America, a graph to display the information, and the average population growth calculated by the computer. Here is the graph I made:

I added my formula by:

1. Tapping on a box with information I need to create it

2. Dragged it down to select all the information I need

3. Clicked the average button on the bottom of my screen

By creating this spreadsheet I learned about the different population growth stats of North America. I learned this by the chart and the information I put in. I think spreadsheets would be helpful for calculating athletes stats and storing their information. I’m sure professional sports leagues use something like this to keep track of their players stats.

Math tutorial

Above this text there is a screenshot about a code I created in a tutorial, I am showing this because in this weeks work we had to take two tutorials on Tynker. I chose to do two about math and I’m going to be talking about them, in the first lesson I answered math questions a character asked me and then I had to remake that code, but I got to change how it looked. After I finished that part I had to take a quiz about the things I’ve learned in math from this lesson. It was about prime numbers and square roots. For the second lesson it was the same process, I had to answer questions a character asked me, then remake the code while changing how it looks, and then take a quiz on the math knowledge I had learned from the lesson. The lesson was about how to calculate averages. In these tutorials, the say and answer blocks are used to quiz you on a school subject. The tutorials really show how coding and technology helps you learn things and makes things easier to do. If you look at the picture above you will be blue to see the blocks I used for this code, a few I learned how to use were function and answer blocks. Those blocks opened up so many other possibilities to Tynker that I never knew existed. Overall, I thought this weeks work was fun to do and taught you a lot about Tynker.

Quizlet Game

In my quizlet project I asked 4 math questions that you had to answer with the correct answer. If you got it right, my character would say, “Correct!” If you got it wrong my character would say, “Incorrect.” I thought it would be fun to use math as the school subject for this project because math is one of my favorite subjects. I looked over my classmates projects and I especially liked Elan’s. I liked her project the most because I liked the background, character, font of the questions, and the questions themselves!  I liked the background and character particularly because I thought they matched up well. The overall environment felt like a teaching area and that made it feel realistic. Overall I really liked this project and it was very fun to do.

Music Video

This week in computer tech class we were asked to make a “Music Video” however we like! I will be talking about Griffin Kong’s video or “Gk Music Video”. To start off I will be talking about what I liked about the project, I particularly liked how catchy the song was and how it matched with the background. It sounded like farm music which fit the background because the background was a farm. I also liked the 4 chicks walking and dancing, I felt like chicks also matched the farm environment this project had. Next I will be talking about what I liked in the animation! In the animation I rly liked how the chicks were walking and dancing perfectly synced with each other. It really made everything feel even and very smooth. I thought the music really matched the chicks movements and that made it much more fun to watch than  if the music didn’t match the chicks movement. Lastly I am going to talk about what I liked in the soundtrack! As I previously said, I like how the soundtrack is catchy and fits the movement of the chicks and fits the environment. However, I also enjoyed the song itself not just for how well it matches with the project but it really wanted to make you dance! Whenever you find songs like those you know it’s a good one.

About Me Project and Programming 201

This week in computer/ tech class we had to create an About Me project and practice are Tynker skills. In this blog post I’m going to talk about those two things, while practicing Programming 201 I completed activity’s that were about making your character do things like getting my character around objects and reaching certain points. The main reason I like Tynker is because there are many possibilities and you can be very creative with it. It’s almost like your own world you can control. I also think that sometimes it can be difficult to understand how all the different coding blocks work together but for the most part it is pretty well organized. One of the things I learned to do in Tynker is to program a character to do something after it gets touched, I though that was pretty cool.

Moving on to the About me project, I put a Christmas tree and candy cane to represent how much I like Christmas. I made them play festive music and sound effects when they got touched! I also included a picture of a Basketball spinning another basketball on it’s finger, this represented how much I love basketball. I made it so when the basketball is touched it makes a splash sound like a ball going through a net. I also put a picture of chicken wings that played happy music when touched to show how much I love chicken wings. I often used the block “When actor touched” to code. I incorporated that block from Programming 201 where we learned how to code with that block. I thought my project was super cool and I hope you do too!

Computer Science is Changing Everything

In the video, I was very interested in the company Brett worked for. I noticed that the company he worked for (0Power) was made to save energy and I wanted to learn more. Some of the questions I had were, “Does 0Power only save energy from particular things?”, “Is the company very well known?”, “Are there a lot of other companies competing with them to be the most well known energy saving company?”, and “Do there products run off of solar power?”. In addition to those questions, after Brett told us that 0Power had saved the energy of about 1.1 million cars, I had a few questions. I was wondering how much he thought that saved energy impacted the world? And also, did that energy get stored or go to other use? If it went to other use, what was it used for? I think it is amazing how computer science is allowing people to make products like these and I hope it continues to impact our world in a great way!

Capstone Blog Post 3

We completed our research and did the interview so we had all the information we needed. Then it was time to decide what type of format we were going to share our Capstone in. I chose a video! I chose a video because I like the style most. I am also more familiar with videos than any other option.

From start to finish of my video, I really enjoyed putting the slides with the information. It was fun to see all your work make one big thing.

I didn’t really face any major challenges while making the video, but I did face one decent challenge. I realized my slides had to be shorter to keep the watcher interested. It wasn’t so hard to fix, though. I just said some of the things I wanted to say on that slide and moved the other things to another slide.

I am looking forward to sharing my final project because when you work at something you want there to be a result to share.

 

Capstone Blog Post 2

Recently I interviewed Juan Uro to help with my Capstone project. He was a former Executive Vice President of League Finance and Global Strategy of the NBA. I chose him because he worked with a lot of General Managers (GM’s) and he understood a lot of it relating to basketball.

It wasn’t so hard to set up the interview because he used to work at the same company my dad does so we had all of his contacts. He was also my dad’s friend so he would more likely do a favor for him.

I asked a lot of questions about what the most important skills were for a GM and why. I also asked a lot of questions about NBA GM’s, especially Danny Ainge. It was hard to come up with questions at first and as he answered my questions I kept thinking of more and more questions. Those questions I was thinking of were answered anyway. 

It was a fun experience having the interview and thank you for reading this blog post!

 

Capstone Blog Post 1

A little while back we started a Capstone unit. It is where you pick a topic you’re interested in and you do research, conduct an interview, and then you make a slideshow out of it. Today I will be talking about the research portion of it. 

But before I could start research, I had to find a topic. I love basketball but I already knew so much about it so I went with something that interests me and I didn’t know so much about so I could do research. What I chose was General Managing. I still wanted it to relate to basketball and that was fine. Because teams are managed and the NBA is managed.  

Now I had to come up with my main inquiry question. After some thinking my question became, “What are the six most important skills for a general manager and how does Danny Ainge apply them to managing the Boston Celtics?” I chose to relate it to the Boston Celtics because they are my favorite team and the most successful team in NBA history. It wasn’t super hard to come up with the question but it was still relatively hard. 

Something that helped is my teacher because we brainstormed ideas together and we kept narrowing it down until we found the one. Something that was a challenge was making it something that was exciting to me, not just good for the topic. I made sub questions and researched about them and now I have a lot of notes on my topic. 

Come back for the next post on Capstone!