Week 19. Jan 7.11 2019 - michelle-qin/Portfolio GitHub Wiki

Finished documenting SPS (Snake Pendulum System) code, created new repo on DPEA and personal GitHub, pushed code. The arduino board has been sent to the students working in the machine shop who will implement the buttons in the final installation.

This week, I also had to complete a performance review. It was a great opportunity to reflect on my progress, work, and goals in the DPEA. I'd like to copy & paste the comments I wrote on the review here, as it serves as a great reminder of the progress I've made and the work still ahead: Throughout these past few months, I felt like I advanced my programming skills at the DPEA while consistently working hard and maintaining a positive attitude on any project. Recently, I completed a coding project for the Snake Pendulum System - a new installation that students are working on. That project in particular utilized much of the knowledge that I learned to complete the Zoetrope, so it gave me a great opportunity to solidify my knowledge on new material. That being said, there are still improvements that can be made towards organizing my code and committing to GitHub regularly. My goal is to continue to utilize the resources that the DPEA provides and work with mentors to further my understanding and complete my projects timely and successfully.

Currently, tinkering with AdaFruit's Circuit Playground Express. Getting familiar with its functions, operations, how to use it, etc. A similar product will be used for the "Ball Wall" - a new project that I am starting on (I'm not too familiar with the final design yet, but I believe it is an interactive wall which kids/users can move to direct balls to move in different directions). My role with this project is to implement sensors within the wall that can detect the balls' movements and change the course of their path accordingly.

Thus far, with the Adafruit playground, I've learned that it has many features, including a light and temperature sensor, very colorful LEDs, buttons, and a speaker. I've been following the tutorial that Adafruit provided (link here: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-circuit-playground-express/installing-mu-editor) to get more familiar with this project. So far, I've used MakerCode to familiarize myself with the functions, which is a program similar to Scratch in which you can control the playground through block-like code. The playground's functions all seem to be working successfully on command, and I think this product would be great to implemented in a DPEA project, as it has such a versatile palette of operations to work with.

After using MakerCode to get more familiar with basic functions, I'm moving on to Python. Stay tuned...