#COMP570

[imagineitbetter]

My first program What!!!?  Hello Zoog!! She’s so stoked!

[emilysmithbct]

[icanmakelifeeasier]

This week I learned my first code. Programming is a puzzle that combines some math calculation. Question 8 was challenging for me because it limited the amount of triangle (only 4 triangles). I have to think of 4 triangles that covered a whole picture. I had a great time to play with Hello Zoog too.

[briefdelusiondestiny-bct]

Programming assignment 1

The comp570 assignment was surprisingly fun. We were required to analyse and understand code that utilises aspects of Processing that we have discussed in class and some other minor aspects that were new to us. We then had to modify the code by integrating our new insights with the knowledge we had already accumulated. When  I was first found out about this  assignment I thought it was going to be a horrible experience. This mindset stemmed from struggling in several of the tutorial questions and not being completely comfortable with all the different areas of programming we had covered up until this point. When I first approached the assignment I didn’t get very far , and so a short time later I got up and walked away. My lack of progress was probably down to my negative mindset, which didn’t allow me to learn  and adapt to what was being asked of me. Later when I revisited the assessment I changed my mindset to something more positive and things started to workout.

During the learning stages (so in class lectures and tutorial exercises) for me the best way to learn something new was to just play around with it and get familiar with what everything meant and did. This often resulted in figuring out the answers to my questions or the tutorial exercises. I ended up using this same approach with this assessment. My other source of learning was the processing.org forum. If there was something I didn’t understand or needed further clarification with that was the first place I would go.

For next time things I could change are:

·       Not approach the assignment with such a negative mindset

·       Go back and read though lectures and tutorials more

·       Be more active with asking questions to the lecturers and my classmates

·       Practice more in my own time with the processing software

[connorsmindscapeatbct]

Programming is like a puzzle but with maths I've forgotten

after only teaching people hands on things for a while now programming really scratched that problem solving itch that i forgot i had. it really felt like slipping on an old pair of shoes that you had forgotten about in your wardrobe. 

The difference being that I've never done it before in my life.

something that really stumped me was Q8 in the tutorial provided, I quickly realised what i would have to do and where the triangles that i needed to draw were but the placement took a WHILE. This is the maths i forgot, i ended up just inching the corners over bit by bit until i got the correct position. its safe to say that this will definitely be a question for class time.

aside from Q8 it was all smooth sailing, the hello zoog moving was a bit of fun trying to visualize where it should all be moving and while giving I'm a party hat didn't quite work as intended I'm still happy i attempted it.

[creativejourneysbct]

Had to do a little bit of sketching and some simple maths to figure these exercises questions out. Felt very rewarding at the end to see everything work out in an efficient manner. 

[animebct]

BCT Blog Entry #11

WE DID IT!!! What a great way to start the new week, with a debugging session and new iteration of assignment 1 program. The program was pretty much already good to go but I made a few changes to hopefully earn bonus points. These little changes are what I made: 

Constant for stroke offset 

Comment block for global color variables before setup

Comment block for mousePressed function

Changing Title and program description

Here are the reasons why I decided to make these changes for those of you that are finding it hard to iterate your programs or lacking the clarification to do so.

Using the constant variable for offset will mean all four sides (eight instances) of the frame can be altered at once. Super efficient and saves a lot of time.

Comment blocking unknown or unclarified code can help explain to others who don’t understand why your code is different from theirs... i.e using global variable VS local variable and using 256 instead of 255 for RNG function.

Changing title and program description... ALMOST forgot about this one - I don’t know about you but I went over this straight away and did the code only to come back to the assignment video and listened to lecturer Stefan Marks hint to the top comment block!

So far, I am fairly confident that this program iteration for Assignment 1 is sufficient for a B or above grade... Let’s hope it’ll be my first A hehe.. good vibes for java based programming.

[jesskbct]

Learning to Program - Unit 1

I’ve always wanted to learn how to program ever since back in Year 9 or 10 of high school when we did a small project in Digital Technologies class which was creating a Blackjack game against the computer using Python. That was pretty much the closest I ever got to programming or learning code but it was very exciting for me since I loved that class. This is definitely a big step up from it though. I found it pretty challenging, especially with the certain triangle question that confused the heck out of me. The 9 squares question also got me as well, I ended up putting in 9 lines of code for each square before realising I had to do only 3! But finally getting the end product after persevering and really thinking about it was pretty satisfying. It was also fun to mess around with the code to do different things. The code/pictures are more or less the more polished product of some of the questions after we were told we could make the computer do the math for us instead of us having to crunch numbers. Don’t forget to say Hello back to Zoog!

[jannykingzbct]

Testing Out Processing

Honestly just playing around with the programming and trying to figure how it work, while having a little fun trial by ERROR through it ... This is the finish result. 

[bctgeorgepersson]

i made it so that Zoog will change colours as you move your mouse around your screen. i did this by using fill(mouseX,0,mouseY); for the head and fill(mouseY,mouseX,0) for the body.

[jackiesbits]

tried to recreate no face in the last exercise. It took me a little while. I hope with time I can get there. :D

[imagineitbetter]

Week 1 Programming for Creativity 

So amazed!! and this is just the beginning! 

Hopefully, soon, it will not take me as much as now to crack each exercise ! 

Update:-

Zoog Learnt how to follow the mouse, baby steps !! 

[muttonbct]

Assignment Three Iteration Five

In this iteration I worked on the interaction between the ball and the boundaries / walls. I first worked on the boundaries. In the previous iteration when touching the boundaries the ball would lose all its momentum, this was done to prevent the ball from increasingly gaining speed bouncing between all the boundaries. This would the cause the ball to escape the boundaries as the ball was moving too fast the bounce mechanics to inverse the velocity value.

For the boundaries I changed it so when the ball touches the wall the velocity value is divided by 5 and then inverted to create the bouncing effect but only retaining a fifth of its original energy. This ensures the ball cannot accelerate infinitely.

The bounce mechanics with the square wall where a bit more complex than the boundaries. The problem was that I couldn’t just set the velocity value to 0 as this would leave the ball stuck, as seen in the previous iteration. However if I just inverted the balls velocity on collision, the ball would not bounce in a physically accurate direction. Instead I had to detect what side the ball was bouncing into, whether that be the top, left, right or bottom and the bases off that bounce the ball in it’s respected direction. As well as this, to keep consistency I added it so when the ball hits the wall the speed is divided by two and then inverted.

I do have one slight problem at the moment however. This being that when hitting either the left or the top side of the square, the ball will still invert in both its x velocity and it’s y velocity. Thus, I will need to fix this in my next iteration.

[remiensrecountsbct]

My Grand Creation, Hopefully the First of Many. (also The Attack of the Sentient Triangles) (also also Declaring War on My Professor I Think?)

I unfortunately didn’t realize you were supposed to be blogging until after I had spent all my time following the tutorial so although I can’t provide evidence of my struggle I can provide proof of my beautiful, remade and now green coloured son. 

As you can see he is amazing in every way. (and I’m not just saying that because he’s extremely threateningly close) Funnily enough this tutorial felt less like programming in a new language but just problem solving and trying to most efficiently reach a certain solution, which was rather enjoyable. The only real issue I came across was the triangle problem (which I later discovered through other blog posts that most other people also struggled similarly). I figured “oh alright we got three points on a triangle, I just gotta set them to these 3 coordinates and we’ll be good”.

No. This was NOT the case, and it was NOT good.

If it was possible for a shape to embody the emotion behind flipping someone off that’s what I managed to create, these points went wild and went across the screen wherever they want, it didn’t matter where I had typed in the program, these lines had a mind of their own. After about 27 tries I started to become afraid that it may become self aware and try to break free and thus attempts 28 - 35 were me brute forcing the triangle into some form of shape that appeared correct. So if there’s anything that I’ve learned today it is most definitely that throwing caution to the wind and forcing your janky solutions on problems will eventually work if you’re stubborn enough. Also we had our first in person session with Stephan where he went through every problem and absolutely destroyed them AND made the solutions look incredibly professional. I have never felt such great shame in my own work, to see my trials tribulations that harassed my mind and abilities for so long get tossed aside with such ease, to say I was furious would surely be an understatement. Now you may be thinking 

“Uh, isn’t it like his job to demonstrate how to solve these problems and also doesn’t he have an extensive history spanning across many years, no doubt surpassing the abilities of your own so many times over that comparing yourself to him would not only be foolish but totally outrageous to even consider?”

and to that I say

Maybe.

BUT NONETHELESS I HAVE BEEN SHAMED THIS DAY. (shamed in front of literally no one because everyone is also doing the exact same problems but I have an ego to stroke here) So from here on out I have set out to succeed not just for the sake of success, but to beat Stephan at his own game and to out-code him by the end of this year. This is in no way a challenge to Stephan, no, a challenge can be accepted or declined, this is a threat, nay, a promise. A promise that I’m not even sure how to fulfill, ‘cause I mean what does “out-coding” someone even mean. But whatever it does mean I shall make it so.

In case you somehow managed to read this far and hadn’t yet realised this is all entirely a joke Stephan has shown to be nothing but a great teacher in these couple weeks. BUT THE THREAT DOES STILL STAND

[briefdelusiondestiny-bct]

Some more advanced programming happening here.

[xkhbct]

Week 2 Reflection BCT

07/03/2020

Just going to start off by saying how thankful I am to be in this degree and how excited I am to keep going ! If I hadn’t discovered BCT I honestly have no idea what i’d be doing or where I’d be right now and it feels like a relief to be in these classes with professors who are so knowledgable and kind and to have a classroom of friends! 

In general I really like AUT and the way it works, what it stands for and the people there. I feel at home and safe to walk around, study, be social, ask for help, I think it is such a cool place and I’m grateful to be here!

I love the way the studio style environment works, I feel like sitting at tables in groups made it so much easier to relax and settle into this new world of uni. We could open up, talk and get to know each other without being surrounded by 300+ students. It has only been 2 weeks (6 classes) and it feels like i’ve known these people forever, so cool making friends in an environment where we are all passionate about what we are learning. 

I was surprised (not in a bad way) by how sudden the work load was, probably me just being ignorant but I was pushed to start being productive instantly and I think this was a good start, it felt good to get stuck in! For our first weekly studio project we smashed it out, anytime out of class we were in uni working on it and figuring it out, learning new things etc. It was good that we all had the same motivation and we worked well as a team I feel. I really really love collaborative environments because I love working with people and being involved in a group or community and the fact that this is what we have had already in the first week even makes me SO excited! 

Programming for creativity is really enjoyable. That’s where we have to really get our brains thinking back in that problem solving, maths kind of way! I knew that whatever I studied I wanted to learn to code within that so that was a big factor in choosing BCT. So far I really enjoy it! it’s interesting, it’s satisfying, it’s challenging, it’s great! In the class I am not afraid to ask for help either from Stefan, the TA’s pr my peers, it feels like a safe open space which I really appreciate as I’m sure most others in the class are too.

over the past 2 weeks I have learnt so much it’s kinda crazy, got me thinking in whole new ways, working with new materials, making cool things, just everything ! Safe to say I am so glad I made this choice, it will change my life for the better and I think my future self will thank me for it as much as I thank myself now !