karel.present();

My overall focus over the last two weeks has been on working on my presentation. My presentation addresses my overall strengths, adversities, confusions, successes, improvements and real life applications.

Why?

I've always been mathematically inclined and I love to see, understand and solve innovative problems. One who understands the ideas and functions of Computer Science has a significant advantage over any businessman or economist when it comes to the business world. The future holds many new technologies and having a basic understanding as to how this new technology functions is extremely beneficial.

How?

Throughout the course of this semester I dived into Computer Science and Karel J Robot, which is the textbook that I learnt out of. I also used the resources around me which were, Mr. Shappell as well as classmates who are taking AP Computer Science such as Omer.

What?

I was able to gain sufficient background knowledge and an understanding of Computer Science in order to possibly pursue AP Computer Science in the future. I had zero understanding of Computer Science before this semester and so I am extremely proud in how far I have come, I have classmates to vouch for me on that one, I didn’t even know what Java was. Therefore I have come along way as I can know understand how to write methods as well as understand the basics of Computer Science.

Strengths

One of my most invaluable assets was my overall ability to understand the capabilities and powers of methods. I understood that by creating an UberRobot that extends my original UrRobot was very useful. This is because if I write a program with all the methods I think I will need in the future, all I have to do is create a new robot that extends UberRobot and I will no longer have to write out the simple methods such as turning right, moving backwards etc. This was definitely a Eureka moment! The reason for this success is that I have been invested in my learning and have made a concerted effort to ask questions that expand my knowledge. The methods that I wrote out can be seen below:

Adversities

I have also encountered adversities, my biggest adversity was when I wrote out my programs, I would often make small errors. For example when writing out my code for a task using methods, it would not run when I was finished writing out my program and I could not figure out why. This is what came up at the bottom of my program.

After speaking to Omer and as he read through my program, he noticed small errors. Not putting a capital "L" for turnLeft as well as a spelling error with the word direction. You can see the small error in the code below. The reason for this adversity was that I was not careful when writing out my code and I did not read over it properly thus resulting in this syntax error.

public void turnRight() {

turnleft();

turnLeft();

turnLeft();

Confusions/ Areas of inquiry

I have also come across confusions and areas of inquiry. My biggest confusion was not understanding the specific language within Karel J Robot and coding. For example, I did not understand what was meant by StairSweeper extends UrRobot, which is a robot, and after speaking to Mr. Shappell, he explained that it means that StairSweeper, another robot that I created is a UrRobot. In other words StairSweeper is like the child of UrRobot, it has the same abilities as UrRobot plus what we add to it, the methods.The reason for this confusion is because I have only completed a few months of Karel J Robot and I also want to understand exactly why we use specific language and thus I was confused about this as I did not know why we say "extends".

Successes

I have encountered many successes over the semester. Everytime I complete a task, it is success as it involves problem solving, for example if I have an error in my code, I need to find a way to fix it and understand the problem. It is also involves a great amount of critical and creative thinking. For example before I started using methods, Mr Shappell gave me the task of writing out my name in beepers, sounds simple doesn’t it but without methods it took close to 180 lines of code as will as many trials and errors. This was my final product:

Another success of mine was completing my first task using methods, I used some of the methods shown earlier and this is what was given to me in the textbook. I then had to come up with any methods necessary and write out a code to perform this task. My code can be seen below along with what was given to me in the textbook.

 

Improvements and Goal Directedness

I know I can always improve. I can improve with regards to writing not only simple methods but also complicated ones embedded in my UberRobot and thus making programming easier and more efficient. I can also improve in making sure that I do not make small errors in my coding by constantly writing out programs and methods and therefore I will become a more efficient coder.

Real life applications

As I mentioned earlier, Computer Science is used in our everyday lives, from the most basic things like opening a garage door with a remote to artificial intelligence such as Google duplex. That is why many of you should look at learning such a useful tool. Now, obviously I can’t go and create something like google duplex or siri tomorrow but I have an understanding of the basics and fundamentals of Computer Science and one day I will be able to use this in the business/ high tech world.