Overlord Racket

CSC104: Computational Thinking Fall 2017 courSe LOG (SLOG)

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Last entry

This is the last entry for the blog and I’ll be giving some final tips and advice for the course.

First of all, one of the biggest questions you’ll ask yourself while studying this course is probably how to get better at designing a function. The truth is a lot of people struggle with just even figuring out what a placeholder is or how to identify the contract of the function. If you’re struggling a lot with these, I would definitely recommend using office hours, because these are two basic things that really help you understand how to design a function better.

Another important tip: Treat these functions as you would a mathematical equation. To some extent you will be using maths and logic in order to design the function or within the function itself - you’ll find mathematical problems and function designing have  a lot of points in common, and this might facilitate your understanding on how to design a function.

Finally, don’t overcomplicate the function. It’s very straightforward most of the time and the design check-expects are usually great hints (although it should also be noted that in a group of check-expects not necessarily any of them will be design check-expects), so trying to do more from what you’re given can sometimes be more confusing than helpful.

Now, if you’re planning to take the course and don’t understand half of the terms I’m using right now - don’t fret! It’ll all make sense once you’ve started the course. It is very common for people who don’t know much about coding or computer programming to enrol in it, and even if you don’t get everything right away, the instructors and TA’s are eager to help. That being said, if you wanna know a little about coding before diving in, you should (or could) check out some of the free online courses at codecademy.com - I've used it quite a bit and I find it fun. Extra tip: Try making at least one friend during the course, this will come in handy for doing assignments, as you will feel less lost in the world of coding (The assignments can be quite challenging), and two (or three) heads will be able to think better than one, at least in my experience.

Very well, that is all. I wish you the best of luck in this course and I hope you feel free to ask any questions that arise. I’ll answer gladly.

I’m now off to sleep these upcoming weeks off until after Winter Break!

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New discovery:

Apparently there’s a function through which we can convert strings into images?

Discovered it doing last week’s lab to practice for the quiz and it was later taught during lecture. The function’s name is “string->image” (can’t get more straightforward than that) and I just thought I’d make a cute sign to remind you potential reader that:

Have a nice week!

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Thinkbit: Rotating lizard

The other day we did something exciting during lecture - creating gifs from simple images through code. My favorite one was the rotating lizard, which I can’t post here because I haven’t figured out how to “export” the gif, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. The image I chose for this was:

A very simple and cute lizard. To create a gif where the little guy rotates, we were introduced to this new function called “big-bang”, which basically serves to “Launch a window with an animation.” according to the search manuals of the course. 

It’s not that simple, however, because when using this function only, since the image is squared, it produces a flailing mess. To make it rotate, at least in this case, we created another function that would make the image rotate by 10 degrees each time and then overlaid the image into a bigger square with the same color as the background, so that it rotated smoothly. We used these two new functions to add more information to our “big-bang” function and voilà!

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Second entry

This week it’s time to answer some more questions provided by the instructors! (Exciting?)

I prepare for Tests and Quizzes doing both the weekly Labs and practising with past exams diligently provided by our instructors through the course site. I find that oftentimes when I feel lost, doing the labs helps me clear things up in my head that maybe I didn’t understand in the lesson, as I’m more concerned on taking notes efficiently.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most so far in regards to creating images and functions (besides my obvious passion for the Sierpinski Triangle to which I dedicated a post), was the “kaleidoscope” function for images that we saw at the beginning of the term. It was an introduction to modifying images, and the results it produced I found amusing:

As the term went on and I realized that I had to start defining functions on my own based on check-expects, I got really nervous. I find it to be quite similar to math problems where you have to find more than one variable and that’s something I’ve always hated - I have difficulty with it. However, by practising with labs and trying to understand each part of the functions I’ve realized I’m getting better at it. 

I usually try to understand things on my own first before using office hours because I want to know what I’m gonna ask before I go. I haven’t gone though, since my method has worked and so far I have been able to figure things on my own... This might change after the first project though!

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Thinkbit: The Giant  Sierpinkski's Triangle

So last week we learned about something I found quite fun.

The Sierpinski Triangle is a fractal. As explained by fractalfoundation.org (and who would’ve thought a fractal foundation exists?) “A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop.” 

I personally find the triangle kind of beautiful and I like the fact that, according to my small research, it existed as a decorative pattern way before it got translated into a mathematical pattern by mathematician Wacław Sierpiński. The infinity aspect of it makes it all the more interesting.

Anyway, it’s actually also very easy to do - and there are many ways to do it.

In the case for DrRacket, you first define a variable for the base triangle, which would look something like:  ▲. You put a name on it, like “triangle” or even “dorito”, and then you define a stacking function using that variable. From then you can scale it and it will be as big and majestic as you want it to.

Ta-dah!

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First entry

Welcome to my CSC104 course blog! As requested by the instructors, in this first post I will write a little bit about the course and my experience so far in the hopes that (this is not all in vain!!!) it can help some first years in the future.

I chose CSC104 for a small list of reasons:

To start filling out my breadth requirements.

Because I was already somewhat familiar with coding (thanks, Tumblr and Codecademy)

It seemed cool.

My boyfriend is a future computer engineer.

I hoped, and still do, to learn more about programming and maybe even expand my interest with the few experience I already have on coding and programs. My experience consists mostly on web design on Tumblr (html) and some courses I’ve done on Codecademy because I was curious, also mostly on web design and some Java too. For this reason, and since I had been doing it on my own, I’ve found that DrRacket has been a relatively easier experience, and even though I get lost sometimes, I find it easy to get back on track, especially thanks to the Labs, which I’ve always used to study for quizzes – and I’ve actually felt that I’ve done well, so I’m excited to explore a little bit more on Computer Science, maybe even dabble on app developing.