% Week 1 Progress Report
% Abdulmajed Dakkak
% June 13th, 2008

Most of the time spent this week was  spent to get acquainted with how the REU
lab works,  how some of the  facilities and tools are  used, and understanding
the concepts/topics presented  by the various speakers.  A considerable amount
of time  was devoted to  understanding OpenGL ---  by programming with  it. We
decided to  pursue learning OpenGL  early on because (from  our understanding)
most projects require some understanding of OpenGL.

Programming
===========

A few programs were written in  OpenGL. Most are simple, although interesting.
The  first program  [triangle.c]  written in  OpenGL  demonstrates the  rotate
function. The second program [fly.c] demonstrates the use of the transform (or
displacement) function  provided in OpenGL.  The third program was  written in
python  (for the  sake of  its  hash table)  and demonstrated  the rule  based
cellular  automation described  (famously)  in automation.  While it's  called
[rule30.py], modifying  the rules hash  table changes the  cellular automation
computed. Since we were not satisfied  with the python program, we rewrote the
rule  30 cellular  automation in  C and  named it  [rule30.c]. Then,  based on
[rule30.c], we wrote a program  to draw the mandelbrot fractal [mandelbrot.c].
The fractal  is quite interesting,  since this the  first time I  attempted to
color points  based on how many  iterations it takes to  converge. Finally, an
attempt to  write the buddhabrot fractal  was futile, although our  attempt is
present in [buddhabrot.c].

Projects
========

After listening more about  the project options, I am convinced  of one or two
projects. The first project  is quite simple and might take a  day or two. The
project  entails translating  the igl  program that  has a  red ball  rotating
around a  torus into  opengl. I hope  that this program  will introduce  me to
lighting in OpenGL, as well as how motion is conducted.

The second project relates to `CUDA`, although  it is not clear at this moment
what this project will accomplish. I do,  however, want to use the wiimote for
at least one project, or help another person figure out how to use it.

[triangle.c]: code/triangle.c
[fly.c]: code/fly.c
[rule30.c]: code/rule30.c
[rule30.py]: code/rule30.py
[mandelbrot.c]: code/mandelbrot.c
[buddhabrot.c]: code/buddhabrot.c