1st Quarter Progress Report
I have learned a lot of new things in the past quarter. I now can work almost fluently with Unix,
which is a nice accomplishment in my view. Using the Sierpinski gasket program I have learned about many
of the programming behind C. I have spent most of my time with this program so I could work my way on up
to larger programs. I have also looked at the Lorenz program, but I am really lost there. I am also in
CS 101, which is cool because I often learn things about C in MATH 198 first, making CS 101 easier.
In the Cave, I have learned a lot of new things with the help of Professor Francis. I have developed a 3D
cube made up of smaller cubes. The idea is for people to move the blocks around on their own without
navigating through space via the wand. We have hidden smaller objects inside of the smaller cubes.
Therefore, people will actually have to put their head in the blocks to discover different objects! This
is a major improvement because people often get sick due to the navigation of the Cave. Now, people can
move their body through the cave, and because the glasses record the location, it is more like real life.
At EOH, when I gave a tour the first thing I showed the group was Shadowlight, specifically the things I
had been working on. Everyone thought it was really neat that when I moved my head into a cube they could
actually see inside it. Of course, this is before I showed them cricket or Gladiator!
My project has been moving in big leaps, just spaced apart. My first real problem was shown to me by
Professor Francis: Genetics is modeled in a tree! Well, after many long hours of pondering how to
transpose this onto the computer screen, I had talked to my suitemate. He mentioned that it could be
graphed in relation to log(2). However, that was just an idea. After going to class this week, Professor
Francis once again gave me a great idea that he had: The distribution of a Punnett's Square can be
represented by using the Binomial Theorem. That is really awesome, and I have used the binomial theorem
to show the distribution of a single allele and two heterogenous alleles, and it works every time!
Over break, I plan on working on my project a lot. I want to experiment with the options I have when
creating a family tree with traits. As of this time, it appears I will have two parents at the top of the
tree, then they will have the national average 2.3 children. Their children will randomly mate based on
the distribution in society. Then they will have children, and so on. I plan on doing at least 10
generations at this time. The only unknown at this time is really just the programming, which is the
least of my worries.