Joe's CSUMB Computer Science Blog

    This week, we were assigned several coding problems on Coding Bat. These problems dealt topics such Strings, logic, and some data structures.     I thought the Coding Bat challenges were pretty simple, and I was able to finish the problems quickly. The one thing that slowed me down on certain problems was not understanding what kind of input the methods would receive. I answered the Coding Bat problems by throwing code at it, and it worked most of the time. If I answered a problem incorrectly, it was because I did not account for all types of acceptable input. Whenever this happened, I would go back and adjust the code to work for the kind of input that broke my code. Most attempts were successful on the first attempt, but I think there were a couple problems that took 3 attempts. In general when I am working with more difficult problems, I start by planning out how I will approach the problem and then I will throw code at it to test my approach to the problem.

Part 1: Review Other Teams' final video projects Seawolves https://youtu.be/VHa5m3_r3Jk      I thought this group's video was very well put together. They explained the history of the company and how certain events caused the company's goals to shift. The events that led to the changes in OpenAI were presented clearly so that the audience understood the story behind it. I thought the research in this video was in depth. I think the group's research is evident in how they could provide details on key players in the company. This video informed the audience of the roles these key players had and the events they were involved in. Overall I thought this video felt like a mix between a tech research paper and a current events paper (in a good way). I was able to learn about OpenAI and was drawn into the story about the growth of the company. Considering that there were only 2 people in this group, I assume a great deal of teamwork went into this project. Between the informat...

Part One      My group planned the video project through discord. We collaborated and assigned tasks by sending messages in our group chat, since some of us were too busy for a group call. Rene drafted an outline for our video to follow and we each volunteered to cover topics on the outline. Our current plan is to record our own videos for each topic. After this we will need to figure out how we will edit the videos together. This process has been smooth so far, and I think we will continue to work on projects this way for now. Part Two     This week, I was able to learn/refresh on some information about presentations. Visual aids can improve a presentation or ruin a presentations depending on how they are used. I think it is important to use visual aids that are visually appealing, but do not distract the audience. This information along with the rubric for the video project should help our group create an informative video that can also keep the attention of t...

  Part 1: Help Your Teammates to Develop Capstone Ideas      This week, my group mates and I discussed two possible ideas for capstone projects at the end of this course. The first idea was to develop a 2D platform game. This idea is personally my favorite. Even if this product is not chosen by the group, I have an interest in video games, and this may be a project I work on in my personal time. I may also look into making mods for the open sandbox video game Minecraft Java as well in the future. The second idea discussed were projects that use AI. A project we thought about was to create a program to transcribe handwriting. We believe that this type of program would be practical for many people to use across a variety of occupations. These are just some of the first ideas that came to mind, so we may go in a different direction with our project later on.   Part 2: Keep Up With Your Learning Journal      I felt much more comfortable this week usin...

  Part One: Support and Comment on Teammates' Goals (30 minutes) https://rla-csumb.blogspot.com/2024/09/cst-300-week-4.html https://ky-csumb.blogspot.com/2024/09/week-4-educational-goals-career-goals.html   Part Two: Possible Capstone Ideas (30 minutes)      One of the projects I liked was the EZDashboard application. I am interested in the backend development that went into the project, and I think something like this would be practical for other people to use. I was also very impressed by the how the data retrieved from the database was laid out. Regardless of what project I may do, I may try to organize my project similarly to the EZDashboard layout.      I think my favorite project is the Mirrored Fantasy video game. As someone who enjoys playing video games, I would really like to make a multiplayer game that I could show to other people. I thought the idea of the game was creative, and I liked how this game was designed to be different from ...

Part 1:      One of my main goals throughout this program is to understand the big picture when it comes to software development.  As of now, I don't have any experience outside of java and object oriented programming. I understand how to code and create logic, but I have yet to apply this knowledge to a project that would introduce me to areas of work that I should know as a software developer. I also hope to learn more of about engineering methodologies through some the group projects along the way. My previous classes for computer science have not required me to work with anybody else, so I hope to get better at this. Another area of concern for me right now is that I am only proficient in Java at the moment. As I take classes that require me to learn new languages, I am going to take additional time study these languages and strive to become proficient in them. Right now, I want to learn Python and C the most. Outside of school, I am working on a data structures ...

Part 1:  https://www.academictips.org/acad/index.html      Something that I struggle with in school is note taking. One of the tips mentioned in the article that I thought was the most helpful is preparing for lectures. If students know what a lecture is about, they can prepare questions for their professor ahead of time. I think the most important benefit of this practice is that you can focus on taking notes on the material that you struggle with. This style of note taking would lead to less time spent writing and more time spent listening to the lecture. Additionally, this could help a student keep up in a lecture in a class where the professor teaches quickly. I feel like this kind of strategy has helped me get through harder classes in the past, and this is something I need to incorporate in routine more often. Part 2: What I learned this week      While working on the scenario based ethics assignment, I had the opportunity to review Kantian Deont...