Day 1
This is the first day I lived alone at a residence camp. A big part of my first day was getting accustomed to living by myself and carrying out my responsibilities independently. I found myself doing things I had rare done such as thinking intensely about creating a set schedule for my weekdays at COSMOS and trying to fit in time for personal studying, exercising, dining, and leaving time for social or free time. Living alone and carrying out all of your responsibilities makes one feel more alert throughout the day. Although I feel restricted by some of the rules on campus and a lot busier, I feel more in control of my daily routine and habits. Living with a roommate was also a limitation that i had to learn to deal with. I had to get into the habit of keeping my room clean and respecting the personal space of my roommate. Surprisingly, on the first day, I found it much easier than I thought to make new friends on campus. We all seemed to share the same interests and leisures, which brought us together rather quickly. This was also the first time I experienced living in a college campus, something that will eventually have to do. The housing is less comfortable and personal as my house, but I have to learn to adapt to these limitations. In class, the professors went over the basics of the history of the computer and the main parts of a computer. The lab session was the most memorable part of the day; after we build the ev3 robots using lego pieces and attaching motors and wheels to the brick, we edited the codes that made the robot move in a specific way and downloaded them onto the newly built robots to move in circles, lines, figure 8s, squares, etc. The idea that the basic ev3 brick that could only send signals to its ports could be connected to mechanical parts and coded to behave in a way that we commanded it to was satisfying and promising.
Day 2
Today, we continued using the codes to cause the robot to move in a certain way. After seeing the touch and light sensors that came with the robot and experimenting with those, they made me think about how viable auto-driven cars could be. If humanity perfected the consistency of automatic cars and found a way to surpass the random conditions that plague automated travel, there could be so many benefits in traffic. First of all, there would be virtually no accidents because the perfect algorithm would master the consistency of cars. there would be no traffic because there would be no delay between the movement of the cars since they would all be controlled by one mind. No one would need the delivery industry because no human labor would be needed to make deliveries; deliveries would also be much faster. Humans could also be much more efficient because all of the hours spent on driving could be spent on doing something else in the car. These realizations made more sense and seemed more realistic as my robot moved automatically upon the codes I wrote.
Day 3
During lunch, I ate a burger that made me throw up and have other bathroom issues during the speaker presentation. I tried to eat ice cream afterwards to hopefully soothe my stomach. I had to avoid foods that would cause my stomach to reflex, such as oily foods, meat, lettuce, dairy, citrus foods, etc., and manage the spiciness and quantity of what I ate during the meals afterwards. Fortunately, i had brought medicine from home in case of a stomach emergency such as this and was able to treat my indigestion. In retrospect, I guess I learned how to deal with a health issue through managing my own diet and utilizing my resources. In class, though I arrived late to class, Professor Singh made a comment that particularly stood out to me. In discussing entropy and diffusion, the professor questioned why entropy existed. Though most students only gave relatively shallow answers such as that of particles moving from a high to low concentration, the professor was looking for why particles behaved in that manner. He explained that particles moved in a random motion into any position regardless of the concentration of each region. However, because many positions in the concentrated region were already occupied, the particles have more potential positions in the unoccupied region, and the particles simply have a higher chance of landing in a position in the unoccupied region of the container. This comment also showed me the difference in teaching ability of my high school teachers and the college professors.
Day 9
The last time I visited the Exploratorium, I was entering middle school, when everything seemed fascinating and unbelievable. Today, when we went to the Exploratorium, the exhibits were naturally less mind-blowing than they used to be. To be honest, I could understand the phenomena behind most of the exhibits that i stumbled upon. It seemed that many of the exhibits were designed to be more engaging and interactive for children and seemed less scientifically oriented. Still, breathing the fresh air of the ocean was a welcoming experience that i probably won't be able to experience for a while. Having this experience with a group of friends was also more enjoyable than having one by myself.
Day 11
I've never visited a big computer company so visiting Intel was a brand new experience for me today. The first thing i noticed were the big windows that allowed fresh light from outside to enter the building. The environment seemed to be very worker-friendly and relaxing. The employees seemed to be relaxed and happy and cheerful, talking to each other, laughing, eating snacks, walking around campus, etc.. There was also a volleyball court on campus for employees to have something to take their time off of. The tour guide, Larry, and the employees and interns helping him were very approachable like normal people. We later did an assignment using logic program trainers and a new computer language, which was difficult for our level of computer comprehension. Overall, I'm not sure if I would want to perform this kind of work in such a large company. I might prefer working in a more interactive job in a smaller company. Still, it was a new experience that gave me some valuable feedback.