I found today to be a huge success! I think today was really a breakthrough moment for me as I was really able to apply the skills I learned through making something that wasn’t too frustratingly challenging but manageable.
Python Challenge: Going through the lesson on CodeAcademy really helped me set up the encryption/decryption program I created. Although I knew how to set it up, I had a hard time getting it to work as the first time I ran the program it wouldn’t register the commands to initiate the encrypt/decrypt function. It would keep repeating the question until I exited the code. It wouldn’t even display the funny exit message. Based on this I had to go back and make some few adjustments and to my surprise, they worked!!! I honestly don’t know how I managed to get through the entire challenge rather quickly and I’m really happy how I’m advancing with this course. I feel like I’m really being challenged but at the same time achieving my goals. As for the python program, here’s what I came up with.
Essentially I used the word false—it was the first word that came to mind—and used my encryption code to encrypt the message. Then using that code I copied it and told the program to run the decrypter and input the code there. It then resulted with the same message I put in ending up in a total success!! To exit, in the end, input 0 and it displayed “K bye loser!” for some laughs as this program is awesome so why would you ever wanna exit it!!
Car Auction Challenge: For me, this was a bit trickier but in the end, I figured it out. I had to get some help from outside sources and learn some new things as I’ve never really worked with Google Scripts before. Here’s a video of the result… enjoy:)
Vlog Reflection: So far starting off the course my first impression is not what I was expecting. Having no introduction to coding whatsoever, I have to admit it felt like diving head first into something completely unknown to me. Here’s a vlog as to why I decided to do this course, as well as some successes and challenges I’ve faced thus far.
I forgot to mention that I’ve also found myself coming across quite a few syntax errors as my initial reaction to coding, but that’s okay because I’ve figured out a solution to every problem myself!
Design Thinking Activity: This activity was my first introduction to the design thinking strategy and I now clearly see how it can help me sift through ideas as I develop them in the future. I decided to write the steps of how to make a banana smoothie that I simply know; just basic steps. After writing everything out, I had Jessie ready through it and write any questions she had while reading it to clarify any misconceptions to the audience. Through this, I understood that as creators we have completely different conceptions to a viewer. Something we may think is simple and easy to understand triggers questions to someone else and these things are very important to identify and fix. This concept is the first step in the design thinking process, Empathize. Then there’s Define, writing out the steps; proceeding with, Ideate, developing a solution. After that Prototype and Test follow, which is where you would test your creations and make any revisions from that point forward. This process stems from an idea of empathizing with others to identify a central problem and working towards solving said problem creatively.
Coding Languages: Just this morning was my first introduction to understanding any coding language whatsoever. Here’s what I learned. Python seems to be the easiest of the coding language, great for beginners like me. It is the oldest language out of JavaScript and Google Script. JavaScript is slightly more complex as it is case sensitive but it is one of the most popular languages worldwide. Google Script is the baby of the languages, but very similar to JavaScript. The biggest advantage of Google Script though is its correlation with google you can run the codes you create in google slides, sheets, docs, and forms.
(Python) (Google Script)(JavaScript)
‘Hello World!’: Here is my first ever project. I decided to take on a challenge and use Google Script for this one. After looking up the process I found there are two ways to do it. I could have, through google spreadsheets, written the code by defining a variable. I then found another way, which is to use a debugging method. Heres my code:This can also be displayed using JavaScript and Python. I was able to figure it out in Python as it was simply just instructing the program to print the message.
I was unable to successfully use JavaScript but here’s what it should look like:
Codeacademy: Through Code Academy, I found I definitely learned the most. I found it to be great practice as they wouldn’t let me move forward until I had perfected the code. I learned how to print statements, strings, fixing syntax errors when printing, variables, arithmetic (including using a modulo operator), updating variables, adding comments, using a float and integers, division, multi-line strings, booleans, and finally fixing value errors.
Timetable Program: Using the skills I learned today I decided to use Python to display the 5s timetable, here’s what I made.
I wanted to have the code try to solve each equation but I had a really hard time trying to figure that out. So I decided to simply display multi-line strings using triple quotes. I’m honestly pretty pleased with the outcome as this the first program I’ve ever made!
