We have now finished our final projects! I already made a post describing it, so feel free to look there for it. Here is a link to the earlier post. And here is a link to the Github page. Unfortunately, it does not run in a browser, but you can still view and download from here.
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Today is the last day of our camp, the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institute, specifically the class Computer Simulations and Interactive Media. I have learned a lot about design and prototyping here, both very important skills, as well as general knowledge of computer science. I have also made many new friends here and I am sad that I may not get to see any of them again. Hopefully, I can keep in contact with many of them. I would like to say thank you and goodbye to all of those friends, as well as to my councilors. I would like to say a special thank you to my teachers here, Sherol Chen, as well as my two TAs, Julie and Peter. I really enjoyed my time here and I hope to see everyone I met here again someday.
We also had a presentation from Sebastian Alvarado, a worker at Thwacke, a science consulting company for the video game and film industries. Many companies, including Marvel and major video game firms, come to Thwacke in order to insure that the science used in their works in accurate. I found his talk incredibly interesting and I hope to hear more about his company in the future.
If you are reading this, thank you Sebastian Alvarado! 
Yesterday, we had a presentation from Brandon Tearse, an employee at Google. He talked about internships at Google, as well as internships in the technology industry in general. Internships are a great way to break into any industry, but they can be very competitive. It is also very helpful to know a bit about what you will be working on beforehand, as you want to get as much out of your internships as possible.
If you are reading this, thank you Brandon Tearse!
We had a presentation from Jay Silver, the creator of Makey Makey, Makey Makey is a very interesting device, allowing you to create controllers from almost anything, even play-do or water. He talked a bit about his product and how it works. Overall, it was a very interesting presentation.
If you are reading this, thank you Jay Silver!
Yesterday, we had a presentation form Mike Marmarou, an employee at Apple. He talked about internships in the software industry and the technology industry in general. He talked about how, in order to get an internship, you need to show that you understand the basics, are passionate about your work, and are an expert in something. He also talked about job interview strategies and many other things. His presentation was very helpful overall.
If you are reading this, thank you Mike!
Yesterday, we had a presentation from Bret Victor. Bret showed us a coding system that he had been working on, where a window on the side of the screen would update as he typed in code. This made it much easier for him to adjust different values. He could even click and drag objects on the screen around and the code would update, allowing him to very easily alter things. Click here to read more about this. Bret’s ideas are also a major inspiration for Swift, a new coding language being developed by Apple.
If you see this, thank you Bret Victor?
Our final project is based on an unnamed exhibit we saw at the Exploratorium, which is based on an installation called Scrapple. The exhibit was a flat table onto which you would place objects. It would then play music based on the orientation of the objects and where they were placed. Our plan is the rebuild this exhibit virtually. Our prototype will allow people to draw shapes onto the screen and modify the sounds that the computer is playing. Based on the color of the shapes and how you place them, they will modify frequency, wavelength, timing, and volume. One major difference between our prototype and the Exploratorium’s exhibit is that our program allows you to place objects of any shape and size, as opposed to just the few available options present at the Exploratorium. Our prototype will help to visualize sound, which can help teach people about things like wavelength and frequency.
Yesterday, we built programs that played Rock Paper Scissors. We were able to build versions that cheat, versions that guess randomly, and versions that can pick up on patterns and respond accordingly.
http://eburke16.github.io/Rock_Paper_Scissors
The link may not work, as I just uploaded it and it can take a few minutes.
On Friday, we worked with Arduinos. We were all given Arduinos (which we get to keep) and a tutorial guide for them. We were following the instructions and built many simple circuits. I also learned more about how colored LEDs work. We also looked at the code for the Arduino, although we did not make our own.
