March Blogs

Weekly Goals:

• Finish up the luna.py code 

• Start brainstorming ideas for the next project

• Complete more than 5 hours on the Original Work

• Continue reading the research paper about the Lambda CDM paradigm.

Weekly updates:

• Monday: 

  • Rechecked and published the weekly blog 

  • Spent time working on luna.py code

• Tuesday: 

  • Continued reading and annotation the second part of the Dark matter research paper.

• Wednesday:

  • Updated original work submissions

  • Reviewed my mentor’s student evaluation response with Mr. Pirtle

• Thursday:

  • Wrapped up the coding for luna.py and was able to get an output with the phases changing

  • Continued reading the research paper (into part 3)

  • Began brainstorming or new ideas for the next code 

• Friday:

  • Had a mentor meeting with Ms. Hutchison, revised my progress this week, went through some questions and decided on the goal for next week.

  • Updated the mentor log and the original work log

  • Submitted the progress blog due at 5 pm.

Weekly Reflection:

Spring break was a beautiful pause from all the stress that a usual week of school brings. But then it ended. And this week was a whirlpool of work, my teachers assigning work like the world would end the next day. But then the day ended at 11:59 and we began a new one the next. There were lots of days where I barely had time to relax, but I’ve somehow made it to the end of the week. And I have completed my second coding project and will be confirming and starting the third one by the start of the next. During spring break, I had two mentor meetings. The first one on Monday, and the other on Friday. During the first mentor meeting, we successfully completed the code for the orbit and were able to print it out. To do this, I decided to convert the whale code to be plotted on a graph. This way, the orbit did not have to rely on a subplot to create its circular shape or a circle object, instead, it used a circle equation. While it did take a while to convert everything to fit on the new plot, it became much easier to position things. And lastly to make the plot’s axes go away I used a function called “plt.axis('off').” This way the background color, which was black would not stop at the axes. Before our second meeting in spring break, one of the main goals I was to accomplish was putting the whole code into a loop, so that it would print 8 different figures, for each different phase. I did this by creating a variable called ‘i’ and repeating the code as long as I was less than 8. That way, including 0, there would be 8 different figures and I also created an equation that changes the position of mini-moon according to i. And so by the end of the Spring break, I only had to figure out how to code the phases of the big moon to change and maybe perfect some rough edges. Ms.Hutchison and I decided to forego using a cartopy circle and latitude and longitudes to create the phases and rather strategically used three different shapes. These three shapes were an ellipse, a circle and a wedge. Over the course of this week I created lists for each object which designated their color according to the value of i. Then there was another list dedicated to the position of the ellipse and wedge. This way I didn't have to use a long complicated if loop and instead just referenced the list for the color and position of the objects. After completing this, I created another list that would print the name of the phase below the orbit. And lastly, I created the same save prompt I used in my last code. During the mentor meeting today, my goal is to confirm my next coding project, which I would like to focus on more animation or plotting. And so this week has also ended. And another will begin. One where the world will continue and neither will I.