Farewell?

Hi. I suppose not many people follow this blog but I want to say bye for now as I've finished my IT lessons at high school. And next year I have to get ready for selectivity so I won't have much  time, but I've enjoyed a lot this subject and I love having this blog, so I will try to keep on posting something from time to time. So no, this is not a farewell, just a 'see you soon'.

But now this course has finished, I don't have much to tell and it's summer holidays, time to rest, so have a great summer, and see you soon.

Carmen <3

App Inventor

Hello again! We've started working with App Inventor. This is a software to create and programme an Apk (mobile application). You can design and create the functions of the Apk, and try it in your mobile phone (via Wifi or USB wire), or with a computer emulator, to check if it works properly. 

To access this program you just need a google account with which you log in in the MIT App Inventor webpage. Then you'll be asked the way you want to see the application on real time. You choose it or continue without emulation.

In the main page (designer) you can choose the components from the left column and drag them to the screen in the middle. Here you just place the components of the apk and select their features in the column in the right, as you like. There are many different components, but the most important ones are the buttons, which you can press to make actions, the canvas to add images, the labels to add texts, and other not visible components like the camera or the accelerometer, which act depending on how you programme them.

In the programming page (blocks) you create the 'orders' of the apk, depending on what you want it to do. On the left you can see the different features. If you want some specific component you added in the designer to do any action, you click on its name and select the action you want. You have to combine those 'orders' or blocks in a way it makes sense and works. As I said, you can check if it works with an emulator or with your own mobile phone. As you practice you will manipulate App Inventor better, so don't get desperate at the beginning.

We've had to create two apps. The first one is a photo painter. You can take a picture or take it from your gallery, and paint on it with different colors. You can download it to try it here.

The second one is a questioning game. You are asked a question and you have to answer it. Depending on how you answer it will congratulate you or you will have to try again. I already have to finish and improve it, but you can download it here.

I hope you liked, I think this is very entertaining if you like computing, so I encourage you to try it.

On the other hand this may be the last post about my IT lessons, because this is the last year I can have this subject and the course is finishing, but I will try to post something from time to time. Have a great summer.

Access

Hello again Internet surfers. We are working now with Access, a database management system owned by Microsoft Office, with its relational and graphical tools, and so similar to any Microsoft Office Software. It is used to create any kind of databases, in my case I made a database for a summer camp for anyone interested. It stores the information about the clients, the activities, the age groups, the monitors and the application forms. I'm going to explain you a bit how we've made it and show mine in some screenshots.

First of all we had to create some charts in which we included the information. The clients' and the monitors' charts included their personal data (name, surname, id, address, phone number, email...); the activities' one, the name of the activities, the description and the places where they are hold; the groups' one, the age gaps in which groups are separated, and the application forms' one collects the information of each client's application form, their choices, their allocated monitor and date, their personal data...

In the two first images you can see the main components of these charts.

Secondly we created the forms, which record that information from the charts and allow to add information. You can add them by clicking on "Form" in the window "Create". They can be personalised with different shapes and colors. Buttons linked to other forms or reports can be added, and also dropdown lists to choose the different options from a chart without having to write it oneself.

Then we also added reports for some of the forms. The most important one is the applications' one, because there the information about each client's stay in the camp is collected. It's easy to create because you just have to click on "Create -> Report" when you are on the chart of which you want to create the report, and it appears. You just have to adjust the design if you want to.

A last thing was the consultation. It's a sheet to consult specific information from a Form. You can choose what it will show when you create it with the assistent of consultations. You just follow the instructions and, if you want, adjust the design.

An important thing is the main menu, which has to be done to access everything from the database. Mainly the forms and the important reports, and maybe a print button for a report or an exit button. This can be made adding buttons in the form's tools window, and choosing its characteristics.

Some relationships between forms can be made to ease these things in the database's tools window, and also some other consultations. There are a lot of tools in Access, but the ones we learned are the basic ones, and anyone can manage with them.

I hope you liked and it was useful, see you in the next post (it will be interesting, about App Inventor, so have a look at it).

Databases

Hello! I'm going to write about databases. A database (DB) is a 'bank' of information which classifies the data and creates relationships between the groups of data. This information is organised in a way that the desired pieces of data can be quickly selected, found and accessed. It is also an electronic filling system, as you can add information whenever you want to. If it is properly designed, it can ease administrative works a lot. For example, if you have an enterprise and you want to clasify your products, have the information about their prices, the clients or the dates of delivery... Databases can collect small pieces of information, for small things (like personal things) as well as huge pieces information for huge enterprises or managements.

Traditional databases are organized by fields, records, and files. A field is a single piece of information; a record is one complete set of fields; and a file is a collection of records. For example: a telephone book is a file with a list of records, consisted of three fields: name, address, and telephone number.

On the other hand, data in databases can normally be reorganized and accessed in a number of different ways. They have charts in which the fields are specified and the data and the kind of information they contain is also added; forms in which the data can be seen in an organised way and also new data can be added in the different fields; reports in which the recorded information can be seen in a glance; and consultations in which some specific information is ordered and seen in an specific way, also in a glance, like reports but more specific. Relationships between charts and their fields are made to ease the results of the forms and the components of the database.

Databases are accessed and edited through Database Management Systems (DBMS), like Access, the one we normally use, which belongs to Microsoft. They enable you to enter, organize, and select data once the database has been created and molded for its target.

Once you know what a database is you can create one to organise some information. You'll see my database project in Access in the next post. Have a nice day, and enjoy the good weather.

Servomotors

Hello in this third term. I have to write something about servomotors.

A servomotor is a rotary actuator which receives electric signals or orders and rotates with precise control of angular position, velocity and acceleration. It consists of a motor joined to a sensor for position feedback. It also requires a sophisticated controller.

In our case we controlled it through the Arduino software, and connected the servomotor to the Arduino board to make it recieve the orders. Once it has recieved the data from the computer, the board stores the information and makes it work when it receives an specific signal from the sensors. Then it turns the determined number of degrees in an specific direction, speed and strength, depending on what signal it receives and what you've programmed with the software.

We've been using these motors to make some Arduino robots work. Ours consisted on a rocking chair-robot which had a foil heart which, when being touched, activated those servomotors and lifted the arms and the legs. This was possible because the board received a signal from the capacitive sensor (the foil), which receives current from our skin, and then activated the servomotor, which rotated some degrees and pulled a piece of thread which was attached to it and to the arms and the legs, and with the pulley effect, those were lifted. It was hard to attach the thread to the servomotor and the lifts, and make the capacitive sensor work, but we finally made it and it was cool.

Arduino-Tickle Robot from Carmen Bueno Iglesias

I hope you liked, see you in the next post!

Arduino

To end this term we've been working with Arduino. Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for anyone making interactive projects and it's mainly composed by a software and a board shield, supplemented by several means. This project was created in around 2005 by a group of people related with the Italian Interactive Design Institute Ivrea, to create a more affordable and accessible free hardware device, compatible with most operative systems. Now there are discussions about the licensing of Arduino between its creators but this project is a great mean for education and development so I hope we will still be using it in schools for long.

In our high school we have several Arduino materials with which we create interactive gadgets. Then with our creations we participate in a technology fair. But, to get started on it, we at first make simple projects. We've made two projects until now. You can see the information about them in the Verkstad Creative Technologies webpage, in the second and third blocks.

The first project consisted on a sport or game. My group made REACT. It consists on a sequence of LEDs that come on light aleatory and you have to push the corresponding capacitive sensor rapidly to continue playing. You can see the information here:

The second project consisted on a "magic" gadget. My group made POV, which consists on a line of LEDs on the shield which come on light depending on how you program them, so that when you make it turn rapidly or you move it rapidly, you can see words or symbols on it, and it is so cool. You can see its information here:

I hope you liked, I'll upload more information and images about this if we continue working with Arduino. Have nice Easter holidays!

Processing

Hello again. We've started programming in computing with Processing and Arduino. Processing is an open source programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) to create designs and electronic or media art. For example, you can create figures which follow the mouse, stay the same, move aleatory or through your keyboard's keys, or follow orders, with different colors and shapes, and make them do something interesting.

We worked with the exercises from the Creative Technologies web, and then modified them, so in the 1st block from this webpage you can find the explanations about these exercises and how to do them.

To set the size of the window that appears we use the function void setup(). Data is inserted between {} and each line with data ends with ; .

A first exercise useful to learn is creating a figure with different shapes, sizes and colours, and place them in a coordinate or make them follow the mouse. The properties of these figures and the background colours are set with the function void draw()

Another simple exercise to learn is creating a line whose end follows the mouse and leaves a trail through his way, by making one of its ends follow the mouse with the coordinates line(0, 0, mouseX, mouseY).

Then we also made a kind of snake which follows the mouse and changes colour through the time. I changed its shape, the colours, the time in which it changes colour...

A more complicated practice was making a digital clock which was based on the computers' clock. We inserted the numbers' images, changed the shape of the clock, put it horizontally and added the colons.

To finish with Processing we made a videogame in which something moved with the keyboard keys had to catch a falling object. I set all the images, changed the time limit, set a winning objective and adjusted several things.

Programming is complicated if you have to do it from scratch, but with Versktad's webpage it's a lot easier, it explains it very well and you can manage to change already existent programs.

I hope it was useful and you liked it, in the next post I'll write about Arduino.

Golden Ratio in design

We've been asked to write something about the Golden Ratio in design. This amazing term is the one which appoints the proportion between two quantities when their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities, and you can see it better in this image:

This ratio can be obtained from the division between two consecutive numbers from the Fibonacci progression (Fibonacci or Leonardo of Pisa was an Italian mathematician from the XII and XIII centuries), whose numbers are obtained through the addition of the two previous numbers of the succession (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144...). This division has a result of roughly 1.618.

Golden Ratio in nature

This ratio appears naturally in several aspects of nature as the position of some plants' leafs or petals, the shape of shells, galaxies, reproduction of rabbits... Even the entire human form may be broken down into a series of Golden Ratios.

But, appart from that, many designs are based on the Golden Ratio, as it is considered as a beautiful proportion to see. Some examples are the shapes of credit cards, postcards, playing cards, posters, wide-screen televisions, photographs, light switch plates and cars, webpages, and many brands' logos. There are also even hisatorical art samples which show the Golden Ratio, such as portraits, paintings, buildings, sculptures...Some of these historical samples are the Athens Parthenon, the Mona Lisa, the Vitruvian Man, and many other paintings, sculptures and buildings, as a result of trying to create beauty.


According to more actual designs, for instance, most apple designs are based on the Golden Ratio, as their logo, the iCloud logo or their mobile phones. Something we use daily as our credit cards or identity cards have the Golden Ratio on them. Also the logos of National Geographic, Toyota, Pepsi, BP, Grupo Boticario, Twitter, and also the Twitter main webpage, but surely many more have this ratio. You can see these examples here.

To sum up, the Golden Ratio or Fibonacci number is something which surrounds us naturally or artificially, that makes us see things beautiful. It may appear by chance or be really studied by designers, but it's on many things we see, and realizing and learning about it is amazing.

I hope you liked and learned a bit about this wonderful ratio. I'll write the next post soon, see you.

Alan Turing

Hello again. We've been told to post something about Alan Turing, who was a British pioneering computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, mathematical biologist, and marathon and ultra distance runner. 

Alan Turing, considered father of modern computing, was born in 1912 and he was homosexual. That's why he is supposed to have killed himself ingesting cyanide in 1954, because that time homosexuality was punished (he was chemically castrated and condemned for 61 years). He's recently been reprieved by Isabel Queen.

He influenced the end of the second world war because he cracked the "unbreakable" nazi code Enigma through his electromechanical machine, which is considered as a precursor for modern computers. This machine made a set of logical deductions for any possible combination.

Another important thing he did is create the first detailed design of an ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), a computer of programmed storage. Analising this and wondering whether a computer could compose music or think, he made an experiment, the Turing Test, which considered a machine "smart" when a person was unable to distinguish computers' answers from real persons' answers. Nowadays we know the CAPTCHA, which is the reverse of Turing test.

He also made a chess programme, studied the Fibonacci numbers in nature, worked in cybernetics and started programming, for instance, so he was a great man with a sad ending.

In brief, Alan Turing made great progress in computing and science in general, and maybe, if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have all these smart gadgets or be so computing-developped.

I hope you learned a bit more with this post, have a great day.

QCad

Welcome again in this second term, and happy new year, by the way. We've been working with QCad, which is a free Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software application for 2D design and drafting.

We've copied some already-existent designs and learned how to make lines, angles, circles and arcs, how to dimension, fill and move figures, how to force positions or splay corners...
This is a very visual programme and I think it's easy to use once you know a bit about technical drawing. You have an icon menu on the left of the window where you can choose the action or the figure you want. Then, after you choose the figure you want and the way you want to draw it by clicking on the specific icons, you can draw it two ways:
-By just drawing it on your own on the work space, which has a black background divided in squares of 10x10 units, separated by points
-By writting the coordinates it asks you on the gap below. The points are inserted as x,y, the distances as @x and the angles as <x. Depending on the function you choose, you may have to insert the radius on a gap above.

When you already have something drawn you can "snap" (force) the speific point you want to choose so that it's more accurate and you don't accumulate errors, for example snap endpoints (when a line ends), grid (the spots given on the workspace), middle, intersection (where the lines get crossed)... and restrict the area.

To work in different colors or with different types of lines you can add several layers on the column on the right, and edit their characteristics.

And more or less these are the basic things we've learned in our IT class, but if you have any question you can comment this post and ask. I leave here my practices.
I hope it was interesting and useful, have a nice day.