Sunday, May 22, 2011

Work completed 05/16 - 05/22

  1. Attended kick off meeting on Tuesday, 05/17.  Received overview of work to be completed, which included work to be performed on the Wigwam applet, an applet that helps teach kids a conceptual, geometrical understanding of parabolas.  Three areas of work were described - a.  address issue of applet reliability (applet seems to not work properly at various times for students/trainers. b.  make the applet programmable (so that students can drag/drop controls on coordinate plane) c.  make the applet support creation of buckyballs.  This may involve some work with the setting of the applet - moving the xz plane down, or showing negative range of y axis so that full shape of object can be viewed, not just top half.
  2. Attended training session at Boys and Girls Club of America, Albany NY, on Thursday, 05/19.  Trained Brandon, a counselor, on basic functionality of applet and on how to make real-life model from the specs provided by the applet (curve length and end-points).  Biggest stumbling block seemed to be conveying a comfort level with plotting points on the graph paper.
Outstanding issue is getting the security credential (password) for accessing the source code.

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