The Best Interns Ever

After sending Frank the detailed procedure, I received his response on my program. Overall, it was very successful. He is pretty happy that the program worked without a problem. He had some preferences for the interface though. He preferred the time selection to be a spin button instead of a drop down list. The recorded file name might need to be changed. Before it was like -YYYY-mm-DD-HH-MM. I will wait for his choice of the name.

Rob and I also planned the video that we are going to film on Tuesday.

Today I also wrote a Tech’Splained: How to create an e-mail account? After that Rob and I started working on the MCS_Training. Unfortunately, some of the accounts do not allow us to login.

Today is the day that I finished my first version of Bee Project.
I combined multiple files into one big file. This way, copying the file to somewhere else is a lot easier. It also shortens the code a bit. Another thing I did for latter programmers is to make better variable names and put comments into my program.
The interface is already sent to Frank Linton. I will wait for his response on the program. I expect to make more changes to it.
Bee Project Interface Version 1

Today, I transformed my code into comma sperated values form. This allows the user’s input data to be saved in a different place that is safe. Then retrieve needed data from this safe place. It is kind of tricky the first time I did it. I have to constantly debug the program. At the end of the day, I finally transformed my code into csv format.
I also allow the wav file to have Preference button, not just ogg file. There are three options for wav.

Now the interface allows recording audio manually. A simple click can record the audio, which responds to what was selected above.
Another good news is that it runs on the XO smoothly.
Jason suggested that I should use comma-seperated values(csv) for user’s raw data input for security reasons. This is exactly what I was looking for, but do not know how to achieve. He had shown me an example of it, so I got an idea of how to put it into action.

Wow… I just realized that there are so many things I could add to my interface using GTK and Glade. Last time, I got location and duration done. Today, I finished a tab that could select the type of format for audio. The tab also gives selections for rate, channels, and depth. Not only that, I started organizing the coding and adding more comments for others to read. There are still so many things to add, like record manually, making the interface fancier and more user-friendly.

Today, I started working on the interface of the Bee Project. I wrote it in PyGTK and used Glade as the interface. So far, I have made a lot of progress. The interface includes changing time and location. It is also able to identify any invalid entries and give an error message. It wasn’t easy to get this done because there were many bugs that need to be fixed. Currently, there are no more bugs.

Here is an image of my interface.

Since I already have my script running, I started to help Robert on writing the tutorial. Because I had some experience with how to write activities, we could make more progress each day. Currently, we are on Day 3 HelloWorld.

Today, I finished writing my script for modern technology. Mine is on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). I already sent a copy to Amelia. Accompanying with RFID, I also wrote a script on how to get and use SmarTrip, which uses the RFID technology.

In the afternoon, Amelia, Liz, Robert, and I shot a short video. I am not sure what the topic is, but I know that it is suppose to be dramatic. I cannot wait to see the product.

Jason is here today! He has been a great help today, actually, everyday.
He came up with an idea using python script to record sound, and use cron, a linux scheduling tool, to repeat the job at a desired time. After some researching and Jason’s lecturing, of course, I had successfully recorded the sound in wav files.

Jason Straw playing with an XO

I can say that I am getting really close to the product of this project. I already sent Frank Linton what I got so far and let him test it out first.

After exchanging email with Ben Schwartz, the person who developed Distance activity, I decided to write my own application instead of modifying Record activity. He suggested to take a look at Analyze, which is a much simpler program. I guess I will start my own program based on Analyze.
A new tool came in sight. Cron. This is a time-based scheduling service that can run the program repeatedly over time. It is exactly what I wanted. I will be trying this out throughout the week.
http://www.adminschoice.com/docs/crontab.htm

In the morning, I was working on the first activity, HelloWorld. It is a very basic activity for beginners. I think this is a great place to start the tutorial. I had made some modification of the program making it a bit more interesting. In the middle, I had encountered some errors, but after multiple trials it worked fine.

During lunch, I had a conversation with Michael Connet and Robert. We decided to create a text-based curriculum for the later interns, so that they can easily start working on the XO. Instead of a video tutorial, the curriculum would provide more programming code since videos and pictures would not really tell much.

The bee project is progressing slowly due to the complexity of Record activity. The initial plan of editing Record could not make the job more efficient. I had contacted the person who knows the developer of Record activity hoping he could help out. I also have an alternative which I will write my own program. I am currently working on the interface.