Friday, December 18, 2015

Scratch Intro


  1. There are 10 options to code. They are labeled "Motion," "Looks," "Sound," "Pen," "Data," "Events," "Control," "Sensing," "Operators, and "More Blocks." 
  2. Under costumes, there are 4 different options for Costumes. you can "Choose from the costume library," "Paint a new costume," "Upload a costume from a file," or a "New costume from camera"
  3. There are 3 different options under Sound. You can "Choose from the sound library," "Record a new sound," or "Upload sound from file"
  4. For the backdrop, you can "Choose from the backdrop library," "Paint a new backdrop," "Upload a backdrop from a file," or a "New backdrop from camera"
  5. The options for a new sprite are "Choose sprite from library," "Paint new sprite," "Upload sprite from file," or "New sprite from camera."

Getting Started with Scratch




Thursday, December 3, 2015

HTML 5 Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Food

My family has several different foods present on Thanksgiving. We typically have a three course meal prepared by my nana. The courses are typically:

  • Appetizer: usually butternut squash soup
  • Main Course: turkey and all the side dishes
  • Desserts: usually pie and cookies

Favorites

Though I am sure all the food is delicious, my options are limited due to allergies. My grandmother is very good about making sure I have all my favorites to eat though and everything I can eat is wonderful. My top favorites are listed below.

  1. Stuffing
  2. Mashed potatoes
  3. Turkey
  4. Butternut Squash Soup

Traditions

Thanksgiving is often looked past in the excitement and anticipation of Christmas, but it is honestly one of my favorite holidays. I am very close with my whole family and I love any day I get to spend with all of them. Thanksgiving is always a fun experience in my family; lots of stories and even more laughs. Here are some definitions of things that remind me of Thanksgiving.


Football
- a form of team game played in North America with an oval ball on a field marked out as a gridiron.
Turkey
- a large mainly domesticated game bird native to North America, having a bald head and (in the male) red wattles. It is prized as food, especially on festive occasions such as Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Family
- a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.


Recipes

My favorite thing to make for Thanksgiving is apple pie. Here is the recipe I use for the pie

Here is the recipe I use for the homemade crust

Turkey Apple pie Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Butternut Squash Soup

Monday, November 30, 2015

Thanksgiving with Images

My HTML with images (copy and paste this link into your browser OR see the above post): M:\Junior Year\ECS\JuliaMelius567.html

To edit the image of the turkey, I increased temperature and decreased the saturation to make it more matte and somber looking. I then used the “beautify” option and increased the amount to make it look more high quality. Lastly, I softened the image again to make it look more sad and dark because the post is about Thanksgiving and that obviously is not a good holiday for turkeys. For the apple pie image I put a frame on it, I used the “underpainting”  option, which made it look more like a drawing, and lastly I increased the softness to make it less emphasized and more subtle. For the photo of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I increased the "beautify" amount to bring out color, added a filter called “vintage color, and made it look like a watercolor painting. For the Butternut Squash soup image, I made it look like a watercolor painting, increased the “beautify” option, and increased the smoothness.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

HTML Quiz

I got a 14/25 on the HTML pre-quiz; a 56%. I still need to learn:

  • how to create a hyperlink
  • how to open a link in a new tab
  • all the <table elements>
  • how to make a checkbox
  • how to make a text input field
  • the correct HTML for a drop-down list
  • the correct HTML for a text area
  • how to insert an image
  • how to insert a background image
  • <iframe>
  • block frames

Friday, November 13, 2015

Intro to HTML

Today we started web designing. I used several tools to design a very basic webpage. I used the html tags <h1>, <h3>, <br>, <p>, </html>, <head>. I hope to learn more about web designing,  like how to create backgrounds and add images to make the webpage more aesthetically appealing.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

X-Ray Goggles

The first thing I did with the X-Ray Goggle tool from webmaker was go to edline. I went to my physics page and made it say I had no homework.

I then went to twitter and fixed Harry Style's tweet



Finally, I went to Ticket Master and found tickets to Amy Schumer and I then made them a reasonable price


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Decoding Classmates Binary Messages

Emma R's message is: I figure skate
Emma W's message is: Hello my name is Emma.
Olivia R's message is: I am Olivia

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Secret Message

*=ON X=OFF
X*XXX
X*XX*
XXXXX
X*XXX
X****
*X***
XXXXX
XXXX*
*XX*X
XX*X*
XXXXX
**XX*
X****
*X*X*


1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Monday, October 26, 2015

20Q Reflection

Today we played around with the 20Q website to see how artificial intelligence works. The first category we chose was "Think Like an American" and our object was a panda. Before beginning, it always asked for information about yourself including gender, age, and the country you live in. In our first game it guessed correctly in only 17 questions. In our second game we did the Disney category and it guessed correctly at 17 questions again. In the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh game it guessed incorrectly every time. I was really surprised with the results because I thought that the game would be pretty up to date with its knowledge since it is an online based game, but whenever we tried to get it  to guess current topics such as Harry Styles, the movie "The Fault in Our Stars," and even Donald Trump including clues about his run for presidency, the computer just could not guess correctly.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Navajo Rug Weaver

This was more difficult than the others just because it was so tedious and took quite a long time to complete. I figured out how to make triangles with this one though and that did speed up the process. I've improved by getting quicker at typing in the coordinates and just knowing where certain lines start and end by using basic math

Friday, October 16, 2015

Pacific Northwest Basket Weaving

This one was more challenging than the beadloom because the stitches in the basket weaving face in different directions sometimes (some are horizontal and some vertical) so it got a little confusing, especially when making the diagonal line for the dog's tail. I did learn, however, that you can switch between the two colors by simply clicking on the stitches you already placed to get that color again. This simplified and sped up the process because I wasn't constantly trying to match my colors.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Self-Destructible Computer Chip

Information for this post was retrieved from an article titled "This Chip Will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds," published to livescience.com and written by Tia Ghose. URL: http://www.livescience.com/52397-self-destructing-chip-secures-data.html

A new, fascinating technology has been created which allows computer chips, when remotely controlled, to self-destruct. Purposes for the destructive new technology include securing data on stolen electronics and allowing for easier recycling of electronics. The new technology uses silicon computer wafers attached to a piece of tempered glass that shatters into millions of fragments when heated in one spot. Gregory Whiting, a materials scientist and manager of the Novel Electronics Group and producer of the chip says that the heat can be turned on via remote, which could be triggered by anything from Wi-Fi to a radiofrequency signal. The article goes into further detail on the specifics of the remote controlled destruction and the tempered glass method. It is certainly a fascinating, exciting, and new technology.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Introducing Me

My name is Julia Melius and I am a junior in high school. In school,  I am on the board of the Interact Club and I participate in the Drama Club as part of the makeup crew (unlike many of my peers, I am very un-athletic and I do not play any sports!). I work at an ice cream shop and I volunteer at Winchester Hospital every Thursday. One interesting fact about myself is that I have been playing the piano for ten years now. To be honest, I signed up to take Exploring Computer Science because I needed another business/technology course to fulfill my required credits, but now that I am enrolled, I realize that there is a lot to learn about the subject and I am excited to see where the course takes me. By the end of this course I hope to have learned a lot about computers; from how to navigate them to how they function. I am looking forward to a semester filled with exploration and learning.