Daily
Journal

July 10th

ACADEMIC:

Today, working with Linux wasn’t really anything new for me because I’ve used Linux before. My high school’s computers all use Linux and I use the command line pretty often on my own computer, so today wasn’t anything I haven’t seen before. We learned about both GUI and command line interfaces, and both have their advantages. GUI is useful as it can make everything more visual, which is good if you have lots of files that are images. A graphical user interface is also much easier to learn and understand for someone who maybe does not know as much about computers or programming, in which case it is not really necessary for them to learn to use the command line. On the reverse side, for someone who does know how to use the command line, it can be a much faster way to perform many functions, including when you want to move, copy, create, or edit files (compared to using GUI).

PERSONAL:

In only the first day, the best part is probably getting to know everybody. As it turns out, I actually have a lot of connections to different people in my cluster, such as us being from the same area, going to the same middle school, or knowing some of the same people, so it's been fun connecting with them. Honestly, the only challenging thing that I’ve run into so far is the weather. Davis is so much hotter than I’m used to, but at the same time it’s really cold at night. Maybe I’ll get used to it?

July 11th

I spoke with my roommate in Cluster 10, which is about sustainable transportation, and she told me a lot about what they learned in class, such as how the US transportation system is very much in need of improvement. One of the things they focused on is that in terms of the environment, expansions of freeways and highways are actually not very ideal, because that would just increase the amount of cars driving on the road, and therefore further increasing emissions from car exhausts.

July 12th

I think you know you fully understand a lecture if you can teach it to another person well enough so that they also understand it and can teach it to another person. Most of the time, when we are learning something, we think that we understand something, but when asked to repeat it or teach it to someone else, we often find that there are still aspects of that concept we are unclear about. Some people might respond by saying something like how when you can paraphrase it, or answer certain questions about it, but both of those things are and will be put to the test when you try to teach it to another person less knowledgeable on the subject.

July 13th

Robotics could be used to help make the wildlife maintenance at Cal Academy more efficient. For example, robots could be used to automatically refill the food/water of certain fish/animals if a sensor in a tank senses that the food/water has run out. There was also an exhibit on earthquakes there, and robotics could be used in a series of ways to help analyze/study earthquakes, in addition to also being used to help with clean up or damage control. For example, sensing if anyone is trapped under a collapsed building, or having robots reach areas under collapsed buildings where it is too dangerous for humans to go.

Something interesting that I saw was that Cal Academy had an albino alligator – its scales/skin was completely white – which is something I had never seen before. This made me want to learn more about different albino animals, as well as the science/biology behind it. As it turns out, animals are albino because of a sometimes rare condition that makes their cells unable to produce melanin, which is what gives animals the pigment needed for skin, hair, eyes, scales, etc.

July 14th