Monday, Aug 1: Very sunny day today. Because of the wildfires upwind, I thought that the air quality would be really bad, but it wasn’t, and I didn’t go jogging these past few days, so I did! After that, I wrote about spinning black holes (thoughts down below). Then I did a lot of coding (naturally). Everything is down below!
Tuesday, Aug 2nd: Oops! Forgot to write blog on Tuesday.
Wednesday, Aug 3rd: Today, I continued writing about spinning black holes, which was interesting because I got to write about the Ergosphere, which is an area of space that surrounds the black hole, and if you enter it, it’s impossible to stop moving. Other than that, I restarted physics on Khan Academy, and it turns out that they added new content about work and energy, so I basically restarted the entire physics course LOL. Then I followed a tutorial series on YouTube about tile scrolling games by Griffpatch (who is like, the most famous person on Scratch). He has a YouTube channel, and I started making a Mario style game on Scratch!
Thursday, Aug 3rd: Oops! Forgot to write blog on Thursday TOO because of taekwondo.
Friday, Aug 4th: Today, I finished my essay (article?) about black holes, and I’m really proud! It’s only three pages, but it took a while to research everything and stuff. I also started maths again on Khan Academy, about getting ready for integration because it’s a new course, and there were a few things I didn’t know in there either. Then I saw that there was a new cryptography course as well (again, on Khan Academy), so I tried that out! I also got about halfway in making my Mario style game.
To kick off the week, I started writing about spinning black holes! This was really interesting because almost all black holes have spin. And properties about spinning black holes are really different from hypothetical non-spinning black holes. I wanted to write about this for two reasons: One, I realized that I never actually did write about this! And two, I had learned about spinning black holes a long time ago, but never thought about it since, and I knew that spinning black holes are really strange. For example, there is a region around the black hole (called the Ergosphere) and when you enter it, you can’t stop moving! Like, it’s impossible. 
Here I am learning about spinning black holes. Some videos were really informative and fun, such as the first spinning black hole video by Veritasium because they went into detail on how they work, and how they form. 
Then I did a little bit of code for addition practice because I needed to get fast at adding numbers in my head. 
Here it is in action! I wrote this in JavaScript *MIND BLOWN* because I really had to do other languages besides Scratch. This was really fun because I learned about converting numbers into strings and stuff like that. 
I made a pathfinding algorithm! 
Basically, all the cats try and get to the apple through the maze. This was really difficult, and I messed up many times (50? 100? 5,831?). But the basic idea is that a grid stores all the pixels on the screen and then directs each cat to the apple.
Here I am starting the Energy and Work course on Khan Academy. This was really fun because they have new tutors, but also because it’s new, and I get to start over again, and review all the concepts I already know! 
I started working on a tile based Mario style game, by a YouTuber named Griffpatch. He’s a great programmer, and teaches a lot of advanced projects. Anyway, he started a new series about how to make scrolling platformer games, where you jump around and jump on enemies, sort of like Mario. 
I thought the tutorial on how to make this scrolling game looked fascinating, so I tried following the tutorial. The tutorial was really informative, I even learned about particle effects and grid scrolling! 
Here is a level editor that I started working on. 
And here is the code… AAAAAAAAAAA
Me coding… 
I learned about the Caesar Cypher, where you shift each letter in a secret message so it looks meaningless, and how it was broken because of something called “fingerprinting.” And then, I learned about different types of codes, which there is a LOT of so I’m not gonna go through them. 
I learned about Cavalieri’s principle, which is a basic rule that says that if you slice up a 3D volume, it’s the same area. It seems simple (and sort of “Yeah DUH”), but it’s really important for calculus and integration.
Recent Comments