ITX1000
Information about computers (October to November)
Computers are flexible and their main function is dependent on the code that is running at the time. This makes the general purpose and this serves a wide range of functions.
Embedded systems will then serve a single purpose and then
utilise a microcontroller or the DSP chip in order to carry out instruction,
they are often hidden in devices where it may not be apparent which any
computing is taking place.
Microcontrollers are programmed and if the programming may
need to be flexible and the code may reside on a removable chip or memory card.
Every microcontroller has its own instruction set.
The instructions tell the microcontroller or microprocessor
what to do.
Sensors translate specific physical phenomena in the real
world into a measurable quantity in an analog or digital format.
In this lab, my lecturer showed us a form of technology with a tennis ball attached to it, as a class we had to find out what the object was, many people in the class had to predict what the object was and I managed to guess correctly what the object was, the object was a motion sensor. The lecturer Carl James-Reynolds gave me a reward for my answer and it was some pieces of wires.
I have learnt throughout the start of the academic year about smart homes where you can use a variety of different technologies to control different aspects of the house, for example you could be on the tube on your way home and decide to turn the kettle on to heat the water so that you can come home and your water will be heated.
In this lab, my lecturer showed us a form of technology with a tennis ball attached to it, as a class we had to find out what the object was, many people in the class had to predict what the object was and I managed to guess correctly what the object was, the object was a motion sensor. The lecturer Carl James-Reynolds gave me a reward for my answer and it was some pieces of wires.
I have learnt throughout the start of the academic year about smart homes where you can use a variety of different technologies to control different aspects of the house, for example you could be on the tube on your way home and decide to turn the kettle on to heat the water so that you can come home and your water will be heated.
Arduino box kits (November to start of December)
I found out what the prize Carl James-Reynolds gave me a couple of weeks ago, this was built into the boxes that he provided us with. He gave us some instructions and we put them into practice.
I have learnt about the program Arduino, this is a program which can help to do many different things such as change colour of LED’s when it was run, for example we were playing around with the program as a group to change the colour of the LED by finding out which port the wire was connected to. This was by turning on the blink program which is a library found on the “Arduino UNO program”.
I have learnt that you need to check which port the USB of
the box is connected to and you must make sure that the USB port on the system
says “COM-3” and not “COM-1”.
I have found a lot of different sorts of programs that are
loaded on the system, for example if you connect the box and load the “knock”
program, then you can find out that if you knock on the coin on
the box when the program is run then the LED turns on and if you knock again then the LED turns off.
Short Story (Last few weeks of first semester).
On the final weeks of December I was learning the many different techniques needed in order to write a successful short story, these labs were taken by John Dack who managed to explain the way to write a story on week 11, while Carl James-Reynolds taught us the many different forms of futurology which we could use to write our short stories. I chose to write a story on driverless technology which I wrote on week 11. On week 12 we had to read out our short story to the class and John Dack liked the story as well as the stories read by the other members of our group.
My Story
The names of these three members of staff are Seth Lopez, Dean Stevens and Roman Johnson. Seth, Dean and Roman all had completed their PHD at Oxford University and before they had completed their PHD, they had all studied at different universities and they met at Oxford when they joined. After completing their PHD they had decided that they were going to create a program which would be able to create a driverless car on the road and this would allow a user to input different locations and would allow them to travel from one place to another.
They have meetings after every shift they work at ‘TESLA’ and all three members would have a version in which they can keep at home. During one of their first meetings they decided that this car would have a steering wheel and two pedals would be placed in the car in the case of an emergency, so that the user can drive the car in case the driverless technology doesn't work on the day. They decided on another meeting that that they would use the two programming languages called “C++” and “C”, this was because these were the two languages used to create “google maps”, and they would be able to connect Google maps to their car which would allow easier input to the car user and it would make it easier to produce the program. On their final meeting at Seth’s house they realised they were on the verge of completing the program which would be able to finally bring driverless technology to the market and could be developed by big companies to finally bring the technology on to the roads, however Dean and Roman forgot to back up the data onto their laptops, this meant that the nearly finished version of the code was only on Seth’s computer, when Dean and Roman left his house, Seth managed to complete the code and was able to test the code on a dummy model and the car worked perfectly. Dean had reached home at that point and realised that Seth forgot to back up the data onto his laptop, this led Dean to phone Roman. “Did Seth send you the code”, said Dean. “No”, replied Roman. “We should phone him”, said Dean. “I agree”, said Roman.
Both Roman and Dean put the phone down and decided that they would phone Seth. Both Roman and Dean phoned Seth, but Seth had decided that he isn’t going to answer their calls so he decided to block both of their numbers, this was on his mobile and his landline. He then phoned the CEO of TESLA “Elon Musk”, Seth knew him from university when he was attending a seminar when he was doing his undergraduate degree. After two rings Elon picked up the phone. Seth said, “Elon I developed a program which can run a driverless car”. Elon replied, “I would love to see it, could we arrange a meeting at your house tomorrow”, Seth replied “No problem”.
Media
At the start of the second semester we had a new lecturer on the 19th January to teach us the next part of the work, we had learnt about the terms of use when using social media such as Instagram. One of the tasks we had completed in class was to make sure we understand the terms and use of Instagram, the lecturer Gill Whitney showed us two different types of terms where one of them was easy to understand and the other one was difficult to understand. We then looked into which terms of use should be shown to teenagers using these forms of social media and how they would be able to understand these terms for safer use on the internet.
Science Museum
On the second week of the second semester we had a trip to the science museum. We went to see our lecturers Carl-James Reynolds and Gill Whitney. We went on this trip on the 26th January and we were asked to meet up at 11:00 am, we went to learn about the many different types of technology. Seeing the many different types of technologies such as the age recognition machine through face recognition was impressive as this machine was able to find out what the gender of the person was, for example when I used the machine, the machine was able to predict that I am a male and also the machine was able to predict my age which was 19 on that day. We also went to a 4D adventure where we sat on a flight simulator which was a good experience as we got to experience the RAF fighter plane style. Below are some pictures we took at the science museum.
Learning about how people with disability can use technology.
We learnt about the many different technologies aid people with disabilities, for example one of the ways we disabilities we discovered is that for people who are blind can use voice aids so that they can hear what is on the screen and this can aid them to allow them to use the computer. One form of assistive technology that we used in class was the NVDA, this is where the screen is read to the person so people who are blind would be able to read a computer screen when they download NVDA, this can be beneficial to many people as it helps more blind people use the computer when the screen is being read to them, I found this very useful and using it was very easy.
Creating a PowerPoint on many different questions.
The following lab after the trip to the science museum, we were told by Ms Gill Whitney to create a PowerPoint presentation of one slide to present to the class on the questions shown below.
Ritterman Building to learn about virtual reality
On week 22, we visited the Ritterman building, and on the bottom floor of the building we met up with some third year students, as well as PHD students. They gave us an insight into the many different types of virtual reality, and I was fascinated by this because one form of was a chair, where you wear a headset and then while you wear the headset, you feel as though you are on the rollercoaster, when the rollercoaster moves, the chair will move in the same way. We also saw a robot that was holding a tablet and we could communicate with the robot. We saw the Samsung VR headset sand saw a virtual place where there were elephants and lions, and it felt as though I was actually in the wild looking at those animals. We then went back to classroom where we watched a video on software which is being created by research students and Dr Serengul Smith told us that we are going to try the software out on week 23, so I am looking forward to testing this software out.At the end of the lab, we were asked to find many different pictures of the human anatomy so that we can use these images on week 23. Below are some images of the experience at the Ritterman building.
This first image shows one of my classmates testing out the virtual reality chair. The second image shows me wearing the Samsung virtual reality software. The final picture shows the robot we saw at the Ritterman building.
Testing a software
On week 23, we had a lecturer who came from the Malta campus of Middlesex University, his name was Clifford Raphael. He refreshed our memory on the video we saw on week 22 and then we were asked to test the software. I had used a few images which made me realise that I could drag the body part to the labels, I required fiducial areas in the body part on the human anatomy, and I then got my objects to clash with the fiducial areas, I done this for three different body parts, they were the brain, heart and the lungs. In this lesson I learnt an exciting form of technology that hasn't been launched yet and found it exciting how I found myself actually testing out a software that was developed by research students, below is some images of when I was using the software. The second image shows my fiducial area, whereas my first image is just showing some of the images I was using.
Summary
In summary, at the start of the year I found programming very difficult, however throughout the year I kept on practising Java programming and I found myself getting better, I also learnt Arduino programming and as I learnt Java, it was interesting and I found it very enjoyable as we were able to program the boxes our lecturer provided, and our knock program actually worked. Java and Arduino programming had similar aspects when we were using the boxes and hence using the boxes was enjoyable for our group. ITX1000 showed me a variety of different styles of IT such as the features of a computer, social media, app development and Virtual Reality. I have enjoyed ITX1000 and I will continue to use the skill gained in this module in the future.
the box when the program is run then the LED turns on and if you knock again then the LED turns off.
Short Story (Last few weeks of first semester).
On the final weeks of December I was learning the many different techniques needed in order to write a successful short story, these labs were taken by John Dack who managed to explain the way to write a story on week 11, while Carl James-Reynolds taught us the many different forms of futurology which we could use to write our short stories. I chose to write a story on driverless technology which I wrote on week 11. On week 12 we had to read out our short story to the class and John Dack liked the story as well as the stories read by the other members of our group.
My Story
There are three people who work for ‘TESLA’, this is a car company that creates electronic cars, these cars are don’t require petrol to run the car as they only work on electricity. The three people who work for the company are salesmen, however all three members of staff have a P.H.D in computer science, they then decided to work in TESLA as salesmen in order to earn money, they had a lot of experience in selling cars as they used to work for big companies before they joined TESLA.
The names of these three members of staff are Seth Lopez, Dean Stevens and Roman Johnson. Seth, Dean and Roman all had completed their PHD at Oxford University and before they had completed their PHD, they had all studied at different universities and they met at Oxford when they joined. After completing their PHD they had decided that they were going to create a program which would be able to create a driverless car on the road and this would allow a user to input different locations and would allow them to travel from one place to another.
They have meetings after every shift they work at ‘TESLA’ and all three members would have a version in which they can keep at home. During one of their first meetings they decided that this car would have a steering wheel and two pedals would be placed in the car in the case of an emergency, so that the user can drive the car in case the driverless technology doesn't work on the day. They decided on another meeting that that they would use the two programming languages called “C++” and “C”, this was because these were the two languages used to create “google maps”, and they would be able to connect Google maps to their car which would allow easier input to the car user and it would make it easier to produce the program. On their final meeting at Seth’s house they realised they were on the verge of completing the program which would be able to finally bring driverless technology to the market and could be developed by big companies to finally bring the technology on to the roads, however Dean and Roman forgot to back up the data onto their laptops, this meant that the nearly finished version of the code was only on Seth’s computer, when Dean and Roman left his house, Seth managed to complete the code and was able to test the code on a dummy model and the car worked perfectly. Dean had reached home at that point and realised that Seth forgot to back up the data onto his laptop, this led Dean to phone Roman. “Did Seth send you the code”, said Dean. “No”, replied Roman. “We should phone him”, said Dean. “I agree”, said Roman.
Both Roman and Dean put the phone down and decided that they would phone Seth. Both Roman and Dean phoned Seth, but Seth had decided that he isn’t going to answer their calls so he decided to block both of their numbers, this was on his mobile and his landline. He then phoned the CEO of TESLA “Elon Musk”, Seth knew him from university when he was attending a seminar when he was doing his undergraduate degree. After two rings Elon picked up the phone. Seth said, “Elon I developed a program which can run a driverless car”. Elon replied, “I would love to see it, could we arrange a meeting at your house tomorrow”, Seth replied “No problem”.
During their meeting Seth showed him the car and the program and decided to sell it to TESLA for 500 million pounds, he then unblocked Dean and Roman’s number and decided to tell them the news, however he didn’t mention either of their names on the project. This caused Dean and Roman to feel betrayed at Seth Lopez.
Researching Job opportunities (Start of second semester).
When we returned from the Christmas break, we attended our lab for ITX1000 where our lecturer Carl James-Reynolds told us to find job opportunities to look at. This was to help us find a placement so that we can have a placement between year 2 and 3 of our degree and therefore make our course a "Sandwich" degree. One particular career which I have taken an interest in is "Web development", this is designing websites and while studying "CSD1200", I had learnt parts of HTML, which I intend to continue learning in my spare time to make sure that I can master this form of coding to make many different types of websites, I am also actively looking for work experience in this field to make sure I can have a better understanding of developing websites as I can use this skill when I get employed after my degree.
Researching Job opportunities (Start of second semester).
When we returned from the Christmas break, we attended our lab for ITX1000 where our lecturer Carl James-Reynolds told us to find job opportunities to look at. This was to help us find a placement so that we can have a placement between year 2 and 3 of our degree and therefore make our course a "Sandwich" degree. One particular career which I have taken an interest in is "Web development", this is designing websites and while studying "CSD1200", I had learnt parts of HTML, which I intend to continue learning in my spare time to make sure that I can master this form of coding to make many different types of websites, I am also actively looking for work experience in this field to make sure I can have a better understanding of developing websites as I can use this skill when I get employed after my degree.
Media
At the start of the second semester we had a new lecturer on the 19th January to teach us the next part of the work, we had learnt about the terms of use when using social media such as Instagram. One of the tasks we had completed in class was to make sure we understand the terms and use of Instagram, the lecturer Gill Whitney showed us two different types of terms where one of them was easy to understand and the other one was difficult to understand. We then looked into which terms of use should be shown to teenagers using these forms of social media and how they would be able to understand these terms for safer use on the internet.
Science Museum
On the second week of the second semester we had a trip to the science museum. We went to see our lecturers Carl-James Reynolds and Gill Whitney. We went on this trip on the 26th January and we were asked to meet up at 11:00 am, we went to learn about the many different types of technology. Seeing the many different types of technologies such as the age recognition machine through face recognition was impressive as this machine was able to find out what the gender of the person was, for example when I used the machine, the machine was able to predict that I am a male and also the machine was able to predict my age which was 19 on that day. We also went to a 4D adventure where we sat on a flight simulator which was a good experience as we got to experience the RAF fighter plane style. Below are some pictures we took at the science museum.
Learning about how people with disability can use technology.
We learnt about the many different technologies aid people with disabilities, for example one of the ways we disabilities we discovered is that for people who are blind can use voice aids so that they can hear what is on the screen and this can aid them to allow them to use the computer. One form of assistive technology that we used in class was the NVDA, this is where the screen is read to the person so people who are blind would be able to read a computer screen when they download NVDA, this can be beneficial to many people as it helps more blind people use the computer when the screen is being read to them, I found this very useful and using it was very easy.
Creating a PowerPoint on many different questions.
The following lab after the trip to the science museum, we were told by Ms Gill Whitney to create a PowerPoint presentation of one slide to present to the class on the questions shown below.
What do you need or be able to do in order to use a
computer?
You should be able to look at the screen comfortably, this means that
they need to make sure their eyes are easily adjusted today.
How can we ensure a computer can assist people to
travel in real life?
One of the ways where people can assist people to travel in
real life is using sound interface as this can help someone to find out when
the next train is. An example of this is using the underground travel board,
one of the ways is that when the train is two minutes away, there is normally a
person says that the next train will arrive in two minutes.
What do you need to know to get information out of a
computer?
Tactile feedback, for example if someone was to call someone
on Skype then the computer may vibrate. audio feedback by having the computer
talking to someone. Another form of feedback is visual feedback for example the
person could be able to read the screen, for example a text could appear on the
screen.
What are the requirements for a computer interface?
A keyboard as this allows someone to input information.
A mouse allows the person to navigate themselves around the
screen.
Digital Native
The following week we were given four different activities to complete. The first activity was given by Ms Gill Whitney where we had to circle a number between 1 and 5 to answer the question, this number was to identify the number of years you have used a certain device. So 1 is 1 year, 2 is 2 years and so on. 5 is 5 years and above. The four questions are shown below and my answer is next to the question. You can identify your score by answering the questions and then adding the numbers together. If your score is above 15, that means you are a digital native.
- How long have you used a computer? (5)
- For how long have you used a Tablet PC? (2)
- For how long have you used a smartphone? (5)
- For how long have you used the internet? (5)
As you can see from my answers, my total score was 17 which means I am a digital native.
Oliver Drage
In the second activity, the whole group had a look at a case where a man was sentenced for 14 weeks, for refusing to give the police his password to his computer which is considered a serious crime, the reason that our lecturer told us to research this case is that each different source that we researched presented the article differently. Some of these articles compared this crime to terrorism, if terrorism is mentioned in an article, then the crime can be taken more seriously. The websites I used are shown below.
Oliver Drage
In the second activity, the whole group had a look at a case where a man was sentenced for 14 weeks, for refusing to give the police his password to his computer which is considered a serious crime, the reason that our lecturer told us to research this case is that each different source that we researched presented the article differently. Some of these articles compared this crime to terrorism, if terrorism is mentioned in an article, then the crime can be taken more seriously. The websites I used are shown below.
1. http://metro.co.uk/2010/10/06/teenager-oliver-drage-jailed-for-not-revealing-password-535793/
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831
3. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/10/police-drage-password-sex
4. http://blog.frankleonhardt.com/2010/oliver-drage-makes-mockery-out-of-ripa/
Amazon
The third activity was to research Amazon as a group, one of the facts we found out about amazon is that it started off as an online book shop, however overtime it has evolved to sell many different products from books to televisions or even sports equipment. Once we researched what Amazon does, the lecturer asked to group "Do you trust Amazon for your online shopping?", the whole class replied yes, this therefore shows that amazon has evolved over time where the majority of people trust amazon for their online shopping.
Developing UniHelp
The final activity for that lab, we got told to make a plan to help a local community member go online to promote their business. I had to work with a partner and we decided to promote UniHelp to have a online chat where a student would be able to chat to a member of the UniHelp team online, this allows the user at home to chat to someone at the university and can be helpful if the student lives far and this means they are likely to get their answers at home and will hence help them to feel comfortable talking to someone on the other end.
Feedback
The following lab was a feedback session where Ms Gill Whitney gave the whole class formative feedback on our blogs, one piece of advice she gave was to write about all the modules link together.
Creating an App
The next lab, our lecturer from the start of the module came to teach us again. The task assigned to us by Carl was to find out how to design an application for a mobile phone. One website I have used to design my application was called "AppGeyser", this was a simple web software which allows the user to create an android application, this website gave me the option to upload my app onto the "Google Play Store", however I chose not to. When I downloaded my app on my mobile it worked and the app I created was a guessing game where a person needs to guess the name of the cricketer.
If you scan the QR code below on an android phone, you will be able to download the app that I designed.
Recommender Systems
The following week, we had a new lab tutor, who we met at the induction for the course at the start of the year, her name is Dr Serengul Smith, she is the course leader for our course "Information Technology". We started off by introducing ourselves to Serengul before we started learning about recommender systems. This is used by many different e-commerce systems to recommend a product to a customer, for example if a customer was to buy a mobile phone such as a Samsung Galaxy S7, while that customer is looking at the phone, they can see the price of the phone with the case and therefore will lead to the customer being recommended to buy the case.
Collaborative filtering.
We then learnt about collaborative filtering, this a form of a recommender system where the user is recommending items based on their behaviour on the computer, for example if the user kept searching for different mobile phones, then the website would show adverts of many different phones. The website can group the data which is stored in the cookies and can hence help the customer shop online.
Content based filtering
This is a form of filtering that is used based on the contents of the user.
Hybrid approach
This is a mixture of collaborative and content-based filtering and this is the most efficient of the three systems, as it is more efficient.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
The following lab we were learning about the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality, the difference between the two is that augmented reality is virtual reality that is shown on a screen, for example creating a character and using them to move on a PC, whereas virtual reality is where you feel as though you are actually in the place on the screen.
We used second life viewer, which is an augmented reality software where you create a character and while we used this software we found that the software was useful, because when we searched for Middlesex University, the background made us feel as though our character was in the University.
At the science museum we had brief look at virtual reality and below is the image of the headset we saw at the museum.
Triggered Image
We used an application called "Aurasma" during this lab. This is an application which I found amazing as this was one way you can make images come to life, this was a very exciting lesson and one of the pictures that I made come to life was a dinosaur which starts dancing. The image would be static on the computer, but when you use the Aurasma app to look at it, and then when you look at the image on the phone then the image will come to life. You can view all of my images by typing my username "parth121" into the studio and I created two different types of triggered images, one of them was a footballer doing a skill and the other one was the dinosaur dancing.
Google Cardboard
We then came across Google cardboard, which is a virtual reality headset, one of the ways this works is that when you wear the cardboard, you feel as though you are actually in the place the phone is showing. One of the apps I downloaded on my phone is a rollercoaster and it felt as though I was actually one the rollercoaster. I was amazed by this form of technology and I intend to invest in a virtual reality headset as this is a sector of technology that is growing and being developed very quickly.
The following lab was a feedback session where Ms Gill Whitney gave the whole class formative feedback on our blogs, one piece of advice she gave was to write about all the modules link together.
Creating an App
The next lab, our lecturer from the start of the module came to teach us again. The task assigned to us by Carl was to find out how to design an application for a mobile phone. One website I have used to design my application was called "AppGeyser", this was a simple web software which allows the user to create an android application, this website gave me the option to upload my app onto the "Google Play Store", however I chose not to. When I downloaded my app on my mobile it worked and the app I created was a guessing game where a person needs to guess the name of the cricketer.
If you scan the QR code below on an android phone, you will be able to download the app that I designed.
Recommender Systems
The following week, we had a new lab tutor, who we met at the induction for the course at the start of the year, her name is Dr Serengul Smith, she is the course leader for our course "Information Technology". We started off by introducing ourselves to Serengul before we started learning about recommender systems. This is used by many different e-commerce systems to recommend a product to a customer, for example if a customer was to buy a mobile phone such as a Samsung Galaxy S7, while that customer is looking at the phone, they can see the price of the phone with the case and therefore will lead to the customer being recommended to buy the case.
Collaborative filtering.
We then learnt about collaborative filtering, this a form of a recommender system where the user is recommending items based on their behaviour on the computer, for example if the user kept searching for different mobile phones, then the website would show adverts of many different phones. The website can group the data which is stored in the cookies and can hence help the customer shop online.
Content based filtering
This is a form of filtering that is used based on the contents of the user.
Hybrid approach
This is a mixture of collaborative and content-based filtering and this is the most efficient of the three systems, as it is more efficient.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
The following lab we were learning about the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality, the difference between the two is that augmented reality is virtual reality that is shown on a screen, for example creating a character and using them to move on a PC, whereas virtual reality is where you feel as though you are actually in the place on the screen.
We used second life viewer, which is an augmented reality software where you create a character and while we used this software we found that the software was useful, because when we searched for Middlesex University, the background made us feel as though our character was in the University.
At the science museum we had brief look at virtual reality and below is the image of the headset we saw at the museum.
Triggered Image
We used an application called "Aurasma" during this lab. This is an application which I found amazing as this was one way you can make images come to life, this was a very exciting lesson and one of the pictures that I made come to life was a dinosaur which starts dancing. The image would be static on the computer, but when you use the Aurasma app to look at it, and then when you look at the image on the phone then the image will come to life. You can view all of my images by typing my username "parth121" into the studio and I created two different types of triggered images, one of them was a footballer doing a skill and the other one was the dinosaur dancing.
Google Cardboard
We then came across Google cardboard, which is a virtual reality headset, one of the ways this works is that when you wear the cardboard, you feel as though you are actually in the place the phone is showing. One of the apps I downloaded on my phone is a rollercoaster and it felt as though I was actually one the rollercoaster. I was amazed by this form of technology and I intend to invest in a virtual reality headset as this is a sector of technology that is growing and being developed very quickly.
Ritterman Building to learn about virtual reality
On week 22, we visited the Ritterman building, and on the bottom floor of the building we met up with some third year students, as well as PHD students. They gave us an insight into the many different types of virtual reality, and I was fascinated by this because one form of was a chair, where you wear a headset and then while you wear the headset, you feel as though you are on the rollercoaster, when the rollercoaster moves, the chair will move in the same way. We also saw a robot that was holding a tablet and we could communicate with the robot. We saw the Samsung VR headset sand saw a virtual place where there were elephants and lions, and it felt as though I was actually in the wild looking at those animals. We then went back to classroom where we watched a video on software which is being created by research students and Dr Serengul Smith told us that we are going to try the software out on week 23, so I am looking forward to testing this software out.At the end of the lab, we were asked to find many different pictures of the human anatomy so that we can use these images on week 23. Below are some images of the experience at the Ritterman building.
This first image shows one of my classmates testing out the virtual reality chair. The second image shows me wearing the Samsung virtual reality software. The final picture shows the robot we saw at the Ritterman building.
Testing a software
On week 23, we had a lecturer who came from the Malta campus of Middlesex University, his name was Clifford Raphael. He refreshed our memory on the video we saw on week 22 and then we were asked to test the software. I had used a few images which made me realise that I could drag the body part to the labels, I required fiducial areas in the body part on the human anatomy, and I then got my objects to clash with the fiducial areas, I done this for three different body parts, they were the brain, heart and the lungs. In this lesson I learnt an exciting form of technology that hasn't been launched yet and found it exciting how I found myself actually testing out a software that was developed by research students, below is some images of when I was using the software. The second image shows my fiducial area, whereas my first image is just showing some of the images I was using.
Summary
In summary, at the start of the year I found programming very difficult, however throughout the year I kept on practising Java programming and I found myself getting better, I also learnt Arduino programming and as I learnt Java, it was interesting and I found it very enjoyable as we were able to program the boxes our lecturer provided, and our knock program actually worked. Java and Arduino programming had similar aspects when we were using the boxes and hence using the boxes was enjoyable for our group. ITX1000 showed me a variety of different styles of IT such as the features of a computer, social media, app development and Virtual Reality. I have enjoyed ITX1000 and I will continue to use the skill gained in this module in the future.
