Happy Thanksgiving and the Impossible Whopper

 Hello all,

I know this post is a little late, but I have gotten very caught up in work and Christmas! 

My youngest brother and I are making a "decoration" for my parents. He needs my help since it does require a little woodwork! It was his idea, and I am really enthusiastic about it; I'll post an image on or around Christmas. 

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! I know I did! Noah and I spent 8 hours putting up lights. We have so many lights up, even more than last year. I must say, we really have outdone ourselves. I also had a little white wine on Thanksgiving. It was absolutely disgusting. I don't know how people stand that stuff. I think I'll stick to my diet coke!

Yesterday, we stayed late at robotics and I decided to go out and grab the stuff for Luke's and mine's gift. I also went to Burger King; allow me to explain. 

One day, on Xbox, we (Noah, Tory, Ezra, and I) were playing Minecraft, and Ezra happened to be eating an Impossible Whopper. He claimed that it was very delicious, and he couldn't tell the difference. Tory and I challenged this statement, but said that we'd be willing to try it. So, Noah called off work, and we all took a break to eat some Burger King. I learned two things: one, it is very hard to transport five fast food meals to your car by yourself (I called BK and asked if the dining room was open for pickup and told them I would hit their drive-thru if it wasn't!); and two, you can both see and taste the difference. It definitely looked a little thinner, and certainly less variable than a standard patty. 

Nevertheless, it was not awful, nor was it completely different. They did a good job in my opinion, but you will not see me buying one of them ever again! 

Thanks for reading,

The Questionable Programmer

Teaching Time

 Hello all!

Nothing too much has happened since my last post but I have been getting a lot more teaching in a robots. I got a kid fully capable of writing advanced autos and another one wrote four commands with little to no guidance last night! I'll continue to teach now that I have the time. There has always been a lack of strong teaching in the programming department, as most of the leads prior to me have done everything themselves. I'm looking to change that and make the department more welcoming and engaging. 

I took a lot of criticism for my lack of teaching in 2020, and I truly think that people need to step back and realize that one programmer in a very busy season and just as busy offseason cannot teach everything at once. People seem to forget that if the one capable programmer is teaching, nothing would get done. This can appear to be very selfish on the student's part, even if unintended. I taught myself by looking at the code again and again each timed I learned a new python concept. The way the robot code works is very theoretical, and I can't just present a clean explanation. It is critical in my opinion that students do independent work, like homework, and review the language, the theory behind the framework, and how those two concepts tie together. 

Anyway, pardon my rant above. Just wanted to vent somewhere, and I suppose that's one of the reasons I continue this blog! 

But we must not fear, for the time has come to teach! With the current robot as programmatically competitive as it can be, I now have plenty of time until January. No competitions, no major modifications, nothing. We obviously don't have time like this any other year, so I figured now is the time to teach! So, I sat down with the future programming team and reviewed a lot of different concepts. Some more complicated topics have yet to come, but the students who consistently show up now have a decent understanding of their subsystem. As I said, I got one writing simple commands by himself, and will try to get him writing more commands next Thursday! He has also gotten very comfortable with version control by the looks of things, and I certainly hope he continues to explore Linux! The other, our newest member, is now capable of interpreting and writing complex autonomous' programs. He is learning at a remarkable rate! 

All in all, I think the entire programmer team is developing well and quickly! Dare I say it has something to do with the implementation of the scrum board? Not going to lie, I really like the concept of it. It makes tracking and distributing projects much easier. 

To close, I think I will share my senior quote with you guys! You ready? Here it is!

+++++++ [ > ++++++++++ < - ] > + . < +++++ [ > ++++++++ < - ] > . <
++++++++++++++++ [ > ----- < - ] > + . < ++++ [ > +++++++++++++ < -
] > . < +++ [ > +++++ < - ] > ++ . ---- . < ++++++ [ > ++ < - ] > .
+ < ++++++++ [ > ---------- < - ] > ++ . < +++ [ > ++++++ < - ] > .
+++ . -- . ++++++ . < ++++++ [ > ---- < - ] > .

That's right! It's in Brainf**k! I'd love it if someone, some where could figure it out. It is very much school appropriate, but I still am unsure if I'll be allowed to use it. 

Thanks for reading!

"We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it." 

- Barack Obama

Nothing Too Interesting, But I Did Get Assassin's Creed: Valhalla!

 Hello everyone!

I am currently sitting in AP Comp Sci, watching previous video projects, and waiting to see if Randy will be in my group. I'm hoping to do something creative with the robot(s). I got the smart motion working on the drivetrain, and now all that needs to be done is speed it up. 

Shawn and I were talking about this one cool/beneficial command last week, and neither of us can remember it too!

Anyway, I probably have to go finish this boring half-day. I got Assassin's Creed: Valhalla for my birthday, and I love it! Going to go home and play it as soon as I can!

Thanks for reading!

Forwarding a Blog

Hello, readers!

This is going to be an incredibly short post, as I only want to share the link to a blog post.

For background information, I was scrolling through Chief Delphi, and found this awesome page after passing through a few links. I'll leave it here, since it is a good source of laughs. 

I encourage you to check it out!

Link to Post

See you next time!

First Day of my Adulthood

 Hello readers,

I am currently sitting in HACC US History, and am awfully bored. We are supposed to be watching a video, but Mr. Hey trailed off onto something else. Good guy though. Anyway, I am 18!

It feels good to be an adult, but other than the fact that my age went up a year, it feels the same as it did yesterday. Which I suppose makes sense, since I age a little every day, and it's not like I turn 18 and suddenly get gray hair. 

Anyway, I have robotics tonight, and I'm super excited; there will probably be a lot of talk about the election (which Trump appears to be losing. It's all up to Nevada, and it ain't looking good), my birthday, and the CNC. I don't now if I have talked about the CNC. Very exciting! A high-quality machine, all setup and ready to use. We did most of it Tuesday; for example, I setup some stuff on the computer, hung a whiteboard and moved the CNC to its table. 

My teacher just called on me. Thankfully, I knew the answer (all I had to do was describe John Marshall) and could get back to fake note-taking. I don't know what I'll do tonight at robotics, but I'm sure there is something. 

Spotify finally recommended me a song I like. It's called Sky Blue and Black by Jackson Browne. Highly recommend it; it's a rather slow, peaceful song. 

Anyway, gotta get back to class now. Talk to you later!

Thanks for reading!

Last Day of my Childhood

Good evening readers,

Today's the day, folks. My last day as a child. Man, that title felt weird to write. 

I'm not going to talk about my childhood or anything cringey so don't get excited. 

I will say that I have an odd, rather sad feeling right now though. It seems like my childhood flew by, and now I get to look back at it. I feel like I'm waiting for someone to say, "Alright, start it over again", and I go back. I can't imagine what the future is going to look like.

I don't know. That's my thoughts on this thing. 

Now I have to study for this calculus test tomorrow!

Wish forever-young-me good luck!

Thanks for reading.

November Has Arrived!

 Hello all!

Wow! What a busy week. I worked a lot this weekend, so that's why I am blogging today instead. First things first, my birthday is the fifth of November, and now my parents expect me to know what I want. the audacity of these people! 

I'm kidding of course; I have a good idea of what I want actually. I either want a small ski trip to a local ski hill, or about two thousand dollars to help me buy my friend's car. Of course I would also sacrifice my Christmas gifts for this, as this is rather expensive. My birthday present will not be winning Ramp Riot this year unfortunately, but I'll live!

I don't remember if I ever blogged about my quest to earn the Leading Scholar Scholarship either. Well, I am an out-of-state finalist! This means $20,000 off tuition, as well as a chance to receive free tuition! I am so grateful that my local representative could write me a LOR. Not done yet however. Still have to finish my FRC one. That's almost done, just need to do some revisions. 

College decisions are not fun by the way. Super stressful trying to decide where you want to spend +$100,000 and four years of the primetime of your life. 

Anyway, I think I covered most stuff. Now I gotta go finish my Christmas music playlist and study for a test tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!