Week 1 - Justin

What were some things you did to prepare for the Young Scholars Program?

When I first knew I got into the Young Scholars program, I wanted to learn more about what we might cover in the camp, so I looked at what PATHS-UP was and read some info on what it stood for. I also prepared for the Young Scholars Program by reading the public info page where you apply and the emails sent out regarding directions and what to bring. As I was excited but scared for the camp on the first day, I spent an hour packing my bag with things I might need, from water to a laptop.

What are your first thoughts on the projects that you have been working on?

The projects we are learning about are all very interesting, but new. As I have always stayed in the realm of computer science, I never touched on any of the engineering portions we cover, such as building circuits, schematics, the Arduino, and the smartwatch assembly. It felt really reminiscent of Legos, which I liked a lot as a child, drawing that part of the camp much more as it was something new. Regarding the computer science portion, it has been interesting looking at the C++ language we program in and comparing it to the languages I am familiar with already, such as Java. 

What are you most looking forward to for week two?

I am most looking forward to the continuation of the smartwatches we are building, especially the Bluetooth addition. I want to see how I can connect it to my phone and what I can do with that new ability, maybe finally calibrate the clock on the watch, or send something on my phone to the smartwatch? I would also like to learn more about the code, as this week we only used the code, rather than dive deeper into the coding aspect and see how it actually does everything.