SEP a success!

For the past few weeks, I had been intensely preparing for a weeklong program for high school girls interested in computer science. I mentioned the program a couple times in past posts. I wanted to follow up now with a summary of week, including highlights and lowlights and lessons learned.

The program ran from Jun 28th to Jul 2nd. It started at 10am and went to 3pm every day, with an hour lunch break at noon. There were about 20 students in total, although some students had previous commitments and didn't make it every day.

Over the course of the week, we taught the students a variety of computer related topics. First, we started them off with a group exercise where they came up with an idea for a mobile app (exercise based on the Technovation Challenge). This exercise was designed to teach the students that applications don't start with coding. You first need an idea before you can start creating the app. The students worked for an hour on this task, then had the opportunity to present their idea to the rest of the group. The students came up with some really great products:

1. An app for learning more about colleges and signing up for newsletters, etc
2. An app for identifying what an animals body language might be telling you
3. [I can't remember this one, and it's the one that won! I'll figure it out soon and fill in this blank]
4. An app for allowing users to quickly jot down reminders and add the reminders to a calendar

The students then voted for the best app, and the group with the most votes got a prize (#3).

Next, we taught the students about computer architecture. We had about 6 computers set up that the students could take apart. We had worksheets with labeled pictures. I was surprised to find out that several of the students had already taken apart computers, and one had even built a computer from scratch! Students typically enjoy this exercise, since it's very hands on.

After computer architecture, we jumped into some python programming. We showed them some of the basics, including the infamous print "hello world" statement, data types, variables, and data structures. The students picked up on the concepts very quickly. They worked through exercises and seemed to understand the concepts really well.

After the intro to programming, we moved on to Computer Networking. This is usually one of the most popular lessons! As part of the lesson, we teach the students how to send email directly from the command line. This allows them to specify any sender email address, they'd like. :) This is fun for them, since they can send emails to friends from obama@whitehouse.gov or some other similar email address. They also learned about GET and POST, using GET directly from the command line.

Next, we taught them about databases and persistent data. They created tables in a database, added data to the table, and retrieved the data from the table, all using SQL! They even learned how to do joins, and were very curious, asking how to delete data and remove tables from the database.

With networking, databases, and programming under their belt, we introduced them to Google App Engine. Google App Engine allows users to create web applications very easily. We had developed a basic web app for them to build upon. The final product can be seen here: http://testingforsep.appspot.com. We choose the Outfit Builder app because it seemed like a product they could relate to. I know when I was a teen, I loved shopping and buying new clothes. We were assuming that teens haven't changed much over the years. :) As part of the intro to App Engine, I showed them how to create a basic application from scratch. They then practiced deploying an application to the Google servers.

Now that they understood how App Engine worked, we needed to teach them a couple more programming concepts before they could actually start filling in the missing pieces of the app. First, we taught them if statements. Once they understood if statements, they could build out the change background color portion of the site. Next, we taught them for loops. They could then display the bottoms on the page, and also work on the filtering form. We gave them a few other exercises to work on, including updating the database when a form was submitted on the Edit page and creating the random outfit. Overall, the students performed very well on all these exercises and finished them very quickly! In the future, I would prepare more advanced exercises for the students who were more advanced.

On Thursday, we gave the students a break and took them to the Intel museum. This turned out to be a lot of fun. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and good with the students. We had a tour and also an activity called "Puzzle Ball" where the students had to write instructions for for to put together a puzzle. The students were allowed to keep the puzzles afterwards, which everyone was happy about. I would highly recommend the Intel museum tour to any school or summer program. It offers a great opportunity for students to learn more about computer processing.

Finally, we taught them about Android phone development and gave them access to App Inventor to create the basic HelloPurr application. App Inventor provides developers with a GUI interface that allows developers to drag and drop UI elements onto the phone screen, edit the properties of each element, then open another GUI application to add the functionality to each element. This portion, the Code Blocks editor, acts like a jigsaw puzzle. The students choose which element they want to add functionality to, then can select from different methods and outcomes, each fitting together like puzzle pieces. I was very impressed at how quickly the students picked it up!! The entire exercise was supposed to take about 1:30 in total. They finished in about 20 minutes!! Amazing. In fact, many of them even figured out how to add different things to the app, including changing the background color of the screen or changing the .wav file associated with the program. I was really impressed and am excited to see what Google does with App Inventor. I think it's a great tool for students to learn how to program the Android phone. In fact, I think it could be useful for everyone, kids and adults alike. I might even use it if I needed to create a basic Android app! Good work Google, keep innovating. :)

Overall, it was a great week. When the students were leaving, they were all smiles, which is always a good sign. A few things I learned from the program:

1. Prepare extra difficult material for those students who might outperform the rest
2. Have more lessons for App Inventor.
3. Go to the Intel museum again!
4. Give the students more opportunity to customize the App Engine application
5. Have backup material prepared in case something doesn't work correctly.

Thanks! If you're interested in learning more about the program, please feel free to contact me (kat.brisbin at gmail). You can also download most of the material at this website: http://cs.usfca.edu/~sep/calendar.html

Stack Implemented as a LinkedList in Python

In preparation for interviews, I am attempting to write a Stack as a LinkedList in python. This is what I came up with:

 class Stack:  
   class Element:  
     def __init__(self, data=None, next=None):  
       self.next = next  
       self.data = data  
         
     def __repr__(self):  
       return str(self.data)  
       
   def __init__(self):  
     self.head = self.Element()  
       
   def push(self, data):  
     newHead = self.Element(data=data, next=self.head)  
     self.head = newHead  
     
   def pop(self):  
     head = self.head  
     self.head = head.next  
     return head  
     
   def delete(self):  
     self.head = None  

If anyone sees anything wrong, please let me know!

Jacks or Better

I recently went to Las Vegas and became intrigued with the game Jacks or Better (JoB). This was partly due to the fact that my fiance and I were fairly successful playing the game: we won $13 overall! I was also interested in the game because there is the illusion that you have excellent odds of winning. A hand of Jacks or Better seems very easy to get.

For those who don't know JoB, the rules are pretty simple: any hand with a pair of Jacks or better is a winner. The game can cost any amount to play, but here I focus on the $1 game. Winning hands with a $1 bet depend on the type of Jacks or Better, but they typically follow this pattern:

Jacks or better: $1
2 pair: $2
3 of a kind: $3
Straight: $4
Flush: $6
Full house: $9
Four of a kind: $25
Straight flush: $50
Royal flush: $250

There are many strategies already well documented online. I found the strategy below (I lost the link to the site with this strategy, but here's a link to a similar one). Basically, you want to hold cards in the order of rules listed.

Hold any winning hand of four cards or better
Hold any 4 cards to a royal flush (10, J, Q, K, A)
Hold any other winning hand
Hold any 4 cards to Straight Flush
Hold any 3 cards to a royal flush
Hold any 4 cards to a flush
Hold 2 of a kind
Hold any cards to an open straight
Hold any 2 high cards of the same suit
Hold any 3 cards to a straight flush
Hold a J, Q, and K of different suits
Hold any two high cards of different suits
Hold J, Q or K with a Ten of the same suit
Hold any single high card

With this strategy in mind, I was curious to see what the winnings would be over time. I wrote a program in python to simulate a person playing the game of JoB using the strategy listed above. I started the agent with an initial amount of $50. The agent played until he was below $50 or 50 times (which amounts to 50 plays). Over the course of play, I tracked how much the agent won or loss, and repeated this process 10,000 times. After 10,000 rounds, I plotted the results using matplotlib. The results are below:

As you can see, most of the runs fall between a gain of $50 and a loss of $50. There are much steeper gains than losses. Here are some statistics I gathered during the run:

Total Winnings: -$1.46
Number of Runs Zero or Above: 3734
Highest amount earned during a run: $258
Number of Runs Below Zero: 5973
Highest amount lost during a run: $32

What's so interesting about this is that the total winnings is practically zero! After 10,000 times of playing, the agent loses less than $2. I was curious to see if this small loss would hold over time, so, to the dismay of my computer, I ran the code a couple more times. The next two times, the agent lost $1.85 and $1.36. With such small gains for the casino, I'm wondering how much a casino makes off this game. I suppose that a good number of players do not know the best strategy, so this might tip there earnings even higher.

Also interesting about these results is the 5:3 ratio of losing to not losing. This would suggest that the agent should lose more. However, the agent can win a lot more than it loses. Each play only costs a dollar, but a win could be up to $250. Even with these large earnings, it's not enough to overcome the losing trend. It might seem like you have a good opportunity to win with Jacks or Better. However, in the long run, you will still lose like any other game in Las Vegas. :)

I've posted my code here for anyone to review. Also, please feel free to offer any suggestions for enhancements to the strategy or the code!

Forms with File Fields - Java

Background

The standard HttpServletRequest class is not capable of handling file input fields in an HTML form. If you use this class, you will only receive the file name as the parameter value and not the entire file itself. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create the HTML form and process the form data using the com.oreilly.servlet package.

Step 1: Creating the Form

To create a form with a file input field, you need two add 2 additional features to any form: an enctype attribute to the form tag and a file input field. Set the enctype as "multipart/form-data". Here is what the code would look like:

 <form action="upload" id="upload" name="upload" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post">
 Name: <input type="text" name="name" id="name" />
 Attachment: <input type="file" name="attachment" id="attachment" />
 <input type="submit" value="submit" />
 </form>

Step 2: Processing the form data

Like I mentioned earlier, the standard HttpServletRequest class is not capable of handling file input fields. Luckily, there are several easy-to-use libraries already created for capturing file data from multipart forms. I recommend using the com.oreilly.servlet package. The methods in this library use the same names as the HttpServletRequest methods, making is very easy to learn and use.

Download the jar file from the servlets.com website. Install the jar file to use with your project. (If you are using Eclipse, you can find instructions on how to install .jar files in your project here.)

Import the package at the top of your file.

 import com.oreilly.servlet.*;  

Create a new MultipartRequest object. The constructor can accept several parameters (see the API). I like to use the constructor accepting the following parameters: the HttpServletRequest from the doPost method, the path to the directory where file is to be saved, and the size limit of the files. If you do not specify a size limit of the files, a default of 1MB will be set.

 MultipartRequest mpRequest = new MultipartRequest(request, "/Users/bob/project/attachments", 3000000);  

Once the MultipartRequest object has been initialized, you can retrieve form data. Use the getParameter method to retrieve form input field data for all fields other than the file field. Use this method with the input field name as a parameter to retrieve the value of the field.

 String name = mpRequest.getParameter("name");  

For the file field, use the getFile method to retrieve the file uploaded in the file input field. Use the name of the file input field as a parameter. This method returns a file object, which is the file that was uploaded in the form. The file is saved in the directory specified when creating the MultipartRequest object.

 File file = mpRequest.getFile("attachment");  

That's about it! Simple, right? There are several other methods that you can use in the com.oreilly.servlet package, which are discussed in the API.