Project Blog.
3/18/19
It has been much to long since I have put a new blog entry in, I've really been dropping the ball on that. After much soul searching and kicking myself in the butt, I've begun to be pretty productive in the last week or so. I have been able to get some drawing onto the screen and reading in my obstacles of the path from a file and saving the points in an array for later use (there are a few screenshots below). My next main obstacle will be focusing on getting the remaining functionality of my genetic algorithm working as well as drawing some of the paths onto the screen as I go. 
2/22/2019
I was regretfully not very productive this week, though I did start to work with C# some more. I was able to phone a friend and he explained a few concepts that had me stumped. I was able to get a basic idea for layout into practice, and was able to include some basic functionality for variable control. (See pic below). So next week I plan to try to get back in gear and put a good amount of effort and hours into catching back up to where I think I need to be. I will be attempting to put together something for my genetic Algorithm, I think I found a pretty helpful YouTube Video series that will give me a solid base to work off of. 
2/15/2019
So this week was poster board sessions, and I think It went alright. I was able to explain genetic algorithms in a way that I think most people understood it. I also got some great feedback on what my classmates thought would be the BEST PATH forward (haha, pun intended...? yea. I know it was bad.) As far as my ideas for user interface goes, most passed through inspection, now its just a matter of getting C# down better and implementing them. One valued idea was that instead of showing all paths in each generation, just show the top ones or the ones that will be selected as good solutions in that generation. On the other side of the discussion however, was the data. Most of my peers thought that using co-ordinates was likely to be a better idea, and I do agree. It opens up the idea for more control and easier display, or at least that's what I hope. Another idea is that for fitness tests, I could potentially utilize a way to prioritize horizontal or vertical movement, which could lead to some cool results. I think that my biggest concern for next week is going to be getting started with code, figuring out my functions. I had the idea that I might implement them in C++ first, because I understand its workings better, before porting them to C# once I understand them and they work. I'm curious if that is even viable though... 2/8/2019
I was able to be semi-productive this week, go me! Although, it was a bit difficult to keep motivated with the number of missed classes so far this year...Thanks Wisconsin!! Anyway, I was able to find a bunch of information on genetic algorithms (basics mostly), and have decided to use C# for sure now. Already I'm seeing that it is gonna take some getting used to though. I've checked out some videos online about the basics, but they only give me so much info. I'm looking forward to the Mini-poster board sessions next week, they can hopefully give me a few more ideas behind how to implement my data structures, which seems to be something that will be interesting and very important. So far my ideas are storing co-ordinates, or using directions; maybe i should think about tree's as well? I don't know. They will each have their own difficulties. In addition to that, I have been looking into how to work my fitness function, one interesting way I could implement it could include Euclidean distance (thanks Dr. McVey!). Next week I plan to potentially look at other ways of path finding to see if they give me any ideas. 2/1/2019
So I'm not off to as great a start as I was hoping. I've asked a housemate (he's a math major) to help me understand the idea behind Genetic Algorithms, but conflicting schedules have made it very difficult to get time to work on it. Otherwise my time was devoted to brainstorming and designing this lovely website. As for brainstorming, I've got a picture in my head for how to start with the graphical part (was thinking just a square grid to test functionality), but I'm not sure how to start the back end mechanics. Once I've got a solid understanding of how Genetic Algorithms work I think it'll be easier. Also, need to figure out what language/platform would work best. Was thinking C# or Java, but I don't have much experience to know what would be best. Last quick note, I went home and found all my old notes from previous CS classes, hopefully I can make use of them somehow. Thought it was cool that I still have them. 1/24/2019
This is the first entry into the blog of my Capstone project. Not going to lie, I'm generally not one for a blog. I usually don't know what to write. I am pretty excited though, well that and a little intimidated at having a project this big to myself. I got the email for my topic late last night, and it almost kept me from sleeping, because I wanted to think about it. That being said, it will be a lot of work. My goal is to make at least some progress each week, even if it seems small. The first on my To-Do list is going to have to be... what are genetic algorithms? |