Capstone: Cartoon Cam

The goal of my project was to make a working cartoon camera from scratch and I have succeeded. The project in terms of feasible goals for a year's worth of learning and doing for this capstone was indeed a success, though the project itself standalone is not yet done. This capstone was definitely beneficial to the completion of this project. However so, it’s functionality as a cartoon camera for me and my specific wants for specified functionality of a grander project; this more so helped me see the flaws in the way I was going out in completing this task.

The major flaw was in part my lack of knowledge on the subject, and taking a year to understand how coding worked for the needs of this project specifically was extremely beneficial. Without doing it the way I have done it so far, by translating an input image to an output image based on a set of rules I created, I wouldn’t have the skill required, nor the insight to recognise what the next step was. While currently code is a set of rules is basically a filter that during the process of making this I constantly experimented with and changed to get it as perfect as possible in most situations, depending on lighting (a hard one) and colors; I don’t think it will ever be perfect the way that I want it by examining the image myself and creating a set of rules based off of what I see and what I think will happen by adding or changing a value. The amount of arbitrary rules that I would have to solve would take years and not to mention the fact that I would need the knowledge base of an online code dictionary to get this done. This brings me to the conclusion of creating something in which the computer (having an infinite amount of online knowledge) would create the rules to.

The next step, or the more reasonable approach to a cartoon cam is to make a program that uses batch learning or machine learning. This would not be an easy task either, but it is a much less impossible task. The original vision for this project (not just the capstone) was to create a website where people could upload their own code to have a massive database of selectable cartoon cams for a physical cartoon cam viewer. The rout I am thinking about now, more feasible to myself and the average future consumer of such a project is to have code that takes on two videos. The first video takes in a real life scene, and the second video is an artist's translation of the scene. The code will examine the two and recognise the difference and then create a set of rules for how to translate video from there on out. Not only does this eliminate the need for the user interface to require users know how to code, but it also adds a level of calculation from artists and a level of calculation from a computer that I would never be able to achieve on my own. This capstone allowed me to recognize this for moving forward in continuation of the project. The evolution of this thought \was in my opinion the most successful part of the capstone.

Timeline of code for project:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mbFksdmPfIC2YdsT_rkrfCW58LXOGRpFzaLMoxAnXzw/edit?usp=sharing

Cool Pictures of The Three Finales

For my capstone project I worked with a foster care organization trying to figure out what the needs of the children in the system were. By setting up a gofundme page and receiving many generous donations, I was able to purchase many of the items we came up with together. All together I was able to purchase twenty bags and fill each with a water bottle, a blanket, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a notebook and pens/pencils, as well as an unique item for each child. With the money I had left from the donations I was able to give school supplies for the kids who are traveling around a lot. Throughout the capstone process, a few little lives were made a little easier.

For my capstone, I wanted to give back to SLA community with what I believe it gave most to me which is my ability to do math. I am well aware that some of the freshman are not at the level of math they should be at because of an underfunded school district. With this in mind, me and three other seniors decided to come together and start a math lab after school. The math lab was open on Tuesdays from 3-4 and was for freshman in Algebra 1. In the math lab, we helped students prepare for retakes, paired them with other students in order to be peer tutored, and taught them concepts they may have missed when absent from school.

The individual part of my capstone had me surveying people for their opinions of math at SLA. Teachers always want feedback and what better way to keep it concise and short than by providing them with clear data and statistics. This gives students a way of voicing their opinion while remaining completely anonymous to teachers. I want the math teachers here to know how good of a job they are doing and letting them know the concerns I find with my data. This will also serve as another means of proving how successful SLA’s math department is to other schools in the district and potentially even make a model for other schools to follow. I seek to find trends within grades levels, math levels, and race.

Bidwell, Allie. "STEM Workforce No More Diverse Than 14 Years Ago." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 24 Feb. 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2015/02/24/stem-workforce-no-more-diverse-than-14-years-ago>.

This article will serve me to talk about what the impact is on students who do not succeed in math. Typically minorities are the ones who are are underrepresented in the STEM workforce which is exactly what this article highlights. I want to drive home that this is a big issue that impacts how far students will get in life. The article explains how diversity in the workforce has remained unchanged since 14 years prior to when this was written in 2015. It helps me glue together all the points and shows purpose in my study which points out misconceptions about STEM.

Bryant, Cindy. "Growth Mindset and the Common Core Math Standards."Edutopia. N.p., 03 Dec. 2013. Web. 03 Feb. 2016. <http://www.edutopia.org/blog/growth-mindset-common-core-math-cindy-bryant>.

This website is crucial in helping me establish one of the core aspects of what my capstone is trying to help change about some students. Some students have a fixed mindset which limits their growth and while a growth mindset helps students embrace failure and use it as a learning tool. Me and others in charge of the after school math labs will try to enforce a growth mindset into the students and I will record the numerical results of training. A questionnaire involving questions about people’s mindsets before and after SLA and math lab will help me illustrate my point.

College Board. "SAT Reform and College-Bound African Americans." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 4 (2013): 1-3. College Board. 2013. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

The College Board has some useful data on SAT percentiles that I would want to include in my research paper to show my capstone’s purpose and need. SLA is obviously a school whose largest race is African American and they are particularly known for not doing so well on these tests. I plan to take data from here to show correlation between races against each other and the progression of percentiles in certain races over time. This will help illustrate the point that there is need for a place like math lab and some sort of a change in curriculum.

El Deeb, Ahmed. "What to Do with “small” Data?" Medium. N.p., 06 Oct. 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://medium.com/rants-on-machine-learning/what-to-do-with-small-data-d253254d1a89#.wd4kz7k1f>.

One problem I know I might face and something I plan to address is that I might only collect a small set of data. This create numerous problems in terms of not only being hard to analyze and draw conclusions from, but it also affects the success of the capstone. The article is very insightful as to tell me what problems I might encounter with a small data set and what to do in case I receive one. Since this is one the largest, if not the largest hurdle for my capstone I need to make sure I use this source to make sure I am prepared when I encounter this problem.

Freeman, David. "Here's Proof That Beautiful Math Equations Affect The Brain Just Like Great Art." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Feb. 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/17/beautiful-math-equations-brain-great-art_n_4789667.html>.

This article illustrates the beauty of math and why it is so important. Something that I need to address in my paper is why anyone should care about math and more people if I conveyed the point that math can be viewed as something elegant like art or music I can get the reader to relate more to why it matters even if they do not like math. While one of math’s main purposes is finding its applicability in the real world to describe the relation between systems, it is also a place where some enjoy finding patterns in completely theoretical systems.

Johnson, Andrew P. "Methods of Analyzing Data." A Short Guide to Action Research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2012. 71-82. Print.

This is a chapter from a book that talks about the methods of analyzing data. Since the core of my capstone is to represent the applicability of math in the real world to describe systems and interactions, this source will show that I did research on how to properly confront the data I collect and also how I can make conjectures from what I have. It also helps me talk about the different kinds of analysis that I will do in order to make conclusion on what I have collected.The key detailed steps is how I intend to organize my paper so that it seems more organize and sharp as to discern different steps from each other.

Rosenshine, Barak. "Recent Research on Teaching Behaviors and Student Achievement." Recent Research on Teaching Behaviors and Student Achievement. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.formapex.com/les-principes-de-base/1067-recent-research-on-teaching-behaviors-and-student-achievement?616d13afc6835dd26137b409becc9f87=bb4ce84748d5a7ce8f9f97b65257e63b>.

This website contains key information to a study similar to my capstone. It talks about how different methods of teaching math affect students. The study goes on to show the results through actual data. It is structured more like a scientific experiment, but nevertheless it still holds as an example for the kind of analysis I should have. It is divided into specific sections which is something I plan to do in my paper as well in order to separate the different conclusions made from different results of data. The study also explains any irregularities in the data which would me tie loose ends in my conclusions.

Peng, Roger. "What Is the Best Way to Analyze Data? | Simply Statistics."Simply Statistics. N.p., 27 June 2015. Web. 03 Feb. 2016. <http://simplystatistics.org/2013/06/27/what-is-the-best-way-to-analyze-data/>.

This website gives me an idea of different ways I can model data. This is important for to show how even though I was part of the math lab I also want to tie this into my passion for math and talk about how I want to pursue applied math. Properly doing this is crucial for me to show that math has applicability in different areas and it can help make things which would otherwise be subjective become objective. It also helps show how much work and effort doing data analysis can be.

Peters, Chritopher, Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, and Stephanie Baedell. "How to Design and Analyze a Survey." - The Ultimate Guide to Forms and Surveys. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://zapier.com/learn/ultimate-guide-to-forms-and-surveys/design-analyze-survey/>.

This website introduced me to different ways of asking questions in a survey and analyzing data to get desired and accurate result. There are certain steps I have to go through such as writing knowledge I would like to gain as well as my hypothesis about what I expect the data to show. As far as analyzing and presenting my data go there are certain ways I can discern trends through data and change the kind of graph I use to illustrate a point.

Welsh, Patrick. "Column: Why Our Kids Hate Math." Usatoday.com. N.p., 9 July 2012. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-07-09/math-education-remedial-algebra/56118128/1>.

This source provides a very important insight as to why children are failing and do not like math. This will be important for me to show how we address these problems and how removing them changed the students and their success in math. I want to talk about how the root of this problem occurs before students come to SLA. These statistics while also showing how much we helped improve math lab are also meant to show how much the curriculum failed them. I plan to collect data from students about how they felt about math in their middle school.

The purpose of this capstone was to represent the people of SLA. I wanted to show how our school has a diverse population and that everyone is different. I also wanted an image of what SLA looks like because we cannot be defined by one thing. Our school has so many people with different stories, ideas, and thoughts. I submitted my capstone proposal with my idea and got it approved and had my Mentor Ms. Giknis help me plan out what I should be doing. I collaborated with my partner Avery to get started on this project.

I decided to tell the stories of people through photos and words attached to them on a Facebook and Instagram page. Throughout the school year I worked with my partner Avery to create these posts on our social media page. Then I decided to represent each grade at SLA through an interview podcast series as my own individual product. Each interview is with a student in each grade and they share their views and experience at SLA.

Stress factors into everything that happens in your day. It can provide the motivation you need to complete an important task, or it can be debilitating and block your goals. Stress is a huge issue in society and the largest issue is the lack of knowledge people have on it, and how it is sociologically stamped out as an unimportant topic. My capstone goal was study stress through a survey response system, and from various medical journals, and other credible sources.  

My initial goal was to drive an exchange of dialogue between myself and takers of my survey, however few were willing to respond. I received a total of 23 responses out of roughly 500. This was disheartening, but I quickly shifted my eyes toward existing studies and built the foundation knowledge to create an infographic. I began by detailing stress and methods to overcome it that people can use to their advantage.

Overall, I found that this setback worked for me in the end. I found that I learned far more with peer-reviewed medical journals and other materials that furthered my existing knowledge of the issue. The product I am left with are a survey, a paper, and an infographic. My capstone gave me an opportunity to dabble in fields of study I will likely encounter in college as a biochemistry major on a pre-professional track towards Physical Therapy.