2 May 2013

I gave my presentation today at 11:00. I now have to assemble all my materials in preparation for my final submission. A final cycle of editing my paper, an abstract, and a few scanned documents, and it will be finished.

30 April 2013 (late post)

I wasn't at school today. I took the time to finalize most of my final submission and my presentation. All I really have left is a little bit of editing and writing my abstract.

26 April 2013

I'm done with my CNO model. Now it's onto the paper. This class I began on my outline, and gathering usable quotes for the paper. Good stuff.

24 April 2013 (late post)

Kept working on my model of the CNO cycle today. It's going way easier than the proton-proton chain model.

22 April 2013 (late post)

Today I started writing the second animation. I am modeling the Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen (CNO) Cycle. The end result is the same nucleus as the original one, so the inputs and products are the only real hard part. Hopefully now that I'm more familiar with the program and its techniques this one will go faster.

18 April 2013 (late post)

I've finished my first animation, and I need to start research for my second. Obviously I have the basic procedure down, but the specifics are still a little unclear. I'll start programming next class.

16 April 2013 (late post)

Kept working on my first animation. I'm basically done now, I just have some finishing touches to make. I have maybe another half-hour on this one. I think I can finish it tonight.

12 April 2013 (late post)

I put in some more work on my first presentable animation. It's coming along well, and all I have left is the final stages of the process and labeling all the nucleons. Crazy stuff. This one is the 'proton-proton chain.'

10 April 2013

I continued to work on my models today. The ones I am working on now are a lot more complex than my first one, so they're taking quite a bit more time. But at the current rate I'm going, I think I'll be done with plenty of time left.

8 April 2013

I gathered together all of the things I have right now for my final submission. It's not much, just emails, notes, etc. but I would rather start to get it all together now. I also began work on the more complex models that will comprise my final product.

4 April 2013 (late post)

I continued working on my 3D models today. I finished the first one, but depending on how much I get done I may not use it, since it's a pretty basic process. I also talked to Dr. J about a grad student she knows at UTD who may be able to judge my presentation.

2 April 2013

Since it seems unlikely that I will find any "professionals" in my field, I have had to start looking for other candidates. In that spirit, I sent Mr. Abraham a message today on LinkedIn to see if he would be willing to be a judge. While he isn't an astrophysicist or anything, he has an amateur interest in astronomy.

I also found some software to model nuclear processes. It's called Alice, and it's 3D modeling and animation software. It's primarily used to teach younger students programming techniques, but it will work for my purposes - it's just going to be somewhat tedious.

27 March 2013

I tried to get that application I downloaded last class to work. It's called TALYS, but it's not at all user-friendly and there were some bugs or something that I don't really know anything about. Maybe it's for the best, since if I can't even get it to work I probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to use it. I'll keep looking for something a little simpler.

25 March 2013 (late post)

FINALLY FOUND A JUDGE!! I talked to Mr. Gonzalez, the SEM teacher, on Friday. He agreed to judge my project, so today I sent him the schedule. He said 2nd period would work best for him, so I need to ask Mr. Simmons if I can miss one of his classes. Other than that I downloaded a nuclear modeling application and emailed a few more people about judging.

21 March 2013

On top of work on my visual model, I emailed two new potential judges. One is a high school teacher in Allen, and the other is the coordinator of astronomy labs at UT Arlington - I figure if he can't help me, he will at least have lots of grad students to refer me to.

19 March 2013

I spent most of the class today working on updating my judges report, as well as returning a couple of emails from potential judges in the texas astronomical society.

4 March 2013

I kept looking for judges today. I emailed 2 more professors today. I don't know if I just have bad luck or what but I've only gotten like 2 replies so far.

28 February 2013

After the class discussion about payment deadlines, presentations, etc., I spent a good deal of class continuing my search for possible judges. I sent out two request letters to UTD professors, and I think my next step is to look at SMU.

26 February 2013

I looked on UT's website for potential judges - not a whole lot of luck. Maybe I should have looked into how small a field stellar nucleosynthesis was before picking it as my topic. Anyway, I also helped with those desks and looked up some terms I didn't know from a research paper.

22 February 2013 (late post)

Kept looking for visual modeling software. So far the best thing I've found is an application called Talys, but for some reason I'm having trouble getting it launched on my computer. I might have to try on another computer.

20 February 2013 (late post)

This class I looked into software I can use to visually model nucleosynthesis. I found one application, but no luck so far getting it to work on my computer.

18 February 2013 (late post)

Although I'm posting this pretty late, all I did this class was look into who I could contact about judging, and I kept reading my research papers.

14 February 2013

I looked into how to submit mid-year reports for my schools that aren't on the Common App, and after that I did some thesis research. I'm still waiting to hear on a couple of prospective judges, so I just continued to read research papers today.

12 February 2013 (late post)

After our intense camping discussion, I worked on my College Board IDOC stuff. There really isn't much to do online, so I think I can get the rest of my stuff done at home. After all, the majority of the work is making copies of my family's tax forms.

6 February 2013

I spent the first part of class today working on my speech class. I have all my assignments and stuff done, so all that's left is the final exam. I had to register Mrs Marberry as my proctor for the exam, but I think there was an issue with website because I had to try it almost half a dozen times before I got it to work. After I got that done, I just read part of a research paper.

4 February 2013

I finished submitting my financial aid forms today. I already had CSS in, but I had to wait on a federal PIN to submit the FAFSA, and I also got my PFAS in to UPenn. After that, I spent the rest of class contemplating how awful it would be (hypothetically, of course) to have a TAG-IT with only one senior in it.

31 January 2013

So, FAFSA and PFAS are both way easier than CSS. Seriously, I basically finished both this period. I also filled out my application for Spanish NHS and turned it into Mr. Buchanan.

29 January 2013

After completing that little diploma information sheet, I filled out the Judges/Scheduling Report and after that, I continued working on my CSS Profile. I'm just about done with it, but that thing is a bitch. I don't even know what some of those things are, so I need to finish it up with my parents. Then I just need to do FAFSA and PFAS.

23 January 2013

After we talked about judges, scholarship letters, etc, I began to input my financial info into CSS Profile. After that I just have to re-enter the same stuff into FAFSA and the Penn Financial Aid Profile. Fun stuff.

9 January 2013

We listened to presentations for most of class, then with the rest of class I filled in the information that I knew on Penn's Financial Aid Supplement.

7 January 2013

I looked into which schools I applied to that require CSS profiles (they all do except UC), so I will begin to fill out both CSS and FAFSA forms.