Code Evolution + Lab of Things

What Was Researched

For these past two weeks, I have been researching how Lab of Things worked and started my first research project where I need to analyze a user's current input status on levels in Code Hunt.

Thoughts

In terms of Lab of Things, I found the concept of LoT very interesting and how powerful and convenient the program can be when implementing the source code. When I discussed LoT to some of my fellow peers outside of my research group, the first comparison that came up was Internet of Things. It is somewhat a similar concept to LoT in terms of interconnecting devices and having them communicate with each other to fulfill an objective or conduct an experiment. I know sometime in the future I need to try to come up with something that revolves around LoT, which can be very difficult to do. However, I see the program as a high risk and high reward situation. I was thinking of using LoT to control an Xbox Kinect device in some way since I do have access to this device. 

As for the code evolution project, here are my thoughts and expectations in concerns to the project. I think something that I would like to do with this project after extracting code versions to analyze a user's approach to a problem, is to create a data extractor from a user at certain level at real-time. As for the animation part, I believe that should not be an issue if I were to use ActionScript 3.0 in order to complete the animation portion. What will be interesting though is combining both tasks together since I never had to use two different languages to get an application complete. What I might do is make a testing program that will extract any data that I enter and delete. Once I get that portion complete, I will just use that same code in order to extract entered code from a Code Hunt level. Something else I may want to add on is small little details as in statements for progression of code such as "Deleted line 4" or "Added a loop". I think that will be somewhat helpful instead of just staring at someone's progress at punching in characters and delete them until they find a solution. So maybe a data log would be a nice add on.

Expectations

I'm looking forward to this progress because I think it would definitely challenge me in terms of what I learned this past semester and some of the research I have been doing on other languages, plus figure out the discrepancies between C++ and C#. Also this is a chance for me to work on UI design since I would be making a code evolution tool. Planning on doing a lot of research on this portion of the project. In a couple of weeks I plan on having the code portion done and simply just need to get the UI finished and tidied up.