Sunday 9/22/2002

This is a summary of what happened up till this point in my project. From now on, I will be updating this page regularly with dates notes.

- I started my project ideas in thinking about designing a specific-purpose program using C++.

- After talking to Jim about this idea, I was thinking of something more general that I could use more than just a programming language to make.

- I thought of designing and building a calculator. This includes software and hardware. It turned out to be a greater task than than I thought because I had to deal with the electric circuits, and make the complicated software to do the calculations.

- I found another idea that deals with TWiki. TWiki is an interactive web content application that enables you to create simple web pages (for info storage purposes) on the fly, using only your web browser, and no other applications. The idea was to make a plugin for TWiki that enables it to retrieve data from a database. After discussing this idea with Charlie and Jim, it turned out to be a simple one, and it doesnt satisfy the requirements for a project.

- I thought about the courses I have taken and I was really interested in doing something related to Networks and Networking, but I havent taken that class yet, because it is offered in Spring, so the idea of simulation came to my mind. At least, I will start reading in this field, and I will make my survey their, and then start to pinpoint a certain idea for a project.

- I went to the science library and picked 11 books that deal with simulation from different perspectives. You can find a list of these books in the Project Page.

- I started browsing these books to look for interesting chapters, and try to squeeze the information out of them.

- I read through "Introduction to Simulation and SLAM", "intro to Simulation", and "A Guide to SImulation". The introduction parts are very informative, and they explain different views of the field. All of them had subsequent chapters dealing with specific examples.

Tuesday 10/1/2002

- In the course of last week, I have been reading in the books that I have, and I also found a reference section in one of them which led me to find 3 more books about this subject. I have added these sources to the bibliography on the Project Page.

- I finished the paper and presentation preparation.

Wednesday 10/9/2002

- Now that the presentaiton of the survey is over, I am trying to narrow down my search for a specific topic in the simulation field. This is a hard task. I am looking at two ideas. A simulation of the differential analyzer, or a simulation of the traffic at the main drive for Earlham College.

Friday 10/11/2002

- I looked for an article about the differential analyzer in the annals of the history of computing, but I couldnt find it. I made an interlibrary loan for the article that I found, although I am not sure if it is the one I am need. I need an article describing how it works.

Wednesday 10/16/2002

- I decided to look at traffic flow simulation. I made a lot of Interlibrary loans, and I found one book in the science library.

Monday 10/21/2002

- I have been reading in a book about mathematical modeling of traffic flow. It seems very interesting, and now I am thinking of doing this simultion, and then applying that to the main drive intersection with 40 to see if we need a traffic light there!

Thursday 10/24/2002

- A small plan has been made for the progress of this project. I have to write down what steps I am going to follow in order to accomplish the goals by the end of the semester.

- For the talk, I have to look at different strategies of queuing model, and dicrete event simulation.

Sunday 10/27/2002

- I wrote a rough draft of the proposal paper which will be my giude for the presentation. I sent it to Jim for a review and to see what changes I have to make. The Gant Chart is available for viewing.

Thursday 10/31/2002

-Proposal is done. I am working on organizing thoughts of how I will start working on collecting the data and start modeling the intersection.

Thursday 11/6/2002

- I have been working on the proposal paper for the last week. I handed it in today.

- I continued readings about the Traffic Flow modeling, in addition to preliminary reading in the discrete event simulation. I am trying to decide whether to use numerical solutions of partial differential equations, or to use discrete event simulation of a system I will construct based on the readings.

Thursday 11/14/2002

- I decided to make a program to help me get some parameters from the intersection. I coded in C++ and now I can count how many cars pass in a certain interval of time and what distance there is between cars by tapping the return key when each car passes by.

- I did a simple analytical model of one lane. Parameters are emerging, and I could see some pointers to where the modeling is going. I will need to expand the model now, and with the data that I should be collectin soon, I will be able to get some numbers in and find out how the simulation is going to work.

- I will be using the queuing model to code the simulation. Analytical formulas will help understand the relationships between parameters so that I can complete the simulation.

Wednesday 11/20/2002

- I went to the intersection and gathered some information without the laptop because some problems turned up and I had to fix it.

Friday 11/22/2002

- I got the laptop fixed and should be ready to get some organized data from the intersection.

- I also made a rough schedule of what I will be doing this break, and how coding is going to be done.

- I asked Mic for help with some partial differential equations that came up in the book I'm using.

Wednesday 11/27/2002

- I started writing the code for the simulation of the intersection.

Sunday 12/1/2002

- I finished the first chunk of code, around 350 lines of code which I wrote since Wednesday. I did documentation, and I need to add the statistical portion to the code which will analyze the performance in the intersection.

Monday 12/10/2002

- refined the structure of the code into a class. I tried many other ways, but they didnt work as well.

- I added pedestrians to the intersection, and now about to start collecting statistical data that will analyze the performance.

- I still have to find out a way to generate cars according to some pattern.