Progress Update 6th December 2020

In the second of these progress updates, I have some pretty awesome news and feel like I've made a lot of progress since the last update. To be honest, the last update really motivated me to see what I could achieve in the time between updates and I've been able to make considerable headway in some areas whilst not making so much headway in others.

So, let's get going.

What I've achieved:

• I spoke to Kofi from BBC Radio Humberside about the donation I  made to the Pepperell's Christmas Meals Campaign.
• I practiced bagpiping several times this week after an awful lesson last week where I was unable to play consistently for some reason. My tutor, a former pipe major for the Scots Guards, couldn't believe what was happening and frankly, neither could I. I even managed to record some short videos of myself practicing, view here and here.
• Following practice, I got through an entire lesson without referring to the 'letters' of the music notes for a new song, reading the music based on the notes on the stave. This was such a high because it felt like such a breakthrough in my music reading abilities.
• I invited a fellow student who felt quite low and is part of a group project for Embedded systems over to my house to try and breakthrough the deadlock in the project. I thought it might be nice to cook for him at the same time, so I put on some rice and a beef joint with veg, see pics.

• I made a quite a large breakthrough in terms of the Embedded Systems ACW. It turns out my thinking was along the right lines, I was just overcomplicating the project by trying to include all of the components. Thankfully, thanks to Dr. Cheng, it was made clear that not all components needed to be included so the project requirements are much more clear and I've subsequently been able to clarify the requirements on the github kanban board.
• I finished more Data Mining Labs / Lectures and particularly enjoyed the one on Regression Models/Confusion Matrices. There was an inital 'by hand' task which I was able to get through much easier than I thought I would have. Here's the task:

Here are my answers:

Here is the validation:

• I spoke with Mark Williams FMH on the phone about his work and Parentull. Mark has so much energy and drive, I came off the phone feeling so excited for the future and I can't wait to speak to him again. What a great guy.
• I also spoke with Colin Radcliffe, the founder of DEpressON, thanks to Mark Williams, we probably spent a bit long on the phone actually but we connected instantly. It was great to speak with Colin and I'm really looking forward to working with him in the future. There are more than a few areas for cross-collaboration.

What I'm working on:

• I'm still working on Parentull user stories for a variety of normal users and professional users, though this has taken a backseat to Datamining and Embedded coursework.
• I'm still working on research surveys for Parentull, though this has taken a backseat to Datamining and Embedded coursework.
• I'm still working on Embedded Coursework and need to start the coding elements this next week. By the end of next week I want to have at least some components working, irrespective of whether they're working properly; they just need to be functional.
• I'm still working on the Data Mining & Decision Systems Labs / Coursework.
• I'm working with the University/BBC to conduct an interview for Look North sometime next week.
• I'm still aiming to submit Parentull to the big idea competition at the University of Hull again, but the submission deadline is a bit further away than other deadlines so I can push this down the list.

What I'm aiming to do:

• I'm aiming to get started on Parentull's codebase. This has been a target for some weeks now so I really do need to prioritise it.
• I'm aiming to have some code written and components working for Embedded Systems by the end of next week.
• I'm aiming to learn the material and pass the free Azure training given by the CS Department by the end of January.
• I'm aiming to update the student resources list with more awesome resources for future students.
• Ultimately, at this point in time most of my time will be centred around coursework so I'm really aiming to push through and get coursework finished before the holidays so I can wind down a little bit.