Pinon Elementary (102)/Interim Report

Interim Report
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_interim1112.php?team_id=102

Interim: Problem Definition
The Tree of Life is the classification of all living things on Earth. It is important to understand the Tree of Life because it explains much of how life came to be, and it is useful to understand to preserve vanishing species, many of which we do not know. The Tree of Life is huge. In the 1970’s Terry Erwin estimated that the true number of living species on earth is near 30 million, but we currently only know 1.7 million species. If you add the bacteria and archaes, there may be as many as 400,000,000 [Tudge].Because of its size, it is impossible to understand unless we can find new ways to visualize it. I will use the Processing language and all the data on the Tree of Life website to find new ways to draw the Tree of Life. This software should also be useful to help us understand other huge datasets, such as the connection between different countries or between different stocks.

Problem Solution
I will use the Processing language and all the data on the Tree of Life website to find new ways to draw the Tree of Life. The Processing language, unlike Starlogo TNG (which I know), is not agent-based, but it can be. I will use the graphical components of Processing. It can be downloaded from processing.org. Like Starlogo TNG it is free and can run on any operating system. Processing helps you visualize great bunches of data. It has many books and website info. For example, check out the examples at openprocessing.org. My dad is at least somewhat familiar with this language and is helping me when I get stuck.

Progress to date
I am still figuring out how much of the Tree of Life that I will be able to draw. I am figuring out how to use small parts of it so that I can see when I am going wrong. I will use the data from http://tolweb.org/tree/.I have programmed a binary tree that tracks your mouse coordinates and unfolds itself. I can expand this tree up to 15 levels in the tree, which results in up to 32,768 leaves or species.

Expected Results
I expect to have a full program by January. To achieve this goal I will: Draw a non-binary tree Use more processing built-in libraries to make it 3D Add color and allow to zoom in and out For a small part of the tree of life, for example birds, add names on each branch and names of species on the leaves. Try and draw the full Tree of Life

Introduction
Hello my name is Ben Turrubiates I am a Computer Science major at New Mexico Tech. I study computer science because I am interested in programming, and security. I hope to have a career in the information security field someday.

Progress
I see that you have made a good amount of progress using the Processing language. However I think you should clarify what the problem, and solution are. At the moment it seems the problem isn't clearly stated. Another thing you might want to think about is efficiency.

Model
I see you will be using the Processing language, which is a cool idea. However I think you should think about the efficiency of the data structure used.

Face to Face Evaluation
Remember there is a face-to-face evaluation at the end of this month.

Utilize this Judges' rubric used for for the Expo judging, in April, to organize your posts.

Good job on researching the implementation. I am impressed that you are using processing. I hope to see a nice ending product.