High School Internship with wxPython

wxPython Users
1

Hello,

My name is Rolph Recto. I am a rising senior at Louisa County High
School; I am also part of the Blue Ridge Virtual Governor's School
program, which is basically a program of special courses I have to
take (it's not a physical, brick-and-mortar school). My BRVGS course
for senior year is the Senior Internship, where I have to undertake a
"challenging action project." I've chosen to write an open-source
application for use in math education - I am envisioning a grab bag of
"tool" modules that will help explain and clarify concepts in high-
school math classes. (Examples of "tool" modules I have in mind
include: a drawing program for geometry classes, a 3D plot of solids
of revolution for calculus class, etc.) I have recently found wxPython
and I think it is the perfect GUI library to use for my project - it's
robust enough for my planned applications, but also easy to use, owing
to the fact that it's written in Python.

Part of my internship includes finding a mentor (a "professional
expert in the field") to guide me through my project. In my specific
case, this means finding a mentor to help me learn wxPython and learn
how to create and maintain an open-source project. This is the reason
why I am writing the mailing list - I'd figured that since my project
is, essentially, to learn wxPython, what better place to find a mentor
than the wxPython community?

Basically, mentorship entails weekly communication (mostly through e-
mails and GMail chat) on my progress. I'm planning to read the book
wxPython in Action as a guide, and then asking the prospective mentor
questions. I guess the prospective mentor would also evaluate the code
I'm writing. That's about it, I think. There's a lot more details
concerning the internship at the BRVGS website:
https://sites.google.com/a/brvgs.k12.va.us/seniorresources/internship

So, if some of you guys here are interested, please feel free to shoot
me a reply. Thank you very much!

Rolph Recto

2

ok. send me a mail

3

It sounds like you’re supposed to use your school’s email / chat for communication with mentors. I don’t mind helping though.

  • Mike
4

Note: I won’t be doing you homework for you though.

···

Mike Driscoll

Blog: http://blog.pythonlibrary.org

5

Rolph,

This sounds like a good project. I don't want to make a promise I don't have time to =keep, so I"m not offering mentor support, but a few comments:

> I've chosen to write an open-source

application for use in math education - I am envisioning a grab bag of
"tool" modules that will help explain and clarify concepts in high-
school math classes.

check these out:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~raj/intro-stats.html

They are some really nice statistics demos -- I had been thinking about making some more elementary ones, and wrapping them up in a nice wxPython app, so non-python programmers could use them. Perhaps you can find some inspiration.

And MPL, embedded in a wx app is probably your best bet for 2-d plotting.

include: a drawing program for geometry classes,

You might also want to check out wx.lib.floatcanvas for this.

a 3D plot of solids
of revolution for calculus class, etc.)

Take a look at Mayavi for this. Or, if it's simple enough, maybe raw OpenGL (Matplotlib has some 3-d capability, but not much).

Do take a look at numpy/scipy, and the surrounding community, you'll find lots of good stuff and helpful people there.

-Chris

···

--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception

Chris.Barker@noaa.gov

6

Oops…I must have been blind. I can only help with normal GUI stuff. I don’t know much about drawing with wx at all.

···

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Christopher Barker Chris.Barker@noaa.gov wrote:

Rolph,

This sounds like a good project. I don’t want to make a promise I don’t have time to =keep, so I"m not offering mentor support, but a few comments:

I’ve chosen to write an open-source
application for use in math education - I am envisioning a grab bag of

“tool” modules that will help explain and clarify concepts in high-

school math classes.

check these out:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~raj/intro-stats.html

They are some really nice statistics demos – I had been thinking about making some more elementary ones, and wrapping them up in a nice wxPython app, so non-python programmers could use them. Perhaps you can find some inspiration.

And MPL, embedded in a wx app is probably your best bet for 2-d plotting.

include: a drawing program for geometry classes,

You might also want to check out wx.lib.floatcanvas for this.

a 3D plot of solids

of revolution for calculus class, etc.)

Take a look at Mayavi for this. Or, if it’s simple enough, maybe raw OpenGL (Matplotlib has some 3-d capability, but not much).

Do take a look at numpy/scipy, and the surrounding community, you’ll find lots of good stuff and helpful people there.

-Chris

–

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.

Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division

NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice

7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax

Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception

Chris.Barker@noaa.gov

–

Mike Driscoll

Blog: http://blog.pythonlibrary.org

7

Well, that was my focus -- I'm sure you'd be a great help with the "normal GUI stuff", as well as general software design issues.

-Chris

···

On 8/9/11 9:29 AM, Mike Driscoll wrote:

Oops...I must have been blind. I can only help with normal GUI stuff. I
don't know much about drawing with wx at all.

--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception

Chris.Barker@noaa.gov

8

Mr. Barker, thank you for the tips! I will be definitely be looking into matplotlib. Mr. Driscoll and azrael, I’ve going to send you both a more detailed email about the specifics of the project. I’ve met with my adviser today and she told me that I could have several experts to ask questions to, but I still have to have one main mentor to help me throughout the entire project. It’s really up to you guys what you want to do.

Again, thank you very much for your interest!

···

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Christopher Barker Chris.Barker@noaa.gov wrote:

On 8/9/11 9:29 AM, Mike Driscoll wrote:

Oops…I must have been blind. I can only help with normal GUI stuff. I

don’t know much about drawing with wx at all.

Well, that was my focus – I’m sure you’d be a great help with the “normal GUI stuff”, as well as general software design issues.

-Chris

–

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.

Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division

NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice

7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax

Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception

Chris.Barker@noaa.gov

–

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–
Rolph Recto
Louisa County High School