Monday:
I redid the first couple steps of the walkthrough. I've made it to the point where you have to turn the csv files into sql files. His instructions are a bit vague, and the code flawed according to Marco.

Tuesday:


Wednesday:

Week 14: Day 71-75 - VA Votes #7

Monday:
N/A --- SDV 100 w/ Ms. Magro

Tuesday:
I continued helping Owen with the guide. According to Owen, he completed everything, and was able to start working on PostGIS stuff. I finished interpolating Mr. Elkner's guide on how to create the Postgres server with PostGIS functionality and importing VA precinct data, into the walkthrough. Now I think we're gonna be able to do a final walkthrough, and finally reach a final product.

Wednesday:
I was told to go through the walkthrough today, but they needed to create a virtual machine. There were a lot of things that prevented me from starting today, but I'm sure I'll be able to start next class. In the meantime, I was studying more postgres and SQL related items.

Thursday:
Today, I started going through the walkthrough, but we ran into some problems again. I only made it to the end of step 2 because of our setbacks. The setbacks were mainly the installation and configuration of plugins on the new virtual machine. I think the rest is straightforward enough that I can complete it next class.

Friday:
N/A --- Prom Day

Week 13: Day 65-70 - VA Votes #6

Monday:
Today, I spent all of class working with Owen on the VA Votes project. It's part of his senior experience, so we're gonna be working on this a lot more now. He showed me the script that he made in Python, and how it would take data from the CSV data files and convert them into stuff that can be transferred into tables automatically. It was interesting stuff, and I understood thanks to the way he explained it.

Tuesday:
N/A --- Senior Project Presentation

Wednesday:
Today, I provided Owen with information on how I designed my database. Next, I taught him about how to implement primary keys and foreign keys. Afterwards, he taught me some things about querying which I didn't know before. Then I went back and started playing around with a test database to figure apply what I learned earlier to something.

Thursday:
N/A --- SDV 100 w/ Ms. Magro

Friday:
Today, I helped Owen with his walkthrough guide, which documents our steps for the VA Votes project. He asked me some questions that he has been wanting to ask me since SOL week. When we reached PostGIS stuff, Mr. Elkner told me not to worry about it since it was something we haven't been able to reach yet.

Week 12: Day 55-59 - Continuing SQL

Monday:
I spent most of today in Ms. Magro's class, logging into my nova account and getting to blackboard through myNova. She asked us to do an assignment as well, just as a taste of what was to come. After that, I came back down to the room. The rest of the class I just explored some SQL.

Tuesday:
Today, I re-installed pgAdmin III, an SQL manager for all platforms. The version I had before was not a version that worked with vavotes. It took me most of class to install this, since it was a long process. Afterwards, I connected to vavotes and it was successful. The rest of class I spent learning how to use this properly.

Wednesday:
Today, I spent time practicing my ability to create Entity Relationship Diagrams. It's these diagrams that help you model a database. There are three important terms to know about ER Diagrams. The entities, actions, and attributes. Entities is an object with which you want to store information. An action is the type of relationship between entities. Finally, attributes are characteristics of an entity.

Thursday:
N/A --- SDV 100 w/ Ms. Magro

Friday:
N/A --- Out Sick

Week 11: Day 50-54 - VA Votes #4

Monday:
Today, Mr. Elkner was not here. He told me that this guy who meets with on Thursdays was going to make a diagram for me and email it to me, so I could create a database for VA Votes. Unfortunately, I did not get any email. Instead, I spent the class sharpening my skills in Postgres by messing around with other commands, and learning about SQL in general through the w3schools Then course.

Tuesday:
Today, I started out by telling Mr. Elkner I didn't get an email from the guy. Apparently, the guy didn't show up to the last meeting, so now Mr. Elkner will email him. I helped Amanuel access his Windows directory from his bash shell, since it puts you into the Ubuntu directory instead.

Wednesday:
I had my AP English test today, so I'm exhausted. I started out by replying to the email chain with details on my database plan, and samples of the data so James can make an ER diagram if he wants. At this point I don't have much to do, so I'm trying to learn what I can about querying and postgres. I also tried to learn how to import CSV files into a table through Postgres.

Thursday:
N/A --- SDV 100 with Ms. Magro

Friday:
Today, Mr. Elkner told me that there was an ER diagram circulating within the project collaborators. I did not receive this, so he e-mailed the chain inquiring for the diagram so I could get started. In the mean time I continued my work from last class. This time, I found a very useful software. It's called PGAdmin III, and it allows me to access vavotes and edit the tables in an easy way.

Week 10: Day 45-49 - VA Votes #3

Monday:
Today, I started tinkering with the tables on the va_votes_testing database. It seems I am getting a good understanding of how the table relationships work, and I'm very happy about that. What's even more important though, is getting the data into these tables. However, the current data is simply too disorganized to be able to go into the tables. I will have to find a good way of rearranging the data to fit into the tables I made.

Tuesday:
So, after discussing with Marco and Owen, we found a good way of getting the data into the tables. I started modifying the CSV data from the official Virginia elections website, and I think I have a grasp on what it should look like. Now what we need is for Marco to make a good Python program that will clean the data the way I want it to.

Wednesday:
Today, Mr. Elkner was not here. We had a good sub, who let us do our thing. Marco showed me the mechanics of how he plans to store data into the tables using Python. The way it works is that it uses the SQL integration that's built into Python to take the data and put it into the tables. We decided it's faster if we create a "data cleaner" which will modify the CSV files into the way I want it to be. Marco may have decided to delegate that task to Ali, not entirely sure. I exported a PGSQL file from my database so Marco could have a reference point, I also uploaded it to the VA Votes Github.

Thursday:
Today, I started by exporting an SQL file instead, since the pgsql format was not good for Marco. I spent the rest of class manually organizing data from the 2000 election so I can input into my database. I basically finished doing that, along with creating data for the other tables so I can see if it really works properly.

Friday:
I implemented legitimate voter election data into the database. It's from the U.S. Presidential Election in 2000. This was for proof of concept. The database that I make works properly, but now I must await until I get the diagram from Thursday night so I can design the next database.

Week 9: Day 41-44 - VA Votes #2

Tuesday:
Today, I am looking into transferring CSV files into Postgres. To import it, you must create a table with the corresponding columns in the data. However, the columns have slashes in it, the rows have both text and integers, and I have no idea what to do to import the data properly. This is extremely frustrating, but I hope that I figure it all out during the week.

Wednesday:
Today, we began designing the database. First, I created a new database so I could mess around without causing any damage to the va_votes database. In my endeavor to find out how to extract the CSV data into a table, I tried pointing out the problems with the particular ones I was dealing with to Owen and Marco. They had no idea how to fix it, and clearly I didn't either. Instead, we focused on designing the database, and we wrote it down on paper. Next, I put it into action, and I believe that I created the proper key relationships.

Thursday:
Today, I was going through the W3Schools course on SQL. I'm trying to figure out all the joins and their functions. I went through a lot of the course, and skipped the parts I already knew.

Friday:
I started working on the tables for the database, and I'm having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around how we're going to rearrange the data.