Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Project Progress

We are currently in Week 2 of our timeline for our Sugar Labs activity.  I think we are on schedule although the plan needs to be adjusted a little.  We at first thought that we wouldn't start coding in Python for a while, but then realized that we need to use some Python when designing the GUI.  The other change to our plan is that we probably won't be using a database as previously thought.  Instead, our data will be stored in Python lists.

Alex has made a lot of progress on the GUI using PyGTK and Glade.  Most of the code is in an XML file, but there is also a little Python.  There are a few changes that we'd like to make to the functionality, but it is a good start with a layout that we are pleased with. 

We have also spent some time talking through the algorithm that we think will work well to come up with a score between 1 and 100 (determined by what the user has eaten in a day).  We've decided to weigh each food group based on how many servings are recommended in a day.  Since there are 5 food groups, there is a potential for 20 points from each group.  The number of points for each serving, however, depends on how many servings are recommended from that group.  For example, since 6 servings of grain/bread items are recommended, each serving is worth 3.33 points.  So if a child eats exactly 6 servings of grains in a day, he/she will earn 20 points for the grain category.  Only 16.67 points would be awarded if the child only ate 5 servings.  If the child goes over the recommended servings, we will start subtracting from the total.  So eating 8 servings of grain would result in 13.33 points.  We realize that this is a very simple algorithm, but we think it will serve our purpose for now, and we can adjust it later if necessary.

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