The workshop notes for this week cover procedural scripting, this example shows the importance of understanding BEDMAS.

BEDMAS is the priority list for doing equations correctly. the result of doing this incorrectly could be disastrous to the functionality of a program. If you are unsure whether something is written correctly, you can override the order by putting whatever part of the equation you want done first within () brackets. 

EXAMPLE:

a = 5

b = 6

c = a + 2 * b

def add(d, e):

    return d+e

print(add(a, b) + 2 * add(b,c))

The result would be 57 because of the order in which the program has been told to run. 
Without a basic understanding of BEDMAS, it is very hard to get the right answer without lots of trial and error.

This week I finished the pyramid code in Maya that allowed you to create a pyramid using layers of differently scaled polyCubes. I have posted the program below this paragraph. it was hard to work on because I am working on my understanding of how Maya interacts with python through its various Modules. 

import maya.cmds

def pyramid(objHeight, x, y, z):

    cubeList = cmds.ls('Cube*')

    if len(cubeList) > 0:

        cmds.delete(cubeList)

    result = cmds.polyCube(w=1, h=1, d=1, name='Cube#')

    transformName = result[0]

    for i in range(0, objHeight):

        instanceResult = cmds.instance( transformName, name=transformName + '_instance_#')

        cmds.move(x, (i*-1)+y, z, instanceResult)

        cmds.scale(i, 1, i, instanceResult)

pyramid(50, 0,0,0)