To be able to compile some of the applications, do the following. Login to your account on SOD. create a directory for your work (ogl) and copy from my account to your space (cp). Then try to compile one of the applications. Next copy an source code file to temp.cxx and try to change it. After you have changed it compile and run it. The following commands will do above.
mkdir ogl
cp ~juell/cs728pub/cube-example/* ogl
cd ogl
make 
./cube

The make file (Makefile) has program names hard coded. That means you have to use pre-specified names. If you want to use a different name, you will have to add it to the make file.