Projects

Freshman Year Projects

Tetris Replica Github Page

Description

A Fundamentals of Computer Science 1 (CS 2500) project where we were tasked to create a Tetris replica in Racket. The project was assigned twice, the first time the deletion of rows wasn't necessary and higher order loop functions weren't allowed to be used. The second assignment required rows to be properly deleted upon completion as well as higher order loop functions to be used. The assignment gave a general outline of data structures to be used, however implementation was up to the programmer.

Challenges

This was the first large project of the class and with it there were many challenges. First was figuring out how to break up the workload between partners. Another challenge was understanding how to properly implement higher order loop functions and lambdas, they are hard to understand at first.

Future Plans

I may possibly add some additional features such as an upcoming piece indicator and a high score board, however this project is not my highest priority, however it would be interesting to learn file IO for Racket as well as learn more functional programming.

Maze Creator and Solver Github Page

Description

A Fundamentals of Computer Science 2 (CS 2510) project where we were tasked to create a project that created a maze and then visually solved it using three different approaches. Before the assignment we learned about the fundamentals of different searching algorithms as well as how a minimum spanning tree of a graph could possibly create a maze. With this knowledge and an understanding of the union find data structure we were given guidelines to what features we had to have in the project. Besides the basic understanding of the algorithms behind searching and using kruskal's algorithm to generate a minimum spanning tree implementation was up to the programmer.

Challenges

With this project the main challenge was overcoming the problem of stack overflows with the use of the javalib graphics library where images are overlayed on top of each other and with too many overlays a stack overflow is reached. Also There was the challenge of abstracting as much as possible with many functions, such as the searching algorithms, having very similar properties and implementations. One final challenge was finding ways to add features to the program without severely hurting efficiency. To work around this challenge often I would sacrifice memory for efficiency.

Future Plans

I do not have many future plans for this program, I spent a lot of time with my homework partner completing it and was able to implement many of the features i wanted to. Possible future additions are statistics about the efficiency of different searching algorithms for the current maze. Another possible feature is the addition of a solve in one step button for large mazes that would otherwise take a long time to be solved through animation.

Wrktgthr Github Page Website

Description

A NYU Hacks Hackathon project that I started with a few friends over a 36 hour period. The plan for the website was to create a collaborative fitness site that would allow people to connect and share workouts. In addition to posting workout videos and plans, and setting fitness goals other users could give feedback to others on their workouts and progress. This project is still in the very early stages.

Challenges

Our group went into this project without any real web development experience. So the majority of the hackathon was spent learning web development concepts. We had to learn many new technologies including HTML, Node.js, git, JavaScript and HTML. We were able to set up a basic MEAN stack and host the site on Heroku, however we were not able to completely implement a database and basically all of the sites functionality is not present because of this. While the site has very little functionality, as a team we learned a lot about web development and look forward to competing in other Hackathons.

Future Plans

There is a lot of room for improvement in this project. First would be properly implementing a database and allowing for users to log on and complete basic submissions of content to the website. After that there are a lot of possible features that can be added including playlists of workouts, user profiles, and goal tracking. There is no set plan to when or if this project will be completed, however it has a lot of potential.

Scavenger Hunt Helper Github Page Website

Description

A personal project to learn more about web development with dynamic content. The basic idea around this website is to have a website that can help coordinate and organize a team who is competing in a scavenger hunt, my inspiration was Northeastern's Husky Hunt. The website would help by having a central website to store and share clues, maps with locations, routes for people to go on to get to places on the maps, and notes. The website will have integration with Google maps and collaborative editing websites.

Challenges

I am very new to web development and this will be the first substantial project that I will be trying to complete. I will need to learn how to manage an SQL database as well as interact with APIs. I choose the scope of this project in part because i think i will learn a lot from it.

Update: After working on this project on and off for the past few months I have made a lot of progress and learned a lot from it. My initial challenges with the project included understanding how to make a logical interface for the website and then implementing it. After getting the framework of the interface set up one major challenge was insuring that the database and web client were able to manage data accurately. My current challenge as this year's Husky Hunt approaches is to make sure the website will be able to handle multiple users updating the same set of points asynchronously, which is what will occur during the actual hunt.

Future Plans

I plan on implementing an algorithm that can find a sub-optimal ordering of points in a route so that the time it takes to travel the whole route is minimal. I plan on using a progressive asymmetric nearest neighbor approach to the traveling salesman problem to find the ordering of places. I also plan on making a better way of linking together points and their corresponding clues along will collaborating hints and other information. Also seeing how the website is used during the competition will help me think of useful changes and features to add for next year.