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CodingSkills++ August 20, 2011

Posted by lifealgo in Computing, internship.
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My internship at CareerBuilder.com has ended 😦

If I can only say one thing about it, let it be this: holy cow, I learned a lot!

Spending 12 weeks of this summer just coding has improved my programming skills and made me much more confident in my coding capabilities.  It’s kind of interesting how my internship project went through the same motions as my CS classes: began with a “Hello World” tutorial to get used to VisualBasic.net and Visual Studio (<3), started getting used to the visuals of javascript (CS1331), coded up BFS (CS1332)…

Either way, I’m ready to take on the rest of my career*!

CareerBuilder

Interns Fender, Leah, and I at CareerBuilder

*no pun intended, I promise!

Paint in Processing February 13, 2011

Posted by lifealgo in Personal.
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Last semester we had the option of making a website to showcase our resume and “CS portfolio” for my Technical Communications class.  Since I didn’t feel like starting a website from scratch, I decided to code a simple paint program in Processing so that I could work off the website applet that was created.

http://aurellazar.com/cristina/

I ended up not using the website for the assignment, but I did have fun making this really simple browser version of paint 🙂  Future plans include adding a color palette, smoother curves, and fixing some bugs related to mouse movement.

Controls:

c – clear screen

r – red

g – green

b – blue

w – white

z – black

] – increase brush size

[ – decrease brush size

Graphics! October 27, 2010

Posted by lifealgo in Class Madness.
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I’ve mentioned my Graphics class before – it’s a main class required for the media thread and some branches of the CM major.  The class is challenging but not impossible, and also a bit fun*.  It has led me to pull many all-nighters this semester, but then again this is Georgia Tech so that’s not very uncommon.

For our CS3451 group project we had to modify code containing a path (calculated via b-spline, 4-point spine, the Jarek compromise, et cetera) in 3D and modify the figure navigating along the path so that:

  • The figure is now a unicycle
  • The unicycle’s wheel spins
  • The wheel has the picture of group members on their sides

Calculating the angles and fidgeting with the coordinate translations and rotations was exhausting, but then my team member figured that since we were this far along, he might as well have fun with textures.

This is the result:

Project 3B – Don’t open this if you have 30+ tabs open in your browser!

I’m particularly fond of the moon in the corner of the world and the philosophical questions that our code fueled (“the figure is not moving… it’s the world around it that’s changing”**).

*I think the scariest part of this class is that one of the reasons I think it’s fun because we use a lot of math in our projects.  Ahhh!

** You can see our source code in the same page if you scroll to the bottom.  In our code, we rotated the wheel not by rotating the object but by rotating about the axis going through its center.

Graphics and the Media Thread October 3, 2010

Posted by lifealgo in Computing.
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From the moment I learned about the Threads system that the College of Computing uses for its CS degrees I knew that Media was going to be one of them.  This semester I’m taking my first course from Media, CS3451: Computer Graphics.  I really like the course material so far, particularly how we integrate calculus, linear algebra, and geometry with programming to produce visuals.

I’ve also had the opportunity to make some pretty cool programs with Processing:

I really want to program some personal projects in Processing over winter break.  For now, I’ll focus on the class-related ones.

Grace Hopper! September 23, 2010

Posted by lifealgo in Computing.
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There’s a reason the annual conference for women in science is named after her!

Third year so far! September 2, 2010

Posted by lifealgo in Class Madness.
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Third year at Tech has come full force!!

It’s only the second week, but it definitely feels I’ve been back for a while now.  This semester I’m taking 4 CS classes, including Graphics and Object-Oriented Design; coupled with Combinatorics and a technical writing class, I have a varied semester with lots of programming.

I’ve decided to make myself two main goals for this semester, aside from the usual “excel in classes” and “try to sleep more than 3 hours per day”:

  1. Become a Java expert
  2. Progress on the development of my books
  3. Get in better shape

Of course, each has their justifications:

1. Although I am familiar with Java, I am not a wizard with it.  I’m working to change that this semester…

  • Joined programming team
  • Discovered codingbat.com and other similar websites

2. Almost everything is in my head.  I need to write some of it down, and give it some structure…

  • Already practicing outlines
  • Need to do lots and lots of reading and research online

3. I want to be healthy!

  • Need to make a consistent schedule
  • Need to be more conscious of what I eat

I’ll also learn how to manage my time efficiently, more out of necessity than convenience!

Just a tad bit busy, s'all...