Back to School, Back to School...

Hello Familia,

   Sorry for the delay on an update, I was a bit more preoccupied last week than I had expected to be. Seeing as I was not in class, I won't have any new concepts to share from classes so this will likely be a shorter post. My original plan for my break was to take a friend up on his offer to hang out in Boise with him. That plan fell through at the last minute (about 12 or so hours before I was supposed to leave) so I was pretty much stuck in Rexburg for the week. One of my roommates was already planning on staying here over the break so it's probably a good thing I was here. He was "bored" pretty much every day of the break so I took time out of my planned activities to play a video game or two with him or to watch something on Netflix.

My week mostly consisted of the following activities:

• Playing Halo: Reach with my roommate Brady
• Starting to read a book that I purchased after the "Power 2 Become" conference my first semester at BYU-I. One of the speakers had written the book and I really liked much of what he was saying so I bought his book and was waiting for the time to read it. I got about a quarter of the way through the book but it's something. The book is called "Today I Begin a New Life"
• Resuming a game I had started and completing it. Nothing too special, just a Spider-Man game where you get to play as different Spider-Man characters from different comics (one from the 1920s, one from the distant future, etc.) Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
• Digitally archiving assignments and exams from last semester into PDF files using my scanner.
• Filing an application for an academic scholarship (so far it looks like I was approved for some tuition cost but there' definitely still some confusion about it).
• Watching the Netflix TV series "Daredevil" with Brady (we both found it addictive but it was a little heavy on violence or gore once or twice)
• Playing a bit of Rocksmith on my X-Box. For those who don't know, this is a game where you literally plug in a guitar to your game console and learn how to play a song on the guitar. When you finish, you can unplug your guitar and play the song just as well as you were when you were playing the game- assuming you can remember what you were playing without visual cues. The Song I played the most was "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis.
• Handwriting a letter to Miranda (we had a bit of a gap with letters after Christmas) as we both enjoy getting them even if we receive Emails every week.
• Attending a few activities out of the house as they came along (I'll mention those separately).

Final Grades

   I may have mentioned where my grades were at before but I had to wait until Thursday to find out what my official grades are for the semester. Here's what my grades are for the semester:

   I was hoping for As across the board (never wanting to shoot low) but considering how hard the semester became, I'm satisfied with the results. I hope that I can avoid another digital systems course in the future but I may have to take one more. I'm not sure yet. Here is my schedule for this coming semester's courses:

   Sadly I am already feeling overwhelmed again but we'll see how things develop. I was Emailed by two separate instructors already, requesting that I read material before our first class on Monday. That definitely put a damper on the last few days of my "break" and the material looks challenging but I'm reserving panic for at least a week or two ; ) Suffice to say this break has seemed too short and I'm reconsidering whether I will take a full course load during my offtrack rather than working and possibly taking a single class to keep focused. On the bright side, I will have a social dance class next semester so I can loosen up every couple of days... hopefully.

This Week's FHE

More songs around the campfire at Eagle Park

Songs around the Campfire at Eagle Park (Brady on the left)

   Most of the student wards evaporated almost overnight so Brady didn't really have any activities this week. I offered to have him come along to my ward's Family Home Evening for the week. We ended up taking advantage of the good weather and singing songs around the campfire. I really wasn't playing for very long because I don't know many songs at full length but Brady played songs for quite a while and the group started to pull up lyrics on their smartphones to sing along. It turned out to be a lot of fun and Brady ended up with an admirer before it was all over.

Other Activities

   The very first day that it was just Brady and I at the house, I joined him at his ward for church. There were only 15-20 people present including the leadership. That evening I had been invited to a waffle party by my friend Chelsea. She started our ward on a somewhat irregular pattern of waffle parties that has been kept up for 4-5 months now. This was another of these events and included a lot of sitting around and socializing- sometimes with food in hand.

   On Wednesday night, Brady and I opted to attend an institute class at my church building. The topic of discussion These classes have occurred every Wednesday since I moved here but I have not had time while studying to break away for an evening. It wasn't much but it was a good excuse to get out of the house for an hour and there was some free ice cream provided afterward so it worked out nicely : D



   Sorry if this week is a little uneventful but I'm sure I'll have plenty of learning to share next week when I start the headache all over again. I love you all and hope that you are doing well!

The Final, Finals Week

Aloha Mi Familia,

    Things are a little bit crazy as of late but I must say that finals week is looking a little lighter than I had expected. I have a final project left in my Digital Systems class as well as a homework assignment and two final exams (one group, one individual) in my C++ class. Otherwise all projects and Exams are done for the semester. The exams should be quite difficult and the final project is definitely going to be a struggle but I'm glad that I'm at least down to two classes for the next few days. Over the week break, I will be going with two of my former roommates (Jeffrey and Glenn) down to Boise and spending the time there before coming back for the Spring semester.

   This weekend was also general Conference for the church so I spent about 8 hours listening to broadcasts from church leaders on various topics. I was tired enough that I slept through one session of the conference but otherwise listened to the majority of the other 4 sessions. I took several notes but not as much as I usually do and I've got a lot to think over after hearing the messages.


ECEN 160 Digital Systems

   This week has been primarily focused on two major items. First, I spent about 6-7 hours studying for our third exam. We don't technically have a final exam for this class but this Exam was definitely the most difficult. I spent over 2 hours in the testing center and walked away with a 73%... It was rough and I actually felt a little over-confident when I submitted my exam to be scanned in for a grade. At least it is behind me. That's all I can really say about that. The second item was to make headway on our final project. There is likely to be many hours of confusion outside of regular class time, trying to get the project to work in our two design programs (Logisim and Xilinx). It is always hard to tell just how close we are because one issue can hang us up for hours but we have made some good progress during our class periods this week. There was, of course, a homework assignment wedged into our work this week as well but that is really minor compared to the Exam and final project.

CS 165 (Object-Oriented Programming in C++)

New intro screen with instructions

  Well, the day had to come. I submitted my "final" asteroids game for grading in my C++ class. It wasn't too terribly different from what I demoed in last week's blog but I did make a  few changes. At about 1:30  in the video that I shared last week there was a glitch where two red lines would be drawn across the screen whenever the ship was trying to wrap from one side to the other. That glitch is fixed in the current version / final submission of the assignment. I also added some instructions for new users and some minor code changes that allow me to test the software differently.

What level "2" looked like on April Fools Day

   As an example, I added a Constant variable (unchanging) that dictates how many levels are skipped between rounds. Naturally the default is to increase your level by 1 when you complete a level
but I decided to try skipping to level 1001 after completing the first level. The game slowed down so much that I never did seem my ship come back when I died. I reduced the delay on respawning and was able to actually beat level 1001 after several minutes. Level 2001 was another story. I had a sneaky idea (in the spirit of April Fools day) and decided to have my roommate test the program again- this time with the jump from level 1 - 1001. We had a good laugh when he played it : )










CS 371 (Human Computer Interaction)

Previously Submitted WMP Skin

Final WMP Skin Submission

Usability Study work leading up to the final version of the project

The usability Study that I conducted (for someone else's media player skin)

The usability study that someone else conducted (on my media player skin)


Submitted Windows Media Player Skin

Windows Media Player Skin "Highlights"

 Response to Usability Study:

Final Specification For WMP Skin "Highlights"

   On Thursday morning, at 8 AM, I took my final for HCI. The final was a composite of all 6, 15-minute exams that we had taken over the course of the semester and we had 90 minutes to take the test. I was writing on the exam right up until my instructor said, "2 seconds left" and I threw down my pen, rather than continue writing. I'd say that I covered about 5 pages with hand-written notes and drawings by the time that the final was over.

*Update on the class, I received my grade for my final exam, I scored 88%! I must say, I was hoping for something a little higher but this class has been one of the hardest in my educational career. Considering I scored 9% on my first exam and had an F in the class for a while, I don't feel bad about my current B+. With any luck, my final project submission will bring me up to an A- but I'm not counting on it at this point. In any case, this class is done and I am just trying to wrap up my other two classes well.


Tech Products:

   So... Not everything is all about school and I do find a few moments now and again to catch up on new tech. Here are some things that caught my eye. The first is yet another take on how to provide a simple, cheap, and effective electricity solution to places that stand in need. The second is similar to an Apple TV but for video games. You have your computer elsewhere in your house and you put this little box in your living room so that you can play games from your computer without having to move the computer. The third is essentially a Chromebook / Chromebox but in a "stick" format. Basically it is a very light and efficient computer that is now also very small and even less expensive. There is also a lot of news about Android apps getting added to the Chrome OS (operating system like Windows or Mac OS) so that there are many more options for how you can use Chrome devices.

Life Improving (The kind of thing I'd love to invent some day)
Gravity Light

For Fun
Steam Link

Curious to see where this goes
Chromebit


   I was trying to think of more to add but I got the majority of my week in the notes so hopefully this is a fair update for you all. I love you and think of you often. I hope that everything works out so that I can join the family for a reunion this summer : )