Author: Calista Dominitz

The biggest strength of this course was allowing individuals to explore any type of topic that they wanted to for their project. The fact that you can choose one of the many presented projects or submit your own if you decide to means that you are able to really have any sort of topic that can be beneficial for your future career. The inclusion of industry projects is even more helpful as it already gives you contacts to people in the industry as well as gives you experience for what it may be like when working with a team and learning how to meet their goal for a real world project. In this course, I had the opportunity to work with an industry partner and found the experience incredibly helpful. I have come across many learning opportunities for how to navigate understanding the clients needs and figuring out how I can deliver what they want in a realistic way by the given deadline.

A weakness was the project selection process. I had a difficult time determining which projects I thought were the best fit for me. Some descriptions are extremely extensive and include all the required and preferred qualifications, while others listed very little. For my project, it was in the middle with a fairly detailed description and some desired qualifications, however, an issue that we ran into was that the scope of the project was much larger than what was initially provided. While I completely understand that expectations change and that clients don’t always know what they want from the beginning, I do believe that it would have been helpful to have a more complete description about what types of technologies the client envisions using and what the final product will look like.

One way that I believe this course could improve upon would be to have some easily accessible resources for the students. For example, in the discussion board, there could be different threads that people could post to if their project falls under a certain category. If there were projects related to building a website, people in those projects could post questions or provide helpful information there. In my project, we ended up using machine learning and interacting with a 3-D model, almost as a game. I believe that initial threads that mention these things or even a section where people could post threads about those topics would have helped so we could see what other people were using and we could share where we got stuck.

One aspect of this course that could end up being a threat is making sure that the expectations of the different projects are relatively equal given the timeline and number of people on the project. If there are not enough people to divide up the work, it can make it difficult for the project to get accomplished by the end of the course. Similarly, if the project goals are too high and are not properly altered once the work gets started, there will also be an incomplete resulting projects. Both of these can make it hard to feel that you are getting everything out of the course that you should be and are making significant progress.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and I am grateful for the experience, especially being able to work with an industry partner and create a project that I am proud of!

The goal of my capstone project is to create an interactive web application that allows user’s to explore their home and learn about different items they own and the potential toxins that exist in these products. My main task for this has been to create a model 3d room for a user to “walk” through and be able to click on different items to learn more. One way that we are accomplishing this, is by making a model of a room with all the different items that we want users to learn more about. For example, The room will include a bed, with a bed frame and sheets or a desk that users will click on to learn about the different types of materials used and how that can impact their health. This way, if a user does not want to upload their own room, they can view this model one.

As of now, my project has an object that represents a user. Using the program Godot, the user is placed in the middle of a room with two walls, a floor, and two cubes that represent a bed and a table. The user is able to view the room from the user’s perspective, move around the room using arrow keys, and click on objects which prints out the name of the object to the console. For example, if they click on the cube representing the table, the console prints “You have clicked on the table”. My favorite aspect about this project is how quickly you can improve the quality of the product. Right now, the project is very simple and plain. However, Using available libraries, I can download 3D models and import them to Godot so that I can have realistic looking objects in the room and make the walls and floors look like an actual room. This will help make the program feel more professional and clean. I hope to also be able to incorporate different viewpoints so that a user can look at the room from more of a Birdseye view or from a 1st person point of view.

One way that I believe this technology could be made better would be to have it be a little more user-friendly. While it is not difficult to actually use the program itself, I find myself having to frequently look up how to do processes that I might have already done. Sometimes, I feel as if I stumble upon away to accomplish my goal, so it may not be the “right” way or the best way to get said goal done. Godot is brand new to me, so I know it will take time overall for me to be able to easily make models how I want them to be without having to use outside resources. Overall, though, I have been having a good time tinkering around in Godot and thinking through the best way for a user to experience this product.

Below, you can view the screenshot from the application so far. The capsule in the middle is the “user” and the console below shows the output after I clicked on both of the cubes.

My name is Calista Dominitz, I live in the Seattle area, and I am in my final quarter at OSU in the post-bacc program! My first real introduction to coding was when I took a computer science class in high school that I absolutely loved. I enjoyed being given a task and figuring out the best way to find the solution and think through different problems. However, at the time, my goal in life was to become a pediatrician, so my first degree was a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Psychology at Brandeis University. After college and working in the healthcare industry for some time, I realized that at the end of the day I didn’t actually want to be a doctor, I mainly wanted to identify issues and find solutions. In the back of my mind I always knew that I thoroughly enjoyed coding and that it would allow me to help people but through a different avenue than medicine. At this point, I decided to apply for the program and quit my job.

While taking classes online, I have utilized the flexibility to also do some travel. I have done some smaller domestic trips with friends, but my main goal was international travel. This year I have gone to Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City with my friend, traveled throughout Eastern Europe on my own, and gone to Australia with my family. I loved getting to try new foods and seeing new cultures. While I still plan to travel more in the future, my next goal is to find a job in the tech industry. I have enjoyed all the classes that I have taken at OSU, which does not help my narrowing down of jobs, but it does mean that I am willing and eager to learn in any role! I tend to lean towards projects that deal with how user interaction and thinking through how to meet the possible needs and present the product in a way that is efficient but also comprehensive. However, I am also interested in projects that deal with data and analysis. Even though I no longer want to be a doctor, I still one day hope to help solve problems in healthcare in general, especially from an accessibility standpoint. Given this, I hope to eventually find a job that exists where healthcare and technology intersect. I am extremely excited for this class and the opportunity to work with others to create a meaningful project that will showcase our talents!

Some pictures from my travels!