1/3 of the Capstone Down…
This blog post marks the last assignment of CS461 for me, and it’s amazing how fast this term has gone by. It was only a few months ago that I had no grasp on what project I wanted to pursue, and I had to carefully consider the many options as I would be dedicating a full academic year to it. At the time, the pressure seemed tremendous, but sticking to my gut has made me excited for the upcoming terms.
I want to give so much credit to my teammates, as I’m immensely proud of the amount of work we’ve been able to accomplish in about 9 weeks. We went from a vague idea of an escape room game to committing fully to an intriguing concept with our own unique additions.
Given the limited amount of time we’ve all had, considering external responsibilities and other courses, we have put together a solid foundation for our game. The dozens of hours spent on research and building blueprint documents will pay off when the bulk of the work truly starts.
I want to congratulate Anthony, Mackenzie, and Skyler for being fantastic to work with and making it through this term. I wholeheartedly look forward to getting to see all of our work and perspectives combine into one amazing game.
…2/3 to Go!
Thinking about the upcoming terms has me thinking about how far I’ve come since starting at OSU. I transferred here in Winter of 2022, and I never could’ve imagined learning about all sorts of things. Although I programmed prior to OSU, I was nowhere near as proficient as I am now, and I never would’ve learned about the fundamentals.
CS271 (Computer Architecture and Assembly Language) is a course I still think about 2 years later. To me, there is such a deep impact of getting a glimpse into how technology works at the lowest level. While I primarily use Python now, I always find myself thinking about how it trickles down into something a machine can process. It blows my mind how a language so close to English is quickly turned into a program a machine that only understands 1s and 0s uses.
Moving from that to our project, it further puts things into perspective realizing that we’re able to create real-time simulations of so many things. Having played video games all of my life, learning CS has given me a better appreciation of the amount of thought and work that’s gone into making them a reality. Further than that, we’ve now reached a point where anyone is able to create their own games with software that doesn’t hold them back.
Open-source has paved the way for people to pursue their ideas and fully own them. While there are obvious benefits to paid products, the most important thing is that people have choices. Our team choosing to use tools like Godot and Blender means that we won’t ever have to struggle with licensing or payments. We simply own whatever we make, end of story. I love that the open-source community enables others to pursue their own ideas, and I can’t wait to give back one day by contributing myself.
As for now, though, I will focus on finishing out strong. There are 2/3 left in the capstone project, and I have six courses aside from that. I’m sad to say that I anticipate it will go by faster than I can blink. Writing this now will feel distant before I know it, but that will be because of how much I’m enjoying everything. I plan to follow this advice myself, but take a step back every once in awhile and appreciate where you are now. The future is always one step away.
Conclusion
I’m happy to be done with the Fall term, sad to know that this is my last Fall term, and excited to start Winter. Mixed emotions is definitely the best description I have right now, but I am optimistic that my last two terms will be fantastic. In only a few months, our game will be complete. Seeing how this term has gone, and knowing my teammates better now, I know we’ll make it something special.