#senior project

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was sent to a kindergarten class for a senior project and my partner just laid down and played Careless Whisper on the saxophone for an hour.

#dream #careless whisper #kindergarten #class #senior project #senior #music #george michael

[inbabylontheywept]

Kevin vs. Quantum Mechanics

This is an autobiographical piece. Names have been changed for anonymity, but it's otherwise left be. ---

The class's first suspicion of Kevin was that he had, somehow, cheated his way up to this course. He just seemed perpetually confused, and strangely antagonistic of the professor. The weirdest example of this was when he asked what an ion was (in a third year EE class?), and was informed that it referred to any positively or negatively charged particle. It would have been strange enough to ask, but his reply of "Either? That doesn't sound right" sealed him in as a well known character in the class of 19 people.

The real tipping point in our perception of him during a lecture where the professor mentioned practical uses for a neutron beam, and Kevin asked if a beam could be made out of some other neutral material. When asked "Like what?", he replied "An atom with all of its electrons removed." When we pointed out that the protons would make that abomination extremely positively charged, he just replied with "So what if we removed those too?" and then was baffled when we informed him that would just be neutrons.

That's high school level chemistry. Not knowing it was so incredibly strange that I felt like something was off, so I asked him if he'd like to grab lunch. He accepted, we chatted, and I finally began to get a sense of his origin story.

See, Kevin wasn't a junior/senior electrical engineer like the rest of us. Kevin was, in fact, three notable things: A business major, a sophomore, and a hardcore Catholic. All three of those are essential to understanding his scenario.

What had begun all of this was actually a conflict with Kevin and his roommate. Kevin frequently had his fundamental belief in Absolute Good, Absolute Bad, and Absolute Anything pushed back on by his roommate, who was in STEM. Said roommate kept invoking quantum mechanics as his proof against Absolute Knowledge. Kevin was tired of having something that he didn't understand thrown at his convictions, so he decided to take a quantum course to settle things once and for all.

Despite not having any of the pre-reqs.

He'd actually tried to take quantum for physicists first, but the school's physics department wouldn't let him. It's actually pretty strictly regulated, because it is a mandatory class for physics majors. However, because quantum is not mandatory for electrical engineers, there aren't really any built in requirements for the class. It's just assumed that nobody would actually try to take it until their third year because doing so would the be the mental equivalent to slamming your nuts in the car door. Just, pure suffering for no good reason.

Apparently, the counselors had tried to talk him out of it, but if Kevin was one thing, it was stubborn. He'd actually had to sign some papers basically saying "I was warned that this is incredibly stupid, but I refused to listen" in order to take the class.

He was actually pretty nice, if currently unaware of how bad he'd just fucked up. I paid for the lunch, wished him the best, and reported back to the class discord. We'd all been curious about this guy's story, but now that I had the truth, I could share it with the world.

Feelings were mixed. Some people thought he was going to drop out any minute now. Others thought that he wouldn't, be also that convincing him to drop now, while he still could, was the only ethical thing. Others figured that a policy of non-interference was best: The counselors couldn't dissuade him, and if we tried to do the same, he'd probably just think it was STEM elitism trying to guard its little clubhouse. He'd figure out how hard things were, or he'd fail. Either way, it would help him learn more about the world.

We wound up taking the approach of non-interference. If nothing else, understanding his origins gave us more patience when he asked bizarre questions. He wasn't trying to waste our time, he was just trying to cram three years of pre-reqs into a one semester course. He did get a little bit combative sometimes, and we could tell that he was really wracking his brain to try and find some sort of contradiction or error that he could use to bring the whole thing down, but he never could.

First test came by, and he bombed it. Completely unprepared. He'd taken Calc I, but he didn't know how to do integrals yet (that was Calc II). Worse, he was far past the drop date. I imagine most people in his shoes would've stopped struggling. They'd realize they were fucked and just let themselves fail, at least salvaging their other classes grades in the process. Why waste resources on an unwinnable battle?

Kevin never asked questions like that. If he was stupid enough to try it, he was stupid enough to finish it. God bless him.

He invited me to lunch after the test and said that the class was more fascinating than he'd ever imagined, but he didn't know if he'd be able to pass it. He asked if I could help, and I said...maybe. I brought the request to the discord, and from the eight people there I got three volunteers who admired this dork's tenacity. He was in over his head, miles beneath the surface, but his fighting spirit was fucking glorious. If he was willing to go down swinging, we were willing to bust our asses trying to get him caught up.

Some of the stuff was just extra homework we gave to the guy. We told him he needed to learn integrals, stat. We sent him some copies of basic software that can be used to teach the basics of linear circuit equations, and he practiced that game like it was HALO. Just, hours sunk into it. Absolutely godlike.

He was still scrabbling for air at just the surface level of the class, but he'd gone from abysmal failure to lingering on the boundary between life and death. Other people in the class started to learn about Kevin's origin story, and our little circle of four volunteer tutors grew to six. Every day, he had someone trying to help him either catch up in some way, or finish that week's homework. He'd gone from being seen as a nuisance that wasted class time to the underdog mascot.

He was getting twelve hours of personal tutoring a week, on top of three hours of classes, on top of six hours of office hours, on top of the coursework. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this kid was doing 40 hours a week just trying to pass this one single class.

Second test comes around and he gets a 60. He's ecstatic. We're ecstatic. Kid's too young to take out drinking so we just order a pizza and cheer like he just won gold at the Olympics.

After that second test, things hit another tipping point. With so much catch-up under his belt, he was able to focus a lot more on the actual material for the class. A borderline cinematic moment happened when I was trying to get ahead on the homework so that I could put more hours in on my senior project. Nobody else had finished it yet because it wasn't due for another week, so the specifics of the problem I was working on were still a mystery. I went to the professor's office hours and get some pointers, but he wasn't willing to give good hints when the HW wasn't due for another week or so. He said I still had time to think about it, which was true, but I wanted to be able to think about other things. Kevin had watched the whole conversation, waiting for his turn to ask the professor more simple questions, but when I left I got a text from him telling me to hop on zoom.

Kevin had finished it earlier, because Kevin started all of his homework the moment it was assigned. He needed to, in order to make sure that he could get it done on time. He'd finished it the day before, and was able to walk me through it.

From student, to teacher. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he probably saved me eight hours on that assignment. I could've kissed him.

A month or two later, we took the final. As soon as we were done, we six asked Kevin how he did. He was nervous, there was so much new material for him in this class that his retention hadn't been great. Us six were also a little stressed: We were going to pass the class, but the final was hard.

We waited for the results.

And waited. And waited.

Finally, the scores were posted as a table, curve included. From our class of 19 people, 4 withdrew within the deadline, 4 failed, 1 got a C, 8 got B's, and 2 got A's. We could see that the curve for a C was set at 59.2% overall.

We called Kevin. He was crying. End score, 59.2%. Teacher curved the C exactly to his score.

It was a week into winter break so we couldn't gather the forces around for a party like last time, but we were all losing our shit. Kevin was losing his shit. He couldn't believe how stupid he was to try this course, he couldn't believe that six people busted their ass just to make sure he didn't die, and he couldn't believe that the professor basically just passed him out of sheer effort alone.

He said it was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and while I doubt that, it was outrageously stupid. And yet, I've never been so invested in a fellow student before. I'm prouder of Kevin's C than I am of my own B. I was walking on sunshine for weeks after that. In theory, my senior project was building a functioning washing machine, but in practice, in my heart, it was helping Kevin pass Intro to Quantum for Electrical Engineers.

(And as an epilogue: No, he did not renounce Catholicism and become an atheist like his roommate had hoped. He did walk out changed. I think that being that wrong about something, and realizing it, was a pivotal moment for him. It's hard to be dogmatic once you realize that a lifetime of being wrong feels exactly like a lifetime of being right, right up until the last two seconds of it.)

#writing #Kevin #electrical engineering #college #memoir #biography #college stories #group project #quantum physics #senior project #people are awesome

[lil-miss]

Contender run down:

Zim from Invader Zim

Fem Zim from my IZ fanfic/au Galaxy Girls

Kanaya Maryam from Homestuck

Me, your lovely host

And @confusednoctis my beloved mutual who accidentally entered into this and now I won’t let them quit. <3

You have a week, vote wisely and check the King Ballot since there are some candidates on both.

#homestead homestuck housewife #galaxy girls iz #clairvoyantglamour #invader zim #fem zim #kanaya maryam #senior project #tumblr polls

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #5

What's Been Happening

I'm keeping this update brief because I want to get back to work fast.

I think this past week I focused a little more on my art for the game. I wanted to get it out of the way before really moving on to anything else. I needed stuff that would work in context, but didn't create so many that it would overwhelm me. It's just another reminder that I refuse to do this alone ever again if I'm bound to a timeline.

What's Next?

Polishing on all fronts. Grammar, coding, a little bit of art. I also need to finish up the overall gameplay experience because it's do or die time.

Hiccups, Hurdles and AHA! Moments.

I didn't really run into any hiccups that I can recall. A hurdle I came across was basically the creative process that comes with creating the art for the game. Honestly, creating the art felt like a hurdle itself. I wish I had someone to task this to, like a studio would, so I had more time to develop the game. An AHA! moment I had was realizing I didn't really have to go super hard on the art and I could make it simple. My main reasoning was because I'm trying to create something functional and not something super pretty.

Where am I on my Timeline

By my estimate, I am maybe at least 2 weeks behind. At this rate, it is what it is and I have to cut some losses and cut some corners to get this deliverable in a proper state.

Some Visual Documentation

Here's some of the art I've done in the past week for the game. I got more polishing to do to other ones before I'm fully satisfied, but I'm glad to have gotten this done.

#future workers #game design #game development #remote work #progress update #python #renpy #senior capstone #senior project

[kayleenakaproject]

Progress Update #2

Hey guys! Let's get into this update...

What's been happening over the past 2 weeks?

Well, my topic and deliverable has both changed... My topic is much broader now, focusing in on many different cultures and how they have made an impact on America. My deliverable is no longer a YouTube docu-series but rather a social media campaign. I know, crazy changes. But, it's for the better. So, I have been thinking about how exactly I want to do my social media campaign and also the cultures I would like to research for it.

What's coming up for the next 2 weeks?

I plan on continuing to work on visualizing and planning out the social media. By the end of the 2 weeks I hope to have the social media up and running with a post as well.

Hiccups/Hurdles/AHA moments

Getting rid of my initial plans for the docu-series was definitely difficult but once I really started thinking about my new deliverable, I realized that the ideas for that were much stronger and impactful than my previous deliverable ideas.

While thinking about ideas for my social media campaign, there were many moments where I felt as though the lightbulb in my head has FINALLY turned on. For example, I figured that doing two posts a week would be good with the first post being an introduction/information about the culture of the week and the second post would be a video of me trying out different things related to that culture.

Deliverable Drafts / Visual Documentation

I do not have much yet but I plan on creating a proper schedule and the social media itself soon.

Where I am on my timeline

I am only at the beginning of my timeline but I will continue to put my effort into making this project the best it can be.

Thank you for reading through all of this! Good luck on your projects besties! <3

#Senior Capstone #Senior Project

[doodleferp]

I just cranked out an entire revised script for my Capstone in a day and I can’t help but feel like having Teru Vash watch me write is what made me do it

#teru vash #writing #capstone #senior project #comics #vash the stampede #trigun #trigun stampede

[sprockets-and-glitter]

My capstone/senior project is coming along nicely... and also not. Wish I had more of a knack for this.

#engineering #female engineer #stem academia #electronics #capstone #senior project #mechanicalengineering #imposter syndrome #machine design

[cartergray]

Color Scripts

This week we were tasked with exploring color in our project. We were assigned with using one frame from our project to explore different color schemes.

This is not exactly what I did this week, but I did experiment heavily with color. This week I have been working on my story boards and have playing around with the finished style I want for my film in After Effects.

With my story boards (WIP), I have been applying color to each panel as I go along. For me this process has been very revealing, and I have discovered many ways in which simple color changes effect the tone and atmosphere of my boards. I am very pleased with my work this week. I feels like I am moving in a good direction.

As I mentioned before, I have also been working in After Effects to further develop the look of my film. It's still a work in progress, but I think it is already a big improvement over the style seen in my latest animation test.

Story Board Page 1:

Story Board Page 2:

Story Board Page 3:

Story Board Page 4:

After Effects Style Experimentation WIP:

#color scripts #senior project #storyboards

[josepkempart487blog]

ACT 01 Storyboard Revisions 11/07/2023 Frames 34 - 55

#preproduction #mine #senior project #storyboard #work in progress

[birdiejett]

“A brother and sister, pitted against each other”

(This was a promo picture I did for my senior project for my animation degree)

#my characters #my ocs my beloved #my ocs #fantasy art #knight oc #witch oc #fairytale art #cartoon characters #senior project #graduation

[axel-draws]

Happy Friday! I can finally release my senior project, Heist! It’s been so difficult to hold off until now, but since it got played at Pinewood Studios’s First-Time Filmmaker Sessions, that’s pretty worth it. Look! They gave me a laurel! I have no idea what to do with it!

#senior project #senior film #student film #animation #animated film #animated short #short film #first time filmmaker sessions at pinewood studios #sadly i wasnt able to make the screening. but its so exciting to know it happened! #2022 #2022 graduate films #vex cat #vitriol ferret #unknown raccoon #toxic porcupine

[confusionalways]

love doing my silly little world building for my silly little senior project that encompasses my thoughts so much of the time

#terrifyingly real #snrproj #senior project #starworld #fantasy wikihow

[lil-miss]

Contender break down:

Zim from Invader Zim

Fem Dib from my IZ fanfic/au Galaxy Girls (bonus points for butch realness)

Dib from Invader Zim (he’s here too… I guess)

@laazytoaster who I’m nominating personally, without telling him for being my silly goofy guy.

And @confusednoctis my beloved mutual who accidentally entered into this and now I won’t let them quit. <3

You have a week, vote wisely and check the Queen Ballot since there are some candidates on both.

#homestead homestuck housewife #galaxy girls iz #invader zim #zadr #fem dib #senior project

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #3

What's Been Happening

It's been another month where I accidentally went radio silent on this account. It was both intentional and unintentional. The main reason being I didn't have anything to update, and didn't really do anything new since then. However, since then, I have been teaching myself how to code in Python for the game engine I'm using, Ren'Py. I wouldn't call myself an expert now, but I can at least code in general. To do this, I took Harvard's free online course (thanks to the direction of a tutor I talked to), CS50: Introduction to Programming in Python to obtain this knowledge and apply it. In the past week, I even made some test programs to measure my capabilities with programming. Despite my overall radio silence and time away from production, I think it was worth it to spend all this time learning how to code with Python.

What's Next?

More development in general. Story trees are my main priority right now. Now that I've taught myself how to code and have proven in practice that I can make a game, finishing the story tree is something I must do ASAP. Then I can continue developing the game after that. After that, the game art is something that needs to be done.

Hiccups, Hurdles and AHA! Moments

I had one very annoying hiccup happen while I was creating test programs. That was just getting the bars for Energy, Stress, Task and Focus to show up on the screen. It took me two whole days before I figured out how to fix the code. It was a very small AHA! moment with the semantic errors on my end.

An AHA! moment I had is figuring out a pretty solid way to implement math for the individual bars I mentioned earlier in conjunction with the player's inputs and customized stats. I have to iterate on it further, but I have direction with it now.

Where I am on my Timeline

I am definitely at least 3 weeks to a whole month behind. I am at least in the production phase, but I should have been here much earlier than I am right now. It's crunch time now.

If I had known how to code and knew where to acquire this knowledge I have now, this wouldn't have been an issue. But as I always say, lessons for the future.

Some Visual Documentation

I would post a video of my programs in work, but this is my second time doing this update because Tumblr crapped out and didn't post my update when I did that. I would really like to post a video, but I don't want to do a third try of this update. Here are some pictures of my test programs and small additions I made to the story tree.

#game design #game development #remote work #progress update #python #renpy #senior project #senior capstone

[kayleenakaproject]

Tumblr Update #6

Hi everyone! This is pretty much a recap of my progress update I said in class yesterday!

What's been happening over the past 2 weeks?

Over the past two weeks, I've been creating content for my Instagram page. I feel proud to say that I'm done with the production phase of my project. All six weeks of looking at different cultures have been posted on my Instagram account! The last two weeks focused on boba and Asian makeup culture.

What's coming up for the next 2 weeks?

During the next 2 weeks, I plan on posting one last video to my Instagram page as a reflection on my experiences doing this project. I will also be analyzing the interactions that I received on my Instagrams within the reflection video. In addition to the video, I will be working on the senior bio form and media asset folder.

Hiccups/Hurdles/AHA Moments

Since I have a good routine going on with my posting schedule for my Instagram, I didn't really have any issues. I feel like the only issue would have been making time for researching, creating, and editing the content on my page along with my schedule and other classes. But, it has really helped me on my time management skills and it forced me to not procrastinate on my work.

Any deliverable drafts to share? Visual documentation?

Here is the link to my Instagram so that if you're curious to see the post you can see it. I also took a screenshot of my Adobe Premiere layout and what my editing timeline looked like for my latest video which was like 11 minutes long.

Where are you on your timeline?

I just finished my production phase of my project and now onto my post-production phase which is the reflection video, senior bio form, and adding to the media asset folder.

I seriously feel like this semester went by incredibly fast. I can't believe we only have a little less than a month left until summer break. I hope everyone is doing okay on their progress! We're almost there yay!!

#senior project #senior capstone

[agnvalentine22]

- Status Update #2 -

Where am I now?

For the past two weeks, I worked on blending the fruit into puree, straining it to get a smooth consistency, and spreading them across baking sheets to put into the oven. In order to dehydrate the mixtures, I baked them on low (200 degrees) for 6 hours until they appeared to be a dry jerky texture and then let them cool before breaking them up into smaller pieces. The next step of the process was to grind them up into a fine powder using the mortar and pestle. I stored them in tiny glass vials to keep the air and moisture out until I make the paints by the end of this week. I have been downloading the footage from my camera so that I can edit them into reels for the Instagram.

Where am I headed?

I will be making two posts to Instagram by this Friday and will post on the weekly schedule of Monday and Friday with story posts on Wednesdays until the end of the project. I also need to draw up a layout of what I want the exhibit to look like and determine why that layout would be the best choice for my audience while getting approval for that, I will test the paints out on paper.

I think that I am at a good place in my project, but I need to manage my time better to stay at this pace and keep producing quality results. I hope that going forward, there aren’t too many hiccups.

#status update #senior project #paint #watercolor #fineart