Education

I am currently pursuing a Inter-Disciplinary degree in Computer Science and Biology at the University of Minnesota. I am taking all of the core Computer Science courses, then I will transfer to a Computer Science program and complete the electives. To give an understanding of the Computer Science courses that entail this type of degree, I have outlined below the Computer Science courses in the program. Currently, I have a Cumulative GPA of 3.65. My junior/senior year GPA is 3.88, and my Computer Science GPA is a 4.0.

Project

Motivation

One of the first programs I ever wrote was a brickbreaker game. You can see a screenshot of it to the left. It had a very rudimentary architecture and fell apart quickly. However, I'm still nostalgic towards it because it showed me what was possible with even a very basic understanding of programming. It also built my love for software that motivated me to switch my career path. Inspired by it, I recruited a couple of people to build a much larger and more complex version of the game using the newfound programming skills I've been building in my courses.

Description

I worked with a team of two other people to build the game using javascript. I made a plan and roadmap and divided out work among teammates. We held regular meetings where I would come up with revisions to our plans based on our current progress and issues. I would help teammates when they had trouble figuring out what to do, share my screen to help debug code, and explain algorithms that need to be implemented. We ran into multiple roadblocks and fundamental issues, but it was still a valuable experience in working on a codebase with a team simultaneously and scaling it up to build more functionality. We did not rely on any game engines but we did use a library called paper.js that allowed us to avoid accessing javascript directly to produce shapes and rely on a couple built in functions to focus our efforts on the actual game logic.

How To Access it

The finished product is shipbreaker. The codebase is available here, and a website dedicated to the game is here. Otherwise scroll down to play the game. The iframe element I used to embed the project can be a little buggy (though refreshing usually fixes things) so I recommend accessing it through the website. Click through the Instructions to get an idea of how to play.

Issues

There is some sort of memory leak associated with paper.js that results in a gradual slowdown of the program as more objects are created. It seems that paper.js holds all created objects in a data structure that is never cleaned out. This data structure is likely iterated through when drawing objects on the screen. Thus, if you take snapshots of the heap as the program runs, you can see it grow despite objects being removed from the project. Unfortunately, this problem is in the library and cannot be fixed on my end. However, as a next step, I plan to start digging into paper.js and see if it can be fixed. Then, I can send a pull request and hopefully have the problem fixed for everybody as I have seen a number of complaints on the web. The issue is not extreme and the game is still enjoyable if you have a higher-end machine. Refreshing the browser frees the memory and raises performance again. Further, development of the game had to be cut short as the new semester started and teammates no longer wanted to continue to build the game. I did what I could to complete the game, but there were a few bugs that crept into the final build, and a few features that had to be removed from the game before completion. Still, I accomplished what I wanted through building the game which was to see what happens when developing a relatively large program with a number of people, have a chance to be creative and build something cool outside of the constraints of a school setting, and pay respects to my first ever program using my new programming skills.

Helper Application

While designing our project we found that it was very tedious to design objects using paper.js in a text editor. It involved a lot of guess and check and I wanted to automate that process. So I volunteered to design a program that allows you to draw objects with your cursor and print out a class that that can be inserted into the codebase. The class contains helper functions that allow you to move and remove the object. It also comes with a save key that allows you to reload and edit the drawing at a later time. I would’ve liked to add more features, but I decided its best to keep it relatively simple so that I could continue building the actual game. The UI isn't very easy to use but it was built to only be used in house. The codebase is here and you can access the application here. I embedded the Application below, but I would recommend accessing it directly through the webpage because iframe is very buggy. Click to add points to create a shape. You can drag any point around but remember that clicking on a different shape selects it and any new points or features added are inserted to that shape. Use the toolbar on the left to add another shape or add features to your current shape. It takes some time to get used to but it is much easier to use than paper.js in a text editor.

Work experience

Though I have yet to attain experience developing software in a work environment I have experience working a number of jobs that involve teamwork, collaboration, and chain of command. Below I have outlined some of my major work experiences and some skills I have built by working them.

Contact

If you'd like to talk feel free to email me at essaw007@umn.edu.
If you just want to start a conversation connect with me on linkedin at www.linkedin.com/in/mo-essawy
If you would like a quicker repsonse you may message me at 952-923-4912.