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BACK TO SCHOOL!

Happy New Year! It’s been a while since my last post. Since then I have worked hard through the holidays at PizzaHut. With COVID-19 skyrocketing with new cases each day, my managers and many of my coworkers caught it around Christmas and through New Years. I had to step up and help a friend run the store that I begun working overtime when it was necessary. Because of all my time at Pizzahut during the ending of 2020, I was able to save up and invest on some FR-s modifications (I’ll talk about it in the next post) and even invested in taking some courses at a community college nearby to get a certificate in Web Programming. Although I already have my Bachelors in Computer Science and Engineering, and I can probably self teach myself web programming, I wanted some structure, guidance, and motivation to continue pursuing tech. During the holidays, since I was working nearly 40 hours every week, I was running low on time and energy to apply for jobs and continue working on my personal projects. I knew it wouldn’t last forever though, so I focused on staying healthy and doing what was needed of me in the meantime. Now with my extra free time, I’ll be resuming to strengthening my skills through projects, online courses, and continue on my job hunt. It’s been difficult but I know there’s great things waiting and I’m eager to see my dreams play out. 

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Hello! Haven’t worked on many of my ongoing projects because I recently went on a camping trip and came back to making a big purchase. I sold my 2008 Honda Civic and bought a Scion FR-S. I have since been practicing on how to drive a manual transmission! Woo-hoo new skills! Immediately I didn’t like the radio in the Scion so I decided to do a small upgrade. I installed a Kenwood Excelon DDX396 with no problem. Used a few of my father’s tools to crimp the wires together to a wire harness. Then it was a simple plug and play! I’m super stoked about this new toy so I’ve been invested in what the next modification can be and if I can do it myself without paying for expensive installation fees. As of now, my next modification will be changing the factory taillights to LED taillights that have turn signals similar to a Mustang. Super fun!

#project #scionfrs

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Finally upgrading my Macbook Pro from a 500GB HDD to a 1TB SSD. For a couple years now I’ve been working with a tremendously slow laptop to the point that it would take 15-20 minutes to save a document or an hour to fully startup. Now that I can afford this upgrade, I’m doing it! Hooray! This will help me so much to get through projects a lot faster without having apps suddenly crash on me in between commits.

If you’re wondering how to do this awesome upgrade I followed a youtube video and got the listed items.

“Step by Step on how to upgrade your mid-2012 macbook pro and make it run fast (2020)” on Youtube.

-SATA Cable 3.0 to 2.5 USB

-Samsung 1TB SSD Drive

-Torx T6 screwdriver and small Phillips screwdriver.

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UPDATE:

I recently started at PizzaHut as a delivery driver for part time. I realized delivery services are on demand right now during the pandemic, so I figured I’d find a little job in the meantime I look for a career related to Computer Science. On my free time I have been working on the remaining ebooks for the Human Computer Interaction study and I have been working on a personal project called, “Alexa, Feed Chato.” I am constantly updating my github with my progress if interested! The progress isn’t as fast as it should be because of the new part time gig, but now I am a lot more busy and organized than I was in March. Be safe and healthy during these times and also stay productive or busy however you can! Pick up a new skill or hobby! If you’re struggling finding employment pick up something on demand for the time being the way I did and keep searching! Don’t give up. Stay strong and patient.

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This is a graphic I made one day based on a photo of my sister. I used Adobe Illustrator and created various shapes based on her features. It was a quick little graphic as I was learning how to use Adobe Illustrator that very day. 

#myprojects

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This audio is based on a research project I worked on for a writing course. I chose to do a study on social media and it’s...

#myprojects #research

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#research #HCI #accomplishments

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Here is something I am very proud of to this very day. During my time as a Communication and Advertising Manager Chair for the Campus Activities Board I completed a numerous amount of events with the help of a team. My role in this organization was to generally advertise the events for an entire university. CAB hosted a number of artists like Pete Davidson, Adam Devine, Kiana Lede, Ray Jay, Wale, Too $hort, and BIJOU to name a few. I got to decorate rooms for these artists, transport them when they arrived to the university, created and placed helpful parking/walking signs to guide the crowd to the venue while working with UC Merced’s Transportation and Parking Services management, created flyers, wristband designs, promo videos, and managed social media to build a hype for these events. When someone would think of a marketing chair initially one would think “Oh they just make flyers,” but that was where they’d be wrong, because this role requires an amount of work that it is fairly unseen at the actual event. As a chair, I organized the semester where each one of my teammate would take charge of an event. We’d then help this teammate with the event however they needed. I would hold a meeting weekly with my team, the director and advisor, chairs, and entire board. Each time gathering information on what the aesthetic of the event is, what is needed/wanted with deadlines, and feedback. My team would communicate with me if they couldn’t accomplish something due to midterms or being overwhelmed with work, so we’d then split it up reasonably and sometimes ask for the rest of the boards help. All in all, we had a great time working with each other. I found some forever friends during my time in CAB, built new skills, and enjoyed seeing the outcome of an entire university enjoying our events and hearing how great it was the days that followed. Sometimes I look back and wonder HOW I managed to do all of this on top of being a full time engineering student, holding a part time student assistant job, and a huge social life. When I remember this time of my life it reminds me that anything is possible if you truly set your mind to it. I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

#accomplishments

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Snippet of the code behind DinoJump! This is a project I worked on with 3 wonderful women for our Object Oriented Programming class. Currently I am trying to get it to run properly on my Macbook Pro. The build is succeeding but nothing show cases other than a blue screen and a white square. I will get it running soon so I can show you all this fun quirky game that was inspired by Google’s T-Rex Run. This game was coded in C++ and used OpenGl. We used images and animated them with the AnimateRect function. Generally the user would hit spacebar to make the dinosaur jump over cacti. The goal was to beat your own record with only 3 lives.

#myprojects

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Alexa, Feed Chato. Part I. During this Covid-19 time, I decided to use my skills and supplies I have on a fun project. This project is to help my sister feed her bunnies every morning. Instead of waking up extra early before class to feed them she can now use a simple application on her phone to feed them whenever she wants. For starters, I will be using the following tools: Arudino 101, Adafruit Bluefruit LE UART Friend, Large push-pull solenoid, Arduino IDE, Amazon Alexa Skills Kit, Alexa Voice Services, and Amazon Web Services General idea is to use the solenoid to release food. I will simply cut a hole on the side of a long cylinder container so when the solenoid is pulled the latch is opened, and food drops into the food bowl. If using voice control, Alexa can simply parse the voice command and return the value to the Android App. To keep it simple I will create the UI with 2 sliders for food size (quick treat, small meal, a meal), food intervals (6, 8, or 12 hour intervals) and 3 buttons for feed, alexa, and stop.

#myprojects