Max Van Orman

Ultrasonic Sensor with Arduino and Servo Motor

Working with Ryan D,  Max learned the basics with MIT App Inventor. Max and Ryan started with a little troubleshooting, but once they had sorted it out they went on to making some small programs. First, they made a game where two players competed to tap faster than the other. After that, they worked on something a little more complex, a four function calculator. They successfully got both programs to work.

Final Writeup

Having finished the project so early, Max and Jonathan needed a second idea. Unfortunately, at this point Jonathan got sick and had to stay home, so they had to work separately. Max chose to work with the TFT touchscreen shield for Arduino, which ended up being much more difficult than making the game with Jonathan. He had a lot of trouble getting it to work, so he tried many different solutions, which included tweaking example code, adjusting the libraries he had, downloading new ones, and even trying different hardware. In the end, he simply had to adjust the code differently than he had originally tried. Overall, it was a real roller coaster of a module, but it was one of his best yet. (Different stages of the screen are arranged chronologically from left to right below.)

Final Writeup Presentation

Max and Evan Rodriguez decided that, for this module, they would make a game in augmented reality using Vuforia with Unity 3D. They immediately ran into download issues, which they eventually resolved, but they were left with only one compatible device. In order to adapt to this problem, they decided to take different focuses for this module. While Evan learned the essentials of Vuforia, Max learned about 3D game development in Unity. Max finished his initial research right around the same time as Evan, so the timing worked out for them to reconnect their paths. Unfortunately, when Max tried to take what he learned and apply it to a game in Vuforia, he quickly found that virtually none of it was applicable. This required the two of them to think on their feet and come up with outside of the box solutions. They tried many methods, and eventually got the ground working, but they didn't get obstacles functioning correctly until the very last day of the module. They were more than relieved, as they had lost almost all hope of getting the game to work. With the little time they had left, they focused on adding some polish to the game to make it look nicer. Overall, the pair is thrilled with their final product. Final Writeup Presentation

Stages of Development

Max's Trials at Home

For his final module, Max had a few ideas, but one in particular stood out to Alex Leahy. Max wanted to make a simple website where users interact, and Alex liked this idea, wanting to take it a step further and make a full-on game. Although he had never done anything with web design, Max liked the idea and agreed. The first obstacle they had to clear was actually allowing multiplayer interaction, which took up a good part of the module. To do this, they had to do a lot of research and consult with James Goode. After many unsuccessful trials, Alex and Max were able to get the basics of server-client communication down, allowing multiple players to each move around their own square on the screen, however, the way they did this was very inefficient and quickly overloaded the server. After adjusting this (with more help from James), they were able to work on the more fun parts of the module. The first game feature they added was collectible coins that spawned randomly across the screen, and after that, they added different characters that the player could switch between. At this point, things were running pretty smoothly, but then they hit their next major roadblock. Creating an attack for players proved to be more difficult than either of them expected, so they split up to try two different methods, cannonballs and lasers. Eventually, they got cannonballs working, completing with the game. All in all, it was a great final module.

Final Writeup Presentation Our Website!