The School Year is finally over!
The school year is officially a wrap, and honestly, the last month felt like a marathon sprint to the finish line. While there are still a few tiny loose ends to tie up, nothing worth rambling about here.
It all kicked off with the frantic final push for our Object-Oriented Programming 2 project: EquinoxGame. Picture this: a space invader-esque game built from scratch in Java using Swing. Now, this was supposed to be a semester-long endeavor, but naturally, we decided to kick things into high gear a mere two weeks before the deadline. Cue the epic crunch time, fueled by copious amounts of caffeine and sheer willpower.
The presentation was a blur of showcasing our game and bracing ourselves for the professor's grilling on our codebase's OOP compliance. We weren't shy about admitting we leaned on an online tutorial as a starting point and had some serious AI assistance to implement those extra features and meet the professor's requirements. Honestly, considering the time crunch – we were the first to present, leaving our classmates with precious extra days to polish their code and assets – I'd say we did pretty darn well to pass. Could it have been smoother with better planning and an earlier start? Absolutely. But hey, hindsight is 20/20, right?
Barely catching our breath, we plunged into pre-final examinations across all subjects. Then, a glorious pause – the nationwide Holy Week holidays in mid-April offered a much-needed week of rest before the real storm of projects hit.
And boy, did they hit. The RescueMe app stands out as a particularly noteworthy beast – another semester-long project. I teamed up with a partner, who mostly spearheaded the initial concept. We dabbled with the idea of GitHub collaboration, mostly brainstorming features. However, we ended up with two distinct versions of the app, making a merge feel like defusing a bomb. As the deadline loomed, we attempted a merge (or rather, he attempted to merge my codebase into his with limited success). In the end, we decided to build upon my codebase, with me taking the programming lead and, you guessed it, leaning heavily on AI assistance to make up for lost time.
My trusty companions during this coding sprint? Cursor, seamlessly integrated with GitHub Copilot within Android Studio, to develop our Kotlin Android app. While I won't bore you with the nitty-gritty of the codebase, I can proudly say it's a fully functional app boasting Firebase integration for authentication and a real-time database. We even tapped into APIs to fetch news and used the real-time database to populate lists within the app. Pretty slick, if I do say so myself.
Once the codebase was locked down and the APK was ready for an Android phone, it was evaluation time. Our professor required us to have two other professors assess our app. Thankfully, their feedback was overwhelmingly positive, showering us with valuable insights and reviews. One of the evaluators, with first-aid training, even offered incredibly relevant ideas and critiques for our app's purpose.
With that hurdle cleared, the dreaded final exams still loomed. By this point, exhaustion was my constant companion, but somehow, I managed to push through, conquer the exams, and wrap up the remaining projects. And that brings us to now – me, tapping away at my blog, reflecting on the absolute rollercoaster of a month. It was a whirlwind of everything, but honestly, I'm walking away with a ton of new knowledge and the satisfaction of crossing everything off the to-do list.
Now, bring on summer vacation! My plans involve embracing productivity, dusting off my bicycle for some long rides, and maybe even channeling my inner Stardew Valley farmer in the province. Until then, see you all next time!