Day 18 - March 19

Friday - Obscura Digital

Today I was given smaller projects to work on. This involved researching a few different components and attempting to factory reset them so they could be used by Obscura for one of their projects. It turns out that it is substantially easier to work off a clean slate (the factory reset version) than trying to figure out how something was used last and work from there. In addition, some devices (especially those that deal with cyber security), have reset buttons in the back that are made not to work and throw off simpletons. Anyways, I'm glad to say that I stuck with it. I was then given a challenge to try and program a script that will sort through the computer's directories (folders), list the ten largest folders, list their file paths, and list how much space they take up. This would have been substantially easier had I known or been familiar at all with the what I was working with. It took me the rest of the day to utilize various online sources to do sufficient research so that I could actually create the script. That being said, I was very diligent about doing so and flet very accomplished with my results. Today was my last day so I personally said thanks the people I had talked and worked with throughout the Systems department (everyone), except for my SH. Even though I did wait for a good amount of time for the man who set up my internship, I had to leave to work on my project. However, we did exchange meaningful text messages. I felt very validated, proud of all that I had done, and thankful for the opportunity to work at Obscura with their phenomenal staff.

Here's an excerpt.
Me: Unfortunately, I actually have to go home to study. Thanks so much Sean for the opportunity to intern with systems at Obscura as well as the chance to talk, meet, and assist others at Obscura too. Also, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to talk to me and make me feel welcomed.
SH: No problem. Glad I was able to give you the opportunity. Sorry I wasn't able to say bye. I think you kicked a$$ here ... I really believe that you'll pursue your passion and succeed. Your maturity shows. If we end up with a real internship program I'll keep you in mind.

Home

After more grinding, I finally fixed the instantiate. It turned out that I had been implementing the instances in global space versus local space. Global space is all relative to a specific set of axes, while local space is relative to another Game Object.

Day 17 - March 18

Wednesday - Obscura Digital
I got to talk to more people in the office. I got to shadow more people. I got to help more people. The conversations have been very informative and deep as well. Now that I have been talking to a lot more people (and in different departments as well), I feel like much less of an outsider and more welcome. It's a shame that I leave tomorrow. I'm really getting into it this week despite not having any active projects around that I can help with.

Geez- writing within the confines of a non-disclosure agreement is hard.

Home
I did some research into a bug I kept hitting when programming the instantiating code I mentioned in previous blogs. I think it has to do with how the location, rotation, and hierarchical position are stored in different ways. A very basic oversimplification is that objects in the extreme foreground are a part of the UI, user interface, and are located in two-dimensions. In contrast, objects in the background can be located in three different dimensions (in order to convey depth). For that difference, there is a rectTransform and a regular Transform. My instances are not being moved into the User Interface and are not rendered in the right position, if at all. I think I need to wield the two transforms to make them work together.

Day 16 - March 17

Tuesday - Obscura Digital
Today was less busy in the office. Most of the projects had moved out to their respective sites leaving most people to work on research and development. This gave me the opportunity to talk to many different people in the office (both inside and outside of systems) about what they do, their backgrounds, their work, and personal affairs as well. Because I got to talk to so many more people than before, I got to hear about many of their projects. However, I was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement and cannot blog or talk about much that I did (or will do) at Obscura.

Home
Before passing out, I cleaned my blog of content that might of violated the NDA. These edits have been labeled with the following message:

...Removed in agreement with NDA...

All I can say is that not only does my blog look a lot more boring now, it reads a lot more boring too.

Day 15 - March 16

Monday - Home
Decided to stay home and work so I cold get laundry done. After waking around 8;50 AM, I actually sat at my computer for most of the day and just programmed more of the Space Designer. I got the first two check boxes off the checklist done! I finished the grid system and programmed a way to select and deselect the grid tiles. Although I had ideas to do it off a double click system, I eventually found a way to do it off a left click system that makes for me to program future functions using the middle and right mouse click features too! I also got halfway through the square instantiation. See, I want the user to be able to create an instance of a square (or "instantiate squares") in each tile by doing an easy right-click and open a menu with a middle click. This current code allows me to incorporate that later on- a success for me. I can also use the same script for as many gird squares as I want- re-usability, another win. Now to work on getting the right-click to instantiate squares in the right category so that they actually show up...

Also, it's already 4:30 and I should probably actually go do my laundry...

Day 14 - March 15

Sunday
HA! nope.

Day 13 - March 14

Saturday - Home
Spent most of the day working on the task that Tom and I agreed upon before splitting for the day yesterday- the Space Designer. I did a lot of programming. See, there are always many different ways of approaching the problem, just like math class. While many ways are effective, some ways are much more efficient than others. I spent the day programming an inefficient way, realizing there was a much more efficient way, and then restarting from effectively scratch. So although I have almost nothing to show, I'm on the brink of releasing the fundamentals of something that'll work efficiently! I also added a checklist to the Trello page for the Space Designer so I can see how much I have to do in general and how it breaks up in to smaller steps.

Day 12 - May 13

Friday - Drew School
Despite staying from 8 AM to 10 AM, little was achieved. This stemmed mostly from the fact that the Studio, which is typically unordinarily quiet, was ridiculously disruptive. It just so happened that many people had to come in for various meetings and the result was a very distracting environment and little work done. It didn't help that Tom and I had an off day together and were constantly at each other throats. By the end of the day, we got plans in place in terms of where we wanted to go next but Friday was pretty dissatisfying.