I've tried to dabble with a little bit of everything in computers. From programming to graphic design, I try to enjoy all of it.

For example, I've created two programs for my school. One was for the student store to help them keep track of inventory and cash, and the other was for the Girls' Varsity Basketball Team to keep track of scores and perform statistical functions with the scores. Both had graphical user interfaces that made them easy to use. They were programmed in Borland C++ Builder 3.

In addition, I've created MARTI, or MAthcamp Ray Trace Implementation. It was a joint project with Clayton Myers. We both worked on overall program design and the implementation itself. He created the ray tracing algorithms for the "normal" universe, while I created the ray tracing algorithms for the universe in which light moves in circles. The images so far have been astounding, and it's still a work in progress.

I've also done many programs for the USA Computing Olympiad, in which I was a finalist last year (one of fourteen students selected to attend the national training camp - very cool!). The programs there are algorithmic in nature, and really bring home the relationship between computer science and mathematics. I highly recommend this contest to anyone who's really interested in programming.

This isn't to say that I limit myself to C++. While I know several other languages, the other interesting development tool I've worked with is Macromedia Director. I've used that program to overcome my limited talents at developing for Windows, and have created some really interesting programs. My final project for the class in which I learned to use Director, Introduction to Interactive Multimedia at Johns Hopkins University, was a reference program for astronomy. Through a graphic user interface that simulated the inside of an observatory, the user got to work with star charts, look up terms, concepts, and organizations in an encyclopedia-like reference system, calculate the phases of the moon, and view upcoming events. I'd love to post it here, but the 80MB program would take a while to upload, even if I had the space for it. It even had background music. :)

While I have lots of future plans, I hate to post them because if I fail to live up to my expectations, then it's here for everyone to see! I am studying neural networks and fuzzy logic, data compression, and the mathematical nature of computer science, but not in enough depth to write anything worth reading (yet!).

Cool related links:
• The USA Computer Olympiad

To be honest, there's just too much to do to really get involved with many games. These are a few games that have captured my attention, however, because of how incredibly good they were. There are a few games which I truly do find interesting, like a good book, and so I won't short-change them by not mentioning them. I'm a big fan of games like Star Control II, a game that offered incredible humor in an adventure/strategy hybrid. Other favorite games include VGA Planets, which I haven't played in ages, although it's an incredible strategy game, and Bolo, a classic game for the Macintosh. Finally, I've enjoyed several of the games released by Infocom in the 1980s. These were text-based games, but they were well-written and very involving. In the end, I think I'm one of the most nostalgic seventeen-year olds on the planet.

Cool related links:
• The Pages of Now and Forever, a Star Control site.
• The official VGA Planets site.
• One of the few remaining Bolo sites.
• An Infocom Site.