Assignments

The assignments were enjoyable to me for the most part.  I was fortunate enough to have spare time this semester to put in extra time into the assignments which allowed me to enhance my experience working on these assignments.  Dr. Vanegas’s emphasis on experimentation   with new media types was probably the best and hardest part of the homework.  These assignments gave me the chance to try out and practice new technologies that I have been wanting to test out for a long time.  I was able to practice programming in Android for my first assignment developing a phone app with all the information included.  Then, I got to do some basic wood work on my first team assignment and learned a method for embedding color images into wood giving them a clean style.  For the final team assignment I really challenged myself by attempting to use the Kinect to create a motion capture and import the data into 3DS Max to animate the movements into an environment that I created.  These projects were very rewarding for me and it really showed that the best work comes from the work that is fun.

On the other assignments, I looked to use anything other than the typical programs such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.  Some of the media used, such as SlideRocket.com and Prezi, although similar, were new experiences for me.

The second biggest thing that I gained from this was the ability to work freely.  There was a sense of safety in these assignments and for the first time in my academic career I was able to work freely without fear.  This safety factor will be difficult to hold onto because most environments will  probably   not foster a safe environment, but I will have more confidence in trying  to break the mold both in my personal and professional life.