Andrew Holman Portfolio

 HackISU Claw Project

o Every year Iowa State University has an event called HackISU. The idea is that

you complete a project from start to finish over the weekend. Last year, I worked

on a project with a friend. After some planning we decided to make a claw that

we could control with an Arduino board. We didn't have access to very good

materials, so we had to make do with rented motors, duct tape, and cardboard to

physically make it. This forced us to be resourceful and make do with what we

had. The final code was pretty simplistic, however it was my first time working

with Arduinos, so it took me a while to learn some of the specific syntax for it. I

didn’t learn a lot of actual coding from this project, but I did get immeasurably

better at working on foreign concepts. When I started I had no idea how to even

wire the Arduino board and if I tried to figure everything out at once, it would

have been too daunting of a task for me. However, by working on one section at a

time and learning as I went, I was able to break up the project into manageable

pieces and create a better understanding of the project as a whole. I will take this

strategy into the real world with actual projects to make daunting tasks

manageable.

 Digital Clock

o Over the summer I had the goal of making a digital clock using the Arduino board

and a matrix of LED lights. I did it completely alone and it required me to learn

how to wire the light matrix and all the inputs to the Arduino board that I was

using. Also, I had to pull various libraries and create numerous functions to make
the clock run. By the end of the project I was able to create a working clock that

could keep track of both the time and the day. This project required the usage of

libraries and taught me how to better incorporate other’s works into my own

projects. Also, I was able to grow in my programming abilities as I needed to use

much more complex programming techniques than I was normally accustomed to.

This whole project taught me a lot about making a program for multiple uses.

Before this, in my projects I had a very narrow-minded attitude, in which I would

just make the program able to accomplish its one specified task. However, after

this I can see the value of making a program for general use.