Every quarter here at RIT is jam packed with things to do. Thankfully I finished winter quarter with a 4.0. Cryptography was enjoyable, but hard until I got a grasp on the different algorithms. Going to the theory tutoring center was the only thing that saved me in the class. Thankfully Joe was able to explain the concepts at a basic level.

My second class Spanish was easy. It was still a review from what I learned in high school in addition to the subjunctive tense. I'm going to have to practice during the spring/summer since I won't be taking the next class in sequence until the fall of next year.

My favorite class was Computer Graphics. I initially started developing a basic graphics library on the Game Boy Advance platform which could draw lines, anti-aliased lines, circles, polygons, filled polygons, clipped polygons, and the Mandelbrot fractal. The second part of the course dove into 2D/3D graphics in OpenGL using GLUT as a window/event handler. (I created a tutorial for setting up GLUT in Eclipse on Windows here) For the 3D project I created a "turret simulation," which you can find here: Turret Simulation It's not perfect by any means, but it gives you basic control over the turret. It allows you to shoot multiple projectiles, record, playback, watch a chase camera view, and play with the lighting, textures, and materials of the scene. I only had a weekend to really put it together, so I’m amazed at what I was able to do under that time crunch.

With that said, for "Spring Break" I'm currently working on taking a lot of the concepts from that simulation and I'm building the “Turret Game.” I'm rewriting everything from an object oriented approach in C++, since the simulation was written procedurally. I should have it finished in the next few days and I’ll be posting again once that is finished.

And now you all think I’m crazy because I’m programming over Spring Break, don’t lose hope. I’ve also started running and lifting again so I’m getting pumped for Ultimate Frisbee this spring!