CSSI Day 13: Let the Projects Begin!

Our final projects officially began today! First, however, we had a discussion about reverse engineering, where we broke out into small groups to discuss the mechanics behind different popular websites and and applications. Our group got Google+ Hangouts, which was interesting because I'd never really used it before, and so we took some time to look more into the details of its features. About Hangouts, we had to answer four questions:

1. What does the application do, from the user's point of view?
2. How do users interact with the application?
3. What handlers might the application have?
4. What data is stored by the application?

The first two questions were easier to answer because they were a lot more intuitive; the latter two got us to think more logically and linearly about how different parts of the application achieved what it wanted to do. In my opinion, the exercise was a very great way to start getting us thinking about the actual steps that an application takes in order to execute its variety of functions. Through thinking through these processes, it was easier to design our own project while keeping these in mind to help guide us.

After lunch, we got our groups for our final projects and set out to brainstorm some ideas. Although still in the early stages of development, Emmi, Kristen, and I were able to come up with a solid plan by the end of the day; I'm really excited to be working with them during the next week to make our project come to life through applying everything that we have learned! Stay tuned to find out what web application we're working on.

Friday night movie night!

In the evening, a large group of us went downtown to see Guardians of the Galaxy, the newest Marvel movie. But first, before the movie began, we got to go to Gameworks, an arcade that was right next to the theatre. I got to play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and a very cool racing game with a motion chair that mimics the movements of your car. It was so fun to play in an arcade again for the first time in probably 7/8 years!

DDR battle!

Cool racing simulator

I'm not a fan of action movies but I did want to check Guardians of the Galaxy out as there was a lot of hype around it. I thought that the movie was great, largely because it was so funny! The many different character names were a little confusing at times, but the humour kept the movie interesting and cut through much of the tension. I had a lot of fun tonight playing at the arcade and watching the movie with everyone; I'm only looking even more forward to the activities to come on the weekend!