Around 2002, a friend told me about this great game. Runescape. I remember excitedly paneling through the character customization! I was so excited to start the fantastic RPG adventures he had told me about, and everything had to be perfect! After creating the perfect looking character (one with a grungy look, so as to have the appearance of inexperience, but then unexpectedly wrecking havoc on anyone who dared cross my path), it finally came down to creating a character name. I thought very carefully about this, because names have always been a perspective of great importance to me. Well, the coolest name I could come up with, that had some meaning to me, was: nureth. Simply a mix of letters of my current name of Hunter. I didn't want to capitalize the name nureth, I thought it just looked dumb. Nureth. Needless to say, a capital N looks better now.
(Funny enough, I mistyped the password while creating nureth and lost that character. So I remade nureth and was forced to call him: nureth1...)
Moving on with the story, nureth molded into hcnureth. I didn't want to stick to nureth because I wanted it to solely be a Runescape name. I carefully thought about what I instead wanted to be called. I told myself, "I like the name nureth and want to stick to a similar name." That's when hcnureth came into existence. All I did was add the initials of my first and last name: Hunter Campbell. And that was that, ever since 2002, in the virtual world, I've gone by hcnureth.
Why am I telling you this? Well, about that time, my trusty group of Runescape, a Xbox, a Gamecube, a Gameboy, and a few computer games like Carnivores and Carnivores 2, helped me develop my fascination for technology. The name, hcnureth, helped me to feel like I had an identity with my technological fascination. It felt like an accomplishment to destroy a team of Halo 3 Matchmaking players, and to do it all with the name of hcnureth (which I'm sure they quickly learned to fear because of the destruction that the, oh so great, hcnureth could cause to their originally pleasant game). It was quite the adventure, this virtual world. I want to make a career of it.
The great thing about this grand adventure, from then to now and from now to the future, is it all began with a name. hcnureth, that is.
Why was the Raspberry so Hard?
The first line of code I ever wrote was in 2012 in my Advanced Electronics class during my Senior year of high school. At the beginning of the year our teacher discussed with the class what we wanted to learn during that school year. He told us that in all reality there was no curriculum for Advanced Electronics-- we could learn whatever we wanted! That was an exciting thing to hear. Half the class chose hardware and the other half, including me, chose software. The teacher told us "software guys" that he only knew hardware, but would love to integrate programming into the hardware components that we had learned to solder together the previous year.
A couple weeks later, we were given the raspberry pi with a small instruction manual that had a few projects. We were like giddy little girls. Not for long...
The ensuing weeks proved to be nearly futile... I made almost no progress with the limited information given about how to program with this so called "Raspberry Pi". I don't remember any of the code that I learned back then, but I do remember feeling like the words of code seemed to make absolutely no sense as to why they would affect a piece of hardware. It seemed as though the programming words had a totally different function as the the diction of the English language. It was so frustrating!
Thankfully I was friends with the most proficient programmer in the class. He helped teach me, and I eventually could program a flexing piece of hardware to make a robotic hand move in the same motion as my own hand. (It was way more basic than we had means to build. We didn't have the funds or the time to build an actual hand. Instead we used a rainbow LED bulb that would change colors depending on how much we bent the flexing piece of hardware.) Other than that, I got pretty good at programming a speaker to play basic songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb and the Mario Main Theme song.
Though the "Raspberry" was so hard and discouraged me from programming for a few years, I wasn't going to let it defeat me. I eventually got back on track and started to learn how to program again in the year of 2015.
A couple weeks later, we were given the raspberry pi with a small instruction manual that had a few projects. We were like giddy little girls. Not for long...
The ensuing weeks proved to be nearly futile... I made almost no progress with the limited information given about how to program with this so called "Raspberry Pi". I don't remember any of the code that I learned back then, but I do remember feeling like the words of code seemed to make absolutely no sense as to why they would affect a piece of hardware. It seemed as though the programming words had a totally different function as the the diction of the English language. It was so frustrating!
Thankfully I was friends with the most proficient programmer in the class. He helped teach me, and I eventually could program a flexing piece of hardware to make a robotic hand move in the same motion as my own hand. (It was way more basic than we had means to build. We didn't have the funds or the time to build an actual hand. Instead we used a rainbow LED bulb that would change colors depending on how much we bent the flexing piece of hardware.) Other than that, I got pretty good at programming a speaker to play basic songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb and the Mario Main Theme song.
Though the "Raspberry" was so hard and discouraged me from programming for a few years, I wasn't going to let it defeat me. I eventually got back on track and started to learn how to program again in the year of 2015.
Learning to Fly
Around November of 2013 I was sitting down with a good friend simply talking about life. Somehow, programming inched its way into our conversation. I asked him if he knew how to program and he said that he had learned a little bit through codecademy.com. That peaked my interest. I quickly asked him to write down the URL so I could get started as soon as possible. At the time, circumstances wouldn't allow me to start learning how to code until 2015. I had no access to a computer, except at a library, but I had no time to go to a library.
Well, when the time finally came in 2015, I started to learn JavaScript. I didn't understand much at the time, but I pressed on and dipped a little into Python and Java as well. After a few months of off and on programming, I finally committed to truly learn how to code. I then abandoned what I wasn't understanding and went to HTML/CSS and started to learn very quickly. My comprehension grew at an exceeding rate! The more I learned, the more excited I became! I went through the codecademy courses and built several websites before finally moving onto jQuery. jQuery was quite a thrilling beast to tame. To easily make things much more responsive through jQuery was a flight to new heights.
Now that I had learned, in a way, how to "fly with code". I had the confidence that I could learn any programming language. I then bravely, and very excitedly, battled JavaScript. Now that I understood the fundamentals of coding, JavaScript was a breeze. I looked at Python and Java again and I looked at PHP (which was new to me), simply to see if I comprehended them. I did. But, before diving into those two languages, I decided the next best thing I could do was create a portfolio website.
I was really soaring as I created a few websites totally from scratch. I improved upon the websites I built with codecademy and added them to my portfolio. I've always wanted to be a video game programmer so I also decided to put my JavaScript skills to the test. I started simple by building a quick RPG game, rock paper scissors, and fight a dragon game. I played around with procedural programming and built a dice roller, just for fun. (I also figured that if I ever played D&D again, I could use my virtual dice, simply because I made them and thought it would be cool.) After that, I decided to make a BINGO Caller. My family, as a tradition, plays BINGO during Christmas time. I figured we would never have to buy a BINGO rolling machine ever again because of my virtual BINGO rolling machine. On top of that, it looks great! I am now in the planning process for another game. Perhaps an investing game?
From learning how to "fly with code", I've learned how to be self motivated, have greater discipline, work harder, work through frustrations, solve hard problems, and rarely leave a project half finished. It has been a great joy learning how to "fly with code". I wouldn't give it up for anything. I love programming and want to make a difference in the world with it. That's why I'm building what I'm building and learning what I'm learning, all to make things easier for others.
Well, when the time finally came in 2015, I started to learn JavaScript. I didn't understand much at the time, but I pressed on and dipped a little into Python and Java as well. After a few months of off and on programming, I finally committed to truly learn how to code. I then abandoned what I wasn't understanding and went to HTML/CSS and started to learn very quickly. My comprehension grew at an exceeding rate! The more I learned, the more excited I became! I went through the codecademy courses and built several websites before finally moving onto jQuery. jQuery was quite a thrilling beast to tame. To easily make things much more responsive through jQuery was a flight to new heights.
Now that I had learned, in a way, how to "fly with code". I had the confidence that I could learn any programming language. I then bravely, and very excitedly, battled JavaScript. Now that I understood the fundamentals of coding, JavaScript was a breeze. I looked at Python and Java again and I looked at PHP (which was new to me), simply to see if I comprehended them. I did. But, before diving into those two languages, I decided the next best thing I could do was create a portfolio website.
I was really soaring as I created a few websites totally from scratch. I improved upon the websites I built with codecademy and added them to my portfolio. I've always wanted to be a video game programmer so I also decided to put my JavaScript skills to the test. I started simple by building a quick RPG game, rock paper scissors, and fight a dragon game. I played around with procedural programming and built a dice roller, just for fun. (I also figured that if I ever played D&D again, I could use my virtual dice, simply because I made them and thought it would be cool.) After that, I decided to make a BINGO Caller. My family, as a tradition, plays BINGO during Christmas time. I figured we would never have to buy a BINGO rolling machine ever again because of my virtual BINGO rolling machine. On top of that, it looks great! I am now in the planning process for another game. Perhaps an investing game?
From learning how to "fly with code", I've learned how to be self motivated, have greater discipline, work harder, work through frustrations, solve hard problems, and rarely leave a project half finished. It has been a great joy learning how to "fly with code". I wouldn't give it up for anything. I love programming and want to make a difference in the world with it. That's why I'm building what I'm building and learning what I'm learning, all to make things easier for others.
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