Welcome to My Portfolio!
Fun fact: Looking at my education, you would think that I might be pretty experienced in coding. However funnily enough, I actually had no experience in coding for the LONGEST time. In fact I did not take any courses in high school and started post secondary in Electrical Engineering. But after taking my first programming course in C++ (ew I know) I was hooked, switched into Computer Science, and have never looked back! Check out an overview of my coding journey!
Since then, I have been working on various projects. Which mostly focus on either web development and mobile development. Within these projects I have gained experience in a variety of technologies/tools including:
And of course who could forget the big three:
I am currently finishing up my Master's degree in Software Engineering, after completing my undergraduate degree in Computer Science. It has been fun but man I can not wait to get out (only a couple of more months)! My education has been a wild ride, but I have learned so much and have had the opportunity to make some great friends and meet some amazing professors along the way!
During my studies I have taken a variety of courses including:
I have been coding for a few years now and it has been a great journey so far. I have worked on some amazing projects and have gained a lot of valuable experience. I have also had the opportunity to work with some amazing people and have learned a lot from them. I am excited to see where my coding journey takes me next and I am always looking for new challenges to learn and grow as a developer. Below is a cool little visual respresentation of my coding journey. It is not the most detailed but it gives a good overview of the different technologies I have worked with and the different projects I have worked on.
Learned the basics of programming in C++ my 2nd year of Electrical Engineering at the University of Windsor.
It was the fall of 2020, covid was just getting started, I was stuck at home for my second year of Electical Engineering, and I had no idea what was in store for me. I had no experience in coding and was just taking the course because it was required for my degree. However, I ended up loving it and it quickly became my favourite course that semester. It was then at the end of the semester I decided to switch into Computer Science. It was a great decision and I have never looked back since!
Completed at the end of my first year of Computer Science, this was the first 'project' I ever built, using HTML, CSS, and a tiny bit of Javascript
I still remember watching so many Youtube videos on how to actually purchase a domain, and how to host a website. It is kinda ironic that I am now going back to just HTML, CSS, and JavaSctipt for this portfolio haha!
Finally bit the bullet and persuaded myself to learn swift and build an iOS app: HumourHub. An app all about jokes 😁
I had always had an internal itch to create an iOS app, it was pretty much a bucket list item at this point. I had NO IDEA how to use swift or swiftUI but there was this one youtube channel that I watched religiously (Shout out Paul Hudson). I followed along with his tutorials and not only built but published HumourHub on the app store! Probably the most gradifying moment of my coding jounrey so far!
Landed my first ever big boy job at the Ministry of Transportation as a Junior Analyst, where I got to work on two different projects over the course of the year
This was a very last minute co-op placement haha. So I was actually at Canadas Wonderland with my friends when I got a call for an interview. This was in late August and I had already enrolled in my courses for the fall semester at school. I had the interview on the of August and my first day was Septemeber 6th. talk about last minute! In the end everything worked out and I had an amazing time there an got first hand experience on what it was like working in a production environment with a team.
I was thinking of a fun game idea to build and came across a youtube video of people trying to guess company logos, and sparks began to fly!
This was the first project I built using React and Node.js, and also the first time I had to creat/connect a database in order to store the logos and the user data. I did not know how to host the database along with the web app at first but I found Vercel was a very easy and affordable solution for hosting both the frontend and backend.
What initially started as a school project for my integrated systems course, quickly turned into a passion project that I spent way too much time on 😅!
The big theme of this project was real time commuication between a client and a server via webhooks. I had never worked with webhooks before and it was a really cool experience to learn about them through a simple game of hangman. It was super fun being able to play with my brother who lives accross the country!
Here are a few of my recent projects. You can find the rest of my work and open source contributions on my GitHub.
With my recent love for reading, I thought it would be a neat little project to build a site that keeps track of all the books I have/am reading. With the ability to earn achievements, I think it really motivates me and other users to read more and more books!
What initially started as a school project for my integrated systems class, quickly turned into a passion project where I added multiplayer functionality; something that I think is super fun and adds a whole new level of enjoyment to the game. It was so cool being able to play with my brother who lives accross the country!
My first project using React and Node.js. A fun little game where you have to guess various company logos. Theres a twist though, the logos are cropped and rotated to make things a little harder!
I am a sucker for a good dad joke, and I think it is super important to keep dad jokes alive and well in this world. I believe Dad-A-Base does just that!
Here is a quick visual of my GitHub contributions over the past year. I have been trying to keep active as much as possible while jugling school and work 😣. Currently, I am focusing most of my time on Dad-A-Base, and BookTrack as those are the most recent projects.
If you have any questions or ideas about any of my projects or even this website itself, feel free to shoot me an email at andrewpitblado@gmail.com
