My formal education is in genetics and molecular biology from Northwestern University. I used to be a research technician in the Shilatifard Lab at the Feinberg School of Medicine where I operated a DNA sequencing machine and performed many other experiments. I also love museum education and communication and worked at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago as an educational facilitator. Now I am working to be a software developer hopefully with a focus in games or edtech.
I am a new software developer who recently completed a coding bootcamp at Actualize. I am personally interested in coding video games and have completed a couple of game jams with friends--you can play my games on Itch.io.
In June 2021, I completed the Game Makers' Toolkit Jam with two other friends and game developers, Peter Wallis (code) and Ala' Diab (art and sound design). We created a Snake-meets-rhythm game called Dance Chicken Dance, which you can play here. Peter and I split up the programming tasks into rhythm-dependent and non-rhythm-dependent. I focused on rhythm-dependent tasks such as simple animations and hit and miss detection for the player.
The same team reconvened recently for Ludum Dare 50 and we created a game called Tidey Up, where you play as a penguin trying to save his house from climate change-induced sea level rise. My role this time was focused on code in the character controller, while Peter focused on the game environment. You can browse the source code here, and check out the game itself here. Enjoy!
I have experience with Python, C#/Unity, and full stack web development using Ruby on Rails and Vue.js! At Actualize, I used Rails and Vue to build a full-stack art gallery and appreciation app called Artful. You can check out the codebase for Artful on Github and check out the app on Netlify.
Below is a video of my final presentation of Artful at Actualize, which you can watch to hear me talk about its features and challenges.
One game project I have been working on solo is called Moving People (inspired by the improv game). It's basically like charades, but instead of acting out a prompt with your body, you act out the prompt by manipulating a 3D character on the screen. I have learned a lot about animation and inverse kinematics from this project, and something I'd like to add to it next is networking capability with Photon or Mirror. Check out the prototype on Itch here and check out the Git repo here.
In addition to coding and science, I love painting, art, and music. I am a big fan of oil painting and watercolors. Here are a few examples of my work, just for funsies.
jcharrison12 [at] gmail [dot com]