When you look at CIS Sleuth, you might see a simple browser game with some questions, a leaderboard, and a few sound effects. What I see is the first time I tried to build something that felt real — not just an assignment, but a product.

CIS Sleuth started as an idea to make learning about Nova Scotia Health's One Patient One Record (OPOR) initiative more interactive. I didn't want a slide deck or a document. I wanted something that people could experience. At the beginning, I underestimated how many moving pieces that would involve. React state management, Firebase integration, Firestore rules, audio context handling, and deployment pipelines — it quickly became much larger than I expected.

The technical challenges forced me to think differently. I had to structure components cleanly, manage global state without creating chaos, handle asynchronous database writes, and think about user experience on both desktop and mobile. There were multiple times where something “worked,” but didn't feel right — and instead of leaving it, I refactored it. I rewrote logic. I redesigned flows. I rebuilt screens so they felt smoother and more intentional.

One of the most valuable lessons from this project was learning how important planning and architecture are before writing code. Early on, I jumped into building features. Later versions were different — I started mapping state transitions, documenting question flows, versioning releases, and thinking about scalability before touching the keyboard. The difference in quality between those approaches was obvious.

CIS Sleuth isn’t just a game to me. It represents the moment I shifted from completing tasks to designing systems. It’s proof that I can take a concept, iterate through messy middle stages, and turn it into something structured, deployable, and maintainable.

And more than anything, it reminds me that the best solutions usually come after you’re willing to step back, rethink the architecture, and build it the right way.

Try it for yourself!: Click here

Other people in my class may class me crazy for saying it, but C++ is my favourite programming language. It may be because by nature, C++ gives a lot of power to the programmer and I believe that allows me to get the feeling that I'm the one in control C++ might be a dated language but I still have a lot of appreciate for it.

With that being said, I was very worried for this assignment. This was the final one given in our C++ class and while it did look like it was the coolest from the demos our teacher showed, it also stressed me to look at. It was not the language that got in my head, the assignment just appeared to have a lot of moving parts.

The way that the simulation works is simple. There is a grid that has both Zombies and Humans at each cell. With each game tick the Zombies and Humans would move around the board. Then there are some rules for each move. If a Human goes 8 moves on the board they will "find" a new Human who is added to the game, and if a Zombie encounters a Human, the Zombie will "eat" the Human and turn them into a Zombie. Finally if a Zombie goes 8 moves without eating a Human, they will be converted back into a Human.

When I finally got into it and started coding things felt really smooth, I felt that I was stressed over nothing, which seems to be par for the course. I realized that this was the final assignment and our teacher didn't give it to us to stress us out, he gave it to us so that we could have fun with it. Once I discovered that I started to feel more relaxed and all the puzzel pieces fell into place, overall it was the project that I had the most fun with last semester, and it gave me a new, deeper appreciation for C++

Just like the previous work example, this was the final assignment that we had in our Android programming course, and just like the last example too; I was very stressed about this one. Right out of the gate we were going to be working with various techniques that I thought I might not have been prepared for and at one point I said to myself "I just needed to start the project, just sit down open your computer and start typing" and it didn't matter if it was good code or not I just needed to start.

When I finally sat down and started coding, things were taking a while, nothing seemed to work my mind was all over the place and I had no idea what I was doing. People always say when you get to this point you have to stand up, get some water and come back with a fresh set of eyes. So you know what I did? I banged my head against the keyboard for another 2 hours trying to get things to work because I kept thinking in my head "I'm almost there"; I was not "almost there". After that I decided that I should stand up and come back and when I came back, not that everything clicked, but things started flowing smoother. The reason I wanted to display this project is to show what you can get done when you allow yourself time to breathe and relax, and I have used that notion A LOT in the next semester.

When you look at this picture you may see a simple input and output, but what I see is a desperate hunt for perfection. This was the first assignment we had for our Data-Structures class. This class is taught in C++ and while that is my favourite language it doesn't change the fact that this assignment was intimidating, it was with a new teacher and we weren't sure how strict they would be with marking. Plus it was the first time I had to follow a rigorous coding convention.

When we were assigned this I got stressed because it seemed as thought it was much larger than anything I had done before, after being explained how it would actually work I found myself not as anxious about it. This was until I had to start programming it. I found myself worrying about every line of code and striving to make the most elegant solution possible. Eventually I got to a point in the program that everything was working properly, but I really did not like how it worked. So naturally; I completely started over. I spent another 3 days straight after that working on it. I am now very happy with the solution that I came up with.

I included this piece of work not because I think it looks nice but because I want to remind myself of the things I can achieve and that I should always start by planning something instead of jumping into the deep end and getting side tracked.

This is what you're looking at right now. Strictly speaking I am NOT a web programmer, and I really had no interest in it, unfortunatley for me it is a necessary evil that we all face because virtually everything is a website. I knew that we had to make a portfolio for NSCC and I knew that I wanted to make an E-Portfolio because I am a programmer, it is what I do. But I was dreading it because I am not that fond of making a website. Eventually I had to start.

It was a very rough beginning, I hadn't really created a nice looking website before and a lot of the ideas that I had for this page seemed like they were way over my head. Thats when I realized I needed to take this as small bites. First I would finish my home page, and then my about page and keep going from there. Once I had all the content on the page, thats when I would style it and add some functionality.

Now that I have the page at a place that I believe looks very nice I have a new found appreciation for web development. It is a beast in itself and has a lot of concepts that you need to be familiar with. I am so glad that I did this project because I have learned so much from it, and I found myself wanting to research and apply myself to coding different webpages to enhance my skill.