Hello! I am graduated, technically, from Hendrix College with a Bachelor’s in Mathematics. I am still hanging out, though, because students who attended during the Covid online semesters get a year of school with free tuition on graduating. It is marketed as a method to ensure that my generation will still have access to nostalgia. I think this is silly. If I could eliminate this emotion from my brain I would, because I find it to be detrimental in most situations. I am utilizing this opportunity so that I can build skills in Computer Science, and have some fun applying mathematics. This semester I am taking Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms, continuing my research detailed here, and participating in Disco Tray Studios.

In Disco Tray, I will be working to expand and refine video game prototypes that have sprung from Dr. Goadrich’s Game Development course over the past few years. Our first game is “Ground Truth”, an educational game which stars a St. Louis journalist in the year 1812. Our hero is writing an article on the broad sentiments in rural Missouri, interviewing people and attempting to report truth. Halfway through, the New Madrid Earthquakes hit, and the protagonist must determine what really happened. I have already done some debugging and animation for the project, but our largest-scope goal is presently to create a transparent, working score system, as the current one does not function well. This will require creative writing, clever coding, and rigorous historical accuracy. I’m excited for this project for many reasons, chief among them that I have written many articles for our campus newsletter, and I have respect for the spirit of journalism. I hope that we can appropriately gamify the fact-checking process, and boost the historical value of this prototype.