Aaron Sirico

Programming

Role:

Programmer & Game Designer

Languages & Framework used:

HTML 5, CSS, TypeScript within an Angular Framework

Project Overview:

The Columbia College Chicago IAM Team's capstone project is a dynamic collaboration involving students from diverse disciplines united in a partnership with NASCAR Chicago. Over the Spring 2024 semester, the student team created four engaging products tailored for families attending the street race event. From interactive trivia that tests your NASCAR knowledge to thrilling time reaction games pitting you against legendary drivers, the students focused on crafting experiences that promised excitement and entertainment.

NASCAR came to us wanting a digital product that was to be launched on race day. The programming team consisted of 3 programmers. As one of them I know we had to recognize our limitations. Taking into account our small team and time frame for the project. Our programming team had huge support from our UI/UX team. Everything we accomplished was because of them. I knew we had to make sure we presented a deliverable for the NASCAR team that was digestable for our work force. Ideating that we needed to create a web app was a mix of these obstacles. The ideation process came out with two possible outcomes for the team. Either an app that was to be published through app stores and can be locally launched, or a web app that we could publish ourselves with reliance on the internet.

A message to our team early in the development process:

"Hey everybody, Aaron here. Will, Nick, and I talked after class together. We had some technical specifications we wanted to stress before our talk on thursday. During class, we all talked about options 1, 2, and 3 being an app or a website. There are alot of difficulties that come with creating an app because we would have to publish it for ios and for android. There are a lot of specficiations when it comes to publishing on these app stores that would make if difficult to produce in the time alotted to us. Therefore, we think if we go through with any of these ideas that our best bet is going to be a website."
-Aaron Sirico

Having programmed numerous website frontends for myself and close colleagues I knew where my skillset lied. Taking into consideration that the programmers on the team had not worked together before, and the complications of launching an app via an app store we needed a solution. Presenting the idea that we needed to create a web app seemed not just important, but was a necessity. We created a web app specfically leveraging HTML 5, Type Script, and an Angular Framework.

- Programmed front end for reaction game.
Used: Dynamic Flexbox, Dynamic Media Queries, TypeScript Page Linking, TypeScript for Updating Leaderboard, Dynamic Result Page Depending on Player's Score