1 to 10 - #100DaysOfCode

1 February 2022

After a recent parents meeting with my students. I found myself giving the same piece of advice over and over. If they want to develop their programming skills they must practice more often than the time I give them in class. It is similar to playing an instrument or learning a foreign language, small and regular practice will help to quickly develop skills in the long term.

However, since finishing my MSc in December 2020, I’ve found myself not following my own advice or finding the time to develop my own skills in computer science. To remedy this, starting during my schools Chinese New Year break I have decided to complete the #100daysofcode challenge.

The two main rules being:

  1. Code for a minimum of an hour every day for the next 100 days
  2. Tweet about your progress each day

Check back each day to see my progress:

Day 1 - 30 Jan 2022

I investigated potential resources to use with my IGCSE computer science students during our upcoming security unit. During which, I found and completed all challenges for the most recent Beginner picoMini event run by CMU. I think the students will enjoy working through these challenges in the next few weeks.

Link to project: picoCTF Mini 2020

Day 2 - 31 Jan 2022

As part of my exploration I worked through a serious of tutorial videos by Andy the GDScript Dude to learn more about the Godot game engine.

With his guidance, I have recently completed a bare bones Tetris clone which can be seen below:

100 days of code Godot tetris

Link to project: GitHub - Godot Tetris Clone

Day 3 - 1 Feb 2022

I’m not too sure about the technicalities of #100daysofcode, does learning more about Linux CLI and Bash strictly count as coding? Nonetheless, I spent my hour today reviewing and improving my knowledge of Linux on the HTB Academy website. This is one of the first modules in their Bug Bounty Hunter path I’m interested to learn more about.

The most challenging aspect of today being the need to review and relearn about RegEx!

Link to the completed module: HTB Academy - Linux Fundamentals

Day 4 - 2 Feb 2022

I started work on a new game development project in Godot, I found the One Minute Game Jam series on itch.io and decided it is a great opportunity for me to create a small simple game.

So far I have created the main user interface, designed the player’s spaceship and programmed the player controller logic. I need to have a fully playable game ready to go by 6 Feb 2022!

Screenshot of Godot environment for sixty second shump

Link to the project GitHub - Sixty Second Shump

Day 5 - 3 Feb 2022

Continued to work on my submission for One Minute Game Jam #5. I created a parallax effect for stars in the background and created a simple flame effect using the engine’s 2D particle system.

Gif of parallax and particle effects

Link to the project GitHub - Sixty Second Shump

Day 6 - 4 Feb 2022

Added a weapons system and the first 3 waves of enemies to my Godot game for the One Minute Game Jam.

Gif of enemies and lasers

Link to the project GitHub - Sixty Second Shump

Day 7 - 5 Feb 2022

Completed the Game Jam build of my Godot Engine 2D shooter game. Try it out on itch.io:

Link to the project GitHub - Sixty Second Shump

Day 8 - 6 Feb 2022

I spent today bug fixing after receiving feedback on my game from friends and other game jammers. After fixing these errors I added a scene changing transition effect to the game to make the experience smoother.

Link to the project GitHub - Sixty Second Shump

Day 9 - 7 Feb 2022

After spending the last few days on game development in Godot, I decided to pivot back over to InfoSec for today. I’ve really enjoyed working through the materials on Hack the Box Academy and will continue to work through their Bug Bounty Hunter path in the coming weeks.

Links to the completed modules:

Day 10 - 8 Feb 2022

Resumed work on a professional development course run by Intel about improving the AI curriculum for High School students. The day’s session focused on computer vision examples, applications and how to demonstrate these concepts to students.

Link to the project Intel AI For Youth

Read more