I am a third year computer science student currently studying at the University of Exeter. I have a background in both programming and graphic design, with programming being my main interest. I am always free for any interesting freelance work/projects, as long as they don't clash with uni. I have made this website to showcase my various projects/anything I’ve been working on. If you have any queries or questions, feel free to message me through one of the various channels of communication I’ve provided in the contact section.
I design beautiful and interactive websites using languages such as HTML/CSS and JavaScript, alongside a variety of frameworks including Bootstrap and jQuery.
With a knowledgeable background in Java, as well as an understanding of PHP, AJAX and SQL/MySQL, I am able to implement the functional aspects of websites and databases.
From logo design to UI/UX development, I design high quality and well-thought-out work. Using software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, I produce aesthetic work.
GeoHistory
My final year dissertation project. GeoHistory is a cross-platform mobile application which enables users to tag historically-relevant places with information and pictures.
Bin-Packing with ACO
A final year university project in which I had to use Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) to solve the Bin-Packing Problem.
Cubert - C# Game
A fun little side project I worked on to help learn both C# and Unity, as well as game design.
Renishaw
During my internship at Renishaw over Summer 2017, I designed and built a stylish and responsive website for the Industrial Design and Human Factors Engineering Department.
Amazon Echo Simulator
During my second year of university I had to design and develop a simulated version of the Amazon Echo as part of a team. Programmed in Java, source code available on GitHub.
Cargo Cult
A second year university project. Cargo Cult was an online database website where users could register accounts and login to upload information regarding freighter ships.
Portfolio Website
This portfolio website was designed by myself using a variety of programming languages and libraries in order to showcase my work. I also designed my own personal logo in Illustrator.
iTunes Redesign
This was a personal project where I was inspired by the ugly, old iTunes layout to create a modern version. Using Photoshop, I created a new UI with a darker theme.
The Black and White Series
Personal project where I decided to add life to old black and white photos. Using Photoshop, I digitally colourised a variety of different pictures.
During my time studying computer science at university I was able to learn the theoretical components necessary to build a strong foundation comprised of the core concepts which are central to computer science; from studying discrete maths and logic in year one, to learning about and analysing the most influential algorithms and data structures in year two, to designing and developing my own cross-platform mobile application whilst adhering to the strict principles of the agile lifecycle development process for my dissertation in year three. As well as learning about the theoretical aspects of computer science, I was also given the opportunity to continuously develop and refine my programming skills through workshops, laboratories, and coursework projects.
It was at City of Bristol College where I learned the theoretical components necessary to enable me to study computer science at a higher level. This course lasted one year, and was an “Access to Higher Education” qualification (equivalent to A Levels). A wide variety of units were covered, with the three subjects being: Pure Maths, Engineering Maths, and Physics. I successfully passed every module, receiving mostly Distinctions and Merits (the top two grades).
I studied graphic design at Bath College from September 2013 to May 2014. Here I studied a number of modules, these included: Contextual Studies, Digital Design, Illustration, Information Graphics, Packaging Design, and Typography. The course was a two year course, but after the first year I decided to leave halfway through in order to pursue Maths and Physics in order to be able to study Computer Science at university. During my time at Bath College I gained valuable design skills, which have heavily influenced my love of front-end development.
Working with a variety of software types, ranging from embedded applications to general app design, whilst following the agile software development lifecycle. Programming languages used are generally C, C++, and C#, however this can change depending on which platform is being developed for and which language is most suitable.
Volunteered as part of 'ExWeb', where I helped teach other university students web design through weekly workshops. The languages covered were HTML/CSS, and JavaScript.
I designed the website for the Industrial Design and Human Factors Engineering department of the special projects division at Renishaw. Using HTML, CSS, JavaScript/jQuery and Bootstrap, I created a modern website which was able to showcase the various services that the department offered. Other tasks included requirements capturing via interviewing stakeholders to determine the necessary components for the website, as well as designing graphics in Photoshop and Illustrator for the website.
Responsible for the training of new employees and helping them work to a high standard. I also had extra roles such as being responsible for the management of onsite marketing and film advertisements. I successfully completed the overhaul of the out-dated physical records system used to keep track of the cinemas film posters, transitioning it to a digital database, which helped improve efficiency. Other duties included providing excellent customer service to members of the public, and also preparing food and beverages. Won awards for being one of the top salespeople and was as also sent on a Safety Training course and received a certificate in 'Mobile Aluminium Access Towers, Steps, Ladders and WAHR'.
I designed and built the website for the Industrial Design and Human Factors Engineering department of the special projects branch at Renishaw. Using HTML, CSS, JavaScript/jQuery and Bootstrap, I created a modern website which was able to showcase their departments services. Other tasks included requirements capturing via interviewing stakeholders to determine the necessary components for the website, as well as designing graphics in photoshop and illustrator.
The Amazon Echo Simulator was a second year university project I worked on as part of a team. The brief assigned to us was to develop a software version of Amazon's smart speaker, the Amazon Echo. The program had to be able to process a user's spoken question and return an answer. A variety of API's were available to help solve these challenges. We decided it was necessary to split this project into four separate areas:
The GUI for this project was made entirely in Photoshop. Initially, I decided to design a single view for the user which was dubbed "Side View" mode. It was essentially just a white background with a picture of an amazon echo layered on top, and a snazzy title at the top of the window. I made a button in Photoshop and layered this over the amazon echo. This single button controlled the echo. When the user clicked the button once the echo powered on and began listening for a question. A second click turned the power off. As you can probably imagine, this worked out to be incredibly unintuitive as the user had to turn the echo off and back on every time they wanted to ask another question. To counter this, a second "Top View" mode was added. Top view mode consisted of a top-down image of the echo containing two buttons: a mute button, and an action button. The mute button disables the microphone, and the action button is used to activate listening mode, enabling the user to ask questions. A change view button was added to the top-right corner of the window which enabled the user to switch between the two views, with side view mode now being used to power on the echo. The top view graphics were animated using key-frame animation in Photoshop. I animated the ring of light providing circular movement. The animation runs when the echo is in mute mode, as well as when listening mode is active. I felt animation would help reassure the users that the software was working as intended whilst they had to wait for it to process their questions as it provided visible feedback.
The Java Sound API is a low-level API which is used to control the input/output of audio, this was essential for capturing the users voice input. The program needed to begin recording when the user pressed the action button, to solve this various modes were created which were used to dictate the echo's functionality. There were four modes: OFFMODE, LISTENINGMODE, ANSWERMODE, and MUTEMODE. Each was assigned a unique integer value from one to four, and a method was created to switch between the various modes depending on which button was pressed. When the mode was switched to Listening Mode, the Lights "turned on", this was done by swapping the images from a grey, stationary light, to the animated blue gif version. The Listening thread then began to run, this used the Java Sound API to open an audio stream and record sound to a .WAVE file. Initially this recorded for specific amount of time, usually 10 seconds. As you can probably imagine, this was problematic as not all questions are 10 seconds long, meaning either the user had to wait in silence after asking a question until the timer ran out, or the user would sometimes be cut off mid-question if asking a particularly long question. To solve this problem, the root mean square (RMS) was used to calculate the average volume of the microphone input. If the average volume dropped below a certain level, the microphone stopped recording as this indicated the user had finished speaking. Obviously there is always going to be a case of background noise, so the threshold for which the volume had to drop below in order to stop recording was calculated based on the levels observed from when a user talked into the microphone.
Cargo Cult was a database focussed website which I designed for a second year university project. The brief specified that the website required user registration and login capabilities, as well as giving registered users the ability to view/modify (upload/delete) cargo ships listed in the database. The brief also requested that the website use JavaScript to enhance the user experience, as well as AJAX to dynamically update the search results. Multiple filtering options were also required as per the brief, the filter functions included a dynamically updated drop-down list, upper and lower integer bounds, and a text input filter. Throughout this project, numerous languages were used including: HTML/CSS, JavaScript, the AJAX framework, PHP and MySQL. As well as designing the website, I also designed and created the logo.
This portfolio website, akeam.com, was developed by myself using various programming languages and frameworks such as HTML/CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, Bootstrap and PHP. It is a side project which I have been working on recently. Constant improvements are being made, and there are still issues which I have yet to fix, however working on this website has vastly improved my knowledge surrounding web design, particularly in responsive design.
This project focussed on UI design and enhancing user experience. This redesign was before iTunes revamped their software to the modern version. Before the revamp, the iTunes UI was in dire need of a re-design, and that's what this project focussed on. The new UI was designed in Photoshop, with all elements being designed by myself, besides the album covers of course!
The Black and White series was a project I did which aimed to bring colour to black and white photos. I aimed to use naturalistic colours which made the photos seem as though they were taken with a modern day colour camera. The selection of photos vary, from amateur snapshots, to famous pictures. You can view the photos below, as well as the black and white originals.
Cubert is a small and simple C# game I made in my spare time to learn the basics of game design. The objective of the game is to get your small blue cube to the goal (green cube), whilst avoiding enemies and collecting tokens. Most of the shapes in the game are default unity items, however the traps were made by myself using Blender.
The Bin-Packing Problem (BPP) is a well-known, NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. Essentially, the goal is to equally distribute objects of different weights into a finite set of bins. As with any NP-hard problem, besides small examples, it is simply not practical to solve with an exact solution. To solve any meaningful problems, one must resort to heuristic approaches. There has been an ever-increasing amount of interest in nature-inspired solutions to computer problems; with evolutionary and genetic algorithms becoming increasingly more popular. These heuristic approaches offer approximate solutions to complex problems which would often not be possible to solve with an exact solution.
Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a method of swarm intelligence which was proposed by Dorigo in his 1992 paper “the Ant System”. The system is based upon artificial ants which function similar to real ants. Evaporating trails of pheromones are used to promote more promising solutions, whilst discouraging poor ones. These characteristics result in an autocatalytic reaction where convergence is reached rather quickly. For this university project, I successfully applied ACO to the Bin-Packing Problem for two different problems: BPP1 and BPP2.
In both problems there are 500 items, each with their own separate and individual weight. In BPP1, there are 10 bins, and the weight of each item is defined as: the weight of item i (where i starts at 1 and finishes at 500) is i. In BPP2 there are 50 bins, and the weight of the item is defined as: the weight of item i is (i2)/2. There were also four variants of each problem, where the number of paths p, and the evaporation rate e are changed. These four variants were:
The fitness of a path was determined by calculating the difference in weight between the heaviest and the lightest bins. Paths which lead to smaller differences were encouraged, whilst the paths with big differences were discouraged.
The code for this project is available on GitHub, and graphed results are shown in the gallery section for this project.
GeoHistory was my final year dissertation project. It is essentially a cross-platform mobile application which aims to connect users with not just each other, but also the information that surrounds them. Local areas are often filled with rich and unique histories, which sadly often go unnoticed. GeoHistory provides a platform which enables users to explore their local areas, learn new information by viewing tags, and to share this information with others by tagging locations, old monuments, historical buildings, and noteworthy places.
The application provides various features, some of which are:
The application was developed using Ionic 3. It is built upon Angular, which is a TypeScript-based web application platform. The languages used for programming were TypeScript (JavaScript variant), HTML5, CSS and SASS. Firebase, a NoSQL database service platform provided by Google, was used for the storage of data, as well as being used for user-login authentication. The Google Maps Javascript API was also used to provide the mapping service.
