“I think it should be a good idea to do a second project since ‘Hands-on-Kusama’ is almost done,” I told Jay when I felt comfortable enough to jump into a second project. After weeks of wondering if I would finish my first project, everything started to fit into place. When I finally felt that I was closer to my goal, I spoke to my supervisor Jay Mollica to make a second project, or a “stretch goal,” as he called it, before I came up with a name for my project.
Mid-project I saw a video on YouTube of a girl that created a project like the one I had in mind when I came up with the idea of doing an “immersive experience” project. Connecting both hands in an L shape that resembles when movie directors want you to see something, the gesture they make with their hands to pretend it is a camera lens. I said, “ok, ok, I could recreate her project and add more things to make it a different way of seeing the exhibitions at PAMM.”
“Ok, but you’re almost done with your first project. Why would you want to do a second one in a short period of time” was the first thing someone from the office said when I told them about my idea, and of course, they thought that I spent too much time working on my first project that it was a lot of pressure to work on two things at the same time. But I thought if Jay believed in me since day 1 and gave me the freedom to create my own projects, why shouldn’t I at least try? And if I fail, I can proudly say at least I tried. When I spoke to Jay about my second project, he liked it as much as he did when I came up with the idea for my first project; he even suggested taking it to the next level, and instead of connecting your hands in an L shape he proposed to make the L shape without touching your fingers and play/resize the different images that would pop out.
I don’t want to say that was a crazy idea, but in fact, it was; I mean, if we put into perspective my progress throughout this internship, this was going to be another rollercoaster, but I knew we would going to push through and make it happen somehow. The first part of the code was simple because I was already familiarized with the ML5 library since that is what I used to code my first project. Still, after a week and a half, I realized that ML5 did not support two hands simultaneously, and I could not use it anymore. “wait, wait, wait, didn’t I use a different program for my first project before ML5?” I tried many libraries, but I saved one because I thought it could be helpful someday called Handsfree.js, and that day came sooner than expected.
After many tries and experimenting with the code, I did not have enough time to make it as Jay told me to, but I tried. I am proud of all my progress in 4 months because I went from not having enough programming experience to a new set of skills, amazing people that supported me throughout the process, and two remarkable projects.
Jumping into the unknown is the definition I gave to my first project, but putting everything into perspective, I could say that about this internship. For the first time, I had to challenge myself and prove that I was good enough to do anything I set my mind. There is no better feeling in the world than accomplishing something you have worked hard for, and these two projects reflect that I am more than enough.