Hi, I'm Nicholas Myers
I'm a Senior Programmer and Analyst in the Computer Science and Engineering IT Department at the University at Buffalo. I'm interested in software development, tinkering with hardware, home automation, photography, videography, multimedia production, and 3D printing. Check out some of my projects below!
Projects
Pulsar's Produce Pong
Produce Pong is a competitive online multiplayer cooking game based on Pong. Each round is assigned a random ingredient, and the round's winner earns that ingredient. Once both players are able to create a full recipe with their ingredients, the best recipe possible for each player is determined, and the player with the better recipe wins.
DevU Autograder
DevU is an automated grading platform for programming assignments. Instructors write tests to run against student-uploaded code to provide instant feedback and streamline the grading process. It will eventually replace Autolab at UB. Autolab is pictured here.
NiMy URL Shortener
NiMy is my custom URL shortener. It's hosted on this site, but the shortcut domain nimy.co is more convenient to share.
AfterGame
AfterGame is a highly-customizable real-time file renaming assistant to automatically organize video game recordings. It supports barcode presets and easily runs on any platform via Docker.
Discord Office Hours
This Discord bot streamlines online office hours for students and teaching assistants. Students can queue themselves for assistance, leave the queue, and view the queue. TAs can dequeue the next student and open or close office hours. This greatly reduced wait times and no-shows during the 2021 remote semesters.
Nicholas' CSE Adventure
Nicholas' CSE Adventure (NCA) is a 2D platformer game that explores the skills I learned in each computer science course at UB. It's currently in early development, but you can play the beta online.
Experience
CSE IT Senior Programmer and Analyst
January 2023 — Present
- Design, develop, and deploy new web applications with a strong focus on security
- Build intuitive data visualization front-ends that allow administrative staff to view complex data in a clear and concise manner
- Administer Linux systems (in general)
- Deploy and maintain Autolab, which improves grading efficiency and consistency for thousands of daily project submissions across the CSE department
- Built a server room environmental monitoring system to identify anomalies, such as air conditioning failures, before they become a critical problem
Web Applications (CSE 312) Head Teaching Assistant
August 2022 — December 2022
- Assisted teaching 120 students the server-side aspects of web development without the use of web frameworks or libraries, including HTTP, APIs, AJAX, databases, encryption, authentication, sockets, privacy, and security
- Edited and uploaded 6 weekly lecture videos to the course YouTube channel for CSE 312 and CSE 116
- Wrote a hybrid automatic grading script to reduce grading time for the first homework assignment
- Hosted four office hours weekly to help students with course concepts one-on-one
Introduction to Computer Science II (CSE 116) Head Teaching Associate
January 2021 — December 2022
Head Teaching Associate
Promoted February 2022
- Led the development of verbal interviews to assess students’ understanding of all course concepts
- Automated the paper quiz uploading process by developing AutoAutolab
Head Teaching Assistant
Promoted October 2021
- Provided third-chance makeup interviews and quizzes outside scheduled lab times
- Graded interviews and final exams
- Managed and deployed the course open-source projects
- Updated the course website and implemented the widely-appreciated dark theme
Teaching Assistant
Started January 2021
- Assisted teaching 250-400 students per semester the concepts of unit testing, stack and heap memory, object-oriented programming, functional programming, and introductory data structures
- Hosted two weekly labs to reinforce lecture material and assess student understanding via individual verbal interviews
- Hosted office hours and participated in the class forum to help students individually
- Attended lecture daily and answered student questions through an online live chat
- Developed a bot to streamline online office hours (described above)
Campus Living IT Student Assistant
November 2020 — August 2022
- Helped hundreds of administrators, office assistants, and maintenance staff with various technology questions about computers, phones, printers, and networking through tickets, phone calls, and in-person meetings
- Wrote technical documentation for internal IT staff members and generalized documentation for end-users
- Configured 50 centrally-managed, network-booting gaming computers for thousands of students to compete in Esports and play casual games
- Revolutionized inventory asset tracking for hundreds of computers, mobile phones, and door-access controllers by utilizing barcodes and dynamic spreadsheets for bulk imports
Data Structures (CSE 250) Head Teaching Assistant
May 2021 — July 2021
- Taught 50 students the behavior and runtime characteristics of data structures including arrays, linked-lists, stacks, queues, and AVL Trees
- Reduced grading time for four programming assignments by writing software to test students’ code and provide feedback within minutes
- Designed four quizzes to assess students’ understanding of conceptual material
- Hosted office hours and participated in the class forum for one-on-one assistance