Paul
Sparks
Information Technology &
Computer Science
University of Cincinnati
Sophomore
August 2023
Resource Map
Over the course of a three-month summer co-op at Kinetic Vision, I worked with a small team to develop an internal web-application in which the user (usually a team manager) can view and alter an employee seating chart. Beyond that, the application also functions as an interactive map of the building, including rooms and points of interest such as fire extinguishers and coffee machines. My contributions include being one of the primary developers on both the front-end and back-end of the tech stack, as well as contributing to the creative and functional decision-making processes.
March 2023
LHS Live Chat
During my senior year of high school, I decided it was time to create my first full-stack web application. I created a live chat room for the students at my high school to be able to use to communicate with the other students during the school day. It used a web-socket to link the Vue.js frontend with the Express.js backend. It was fully deployed on the cloud in a Docker container.
February 2023
Website Vulnerability Report
Around the same time that I created LHS Live Chat, I had an interest in cyber security and penetration testing. After practicing on CTF websites, I discovered a SQL injection vulnerability on a real company's login page. This vulnerability allowed for an attacker to execute a timing-based attack by writing a script that injects cumulative SQL queries. I wrote a report about how the vulnerability works and how to fix it, then emailed the report to the company so they could get it resolved.
June 2022
GE Software Engineering Internship Web App Overhaul
During the summer after my Junior year in high school, I did a Software Engineering internship with General Electric Corporate. This was arranged with the help of INTERalliance of Greater Cincinnati. The fine details of the work I did are confidential, but the general idea is that I overhauled a web application that functioned as an internal tool for GE employees.
February 2022
Unity 3D
Over the course of a few weeks, I completed an interactive online Unity 3D course. Throughout this course, there were many meaningful and in-depth lectures ranging from using the Unity scene view, to writing scripts in C# MonoBehaviour classes, and even trigonometry concepts used in game development. At the end, I made a fully functional game using all the concepts learned throughout the course and from my own personal research.
December 2021
Built Custom Keyboard
Build a custom 60% sized keyboard, which involved soldering, research, assembling, part matching, etc.
Before 2021
Video Game Mods
During my young teenage years, I made a mod for Minecraft, a mod and multiple maps for Call of Duty Zombies, a mod and map for Garry's Mod, etc.
Video Game Servers
Created, configured, owned, and administrated various video game servers at a very young age. This mostly involved lots of research, beginner networking concepts, editing JSON files, and writing simple custom scripts. One of my servers turned a profit in donations.