Ryan Michela

National Science Olympiad

Applied Career Skills: Team Leadership, Strategic Planning, Project Management, Process Improvement, Technical Writing

Science Olympiad is a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of K-12 science education, increasing male, female and minority interest in science, creating a technologically-literate workforce and providing recognition for outstanding achievement by both students and teachers. These goals are achieved by participating in Science Olympiad tournaments and non-competitive events, incorporating Science Olympiad into classroom curriculum and attending teacher training institutes.
www.soinc.org

• Content Director for Technology Events, 2008 National Tournament

  As the Content Director for Technology Events at the 2008 National Tournament, I was directly responsible for organizing the logistics and planning of thirteen events and reported directly to the National Tournament Planning Committee. I coordinated with Event Supervisors and George Washington University staff to negotiate optimal room assignments, procure event materials, and coordinate audio/visual support. On the day of the tournament, I oversaw event operations under my control and dispatched additional volunteers as needed.

• Event Supervisor - 2004 to Present

  As a Science Olympiad Event Supervisor, I have been responsible for the logistical planning, execution, and judging of numerous competitive events at five National Tournaments and dozens of state tournaments. As an Event Supervisor, I must plan out and procure the material needs for my events and coordinate with Tournament Directors to select an appropriate venue. On the day of competition, I serve as both arbiter and final authority on all event and rule related decisions.

• Event Author - 2006 to Present

  As a Science Olympiad Event Author, I work with the National Technology Committee to develop new and exciting technology events for students to compete in. During the drafting stages, I collaborate with other event authors and supervisors from across the country to edit and finalize the rules. As a set of rules nears completion, I work with State and Regional leadership to field test the event at their tournaments and use their feedback to adjust the rules. Once an event has been published in the Student Handbook, I take on the role of National Event Supervisor for that event and answer all questions for clarification.

  I have published the following events:
  

  • Junkyard Challenge (Published)
  • Airjectory (Trial)
  • Compubots (Trial)

DC Association for Computing Machinery

Applied Career Skills: Requirements Analysis, Strategic Planning, Software Development, System Integration

The Washington, DC chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery was founded in 1958 as an educational and scientific society uniting the area's computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges. DC ACM strengthens the profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. DC ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking. Currently there are more than 150 DC ACM members in the Washington Metropolitan Area.
www.dcacm.org

• Webmaster - August, 2007 to August 2009

  As Webmaster of the DC ACM website, I was responsible for reestablishing the organization's presence on the Internet. I set up the initial Microsoft SharePoint site to support the organization's collaboration needs, implemented a custom membership registration and tracking system, and built the software and reports for planning the chapter's professional development classes. I also worked to train the Executive Council members on how to use their new collaboration platform served as the primary point of contact for all website related issues.

  For my efforts as Webmaster, I was awarded the DC ACM Outstanding Volunteer Award for 2008.

• Science Fair Judge - 2008

  As a science fair judge representing DC ACM, I evaluated several student projects at the Montgomery County Science Fair in the Computer Science category. For the winners in each division, DC ACM gave a free membership to the National ACM.

StackOverflow.com

Applied Career Skills: Software Architecture, Software Development

Stack Overflow is a website featuring questions and answers on a wide range of topics in computer programming. The website features the ability for users to ask and answer questions, and, through membership and active participation, to vote questions and answers up or down and edit questions and answers in a wiki fashion. Users of Stack Overflow can earn reputation points and “badges”; for example, a person is awarded 10 reputation points for receiving an “up” vote on an answer given to a question, and can receive badges for their valued contributions.
www.stackoverflow.com

• Active Contributor - September, 2008 to Present

  I have actively participated in the Stack Overflow community, sharing my knowledge with others by answering their questions and expanding my experience by asking. Below are some of my best contributions.

  • Is frequent downcasting in class hierarchy always evil?
  • What are the best practices to avoid problems with pointers?
  • How to open a file for non-exclusive write access using .NET
  • System.UnauthorizedAccessException in mscorwks.dll causing app pool crashes

Open Source Software

Applied Career Skills: Software Architecture, Software Development

Over my career, I have developed and released three small open source projects. Below are details about each.

• MPTime v2

  MPTime is a time keeping application used in the judging of Science Olympiad tournaments. The application tracks teams as a series of tiles that move through multiple queues as their team progresses through the judging process. MPTime is written in Java and is based heavily on the Model-View-Controller and Observer patterns.

  MPTime2.zip

• JavaBot v2

  JavaBot is a chat robot built in Java that connects to different instant messaging platforms. JavaBot is based on a pipeline architecture, where messages come in from a communications end point, pass through an internal router and are handed off to a line processor for processing. Once the line processor has formulated a response, the process reverses. Due to the nature of writing a network application, JavaBot is highly multithreaded.

  JavaBot2.zip

• Battle Tetris

  Battle Tetris is a two-player networked Tetris clone. I used Battle Tetris as an opportunity to explore some of the Gang of Four design patterns. Battle Tetris is based on a small Domain Model and Object Factories, with a little bit of Dependency Injection where appropriate.

  BattleTetris.zip