All articles and portfolio pieces

Library of Congress Call Number Game/Training
July 26, 2023
Demonstration of the Call Number game/training showing multiple books on a bookshelf where you must rearrange the books to the correct Library of Congress order.

A colleague has been working to streamline student worker training for Access Services in the University of Dayton Roesch Library. Initially, they sent links to Kent State University and Carnegie Mellon University's training to see if we could do something similar. In Kent State's case, their JavaScript code was homegrown and used SortableJS and CMU built their game using Flash and ruffle.

That following weekend, I put together this little MVP - try it out! The initial version was designed for a large, high-resolution monitor, so it is not a great experience on mobile. Improvements are incoming as we will link to this training/game from Isidore and use it this fall (2023).

This is a JavaScript solution using the Dragula library for the drag 'n drop functionality, a JSON structure for easy modification of the tasks, and template literals to build the books and shelves. At the moment, there is no internal logic to determine the correct order; order is specified by the JSON structure.

Upon completion of the training, the user can input their name and the jsPDF library will generate a basic certificate with a pixel aesthetic. This can be uploaded as part of the training process to confirm the training was completed.

Repo: https://gitlab.com/dabeeler/call_number_training_game

This project was inspired by and took some design cues from the following projects:

Website Update
April 22, 2023

Welcome to the new www.DavidABeeler.com! I have been meaning to update this website and expand its capability to be more useful and meaningful. From 2019-2023, the website was built with GatsbyJS and hosted on Netlify. Interestingly enough, Netlify acquired GatsbyJS to "accelerate adoption of composable web architecture," which continues the (positive) march towards microservices. Typically, behemoth architectures are undesirable; due to the extreme interconnectivity of all pieces, they are harder to develop, enhance, and maintain. Towards the end of 2022, I started working on a portfolio website for my niece, who is graduating from high school this year … read more

UD Rose Gallery VR Experience
March 20, 2023

As an example of the technology and a peek of what I could create within a short time frame, I set out to incorporate the DeGrazia Madonna, a variety of Mother Mary statues, and the Erma Bombeck Rose Gallery exhibit from 2022 into a virtual reality (VR) experience on the Quest. As a simple art exhibit, I added UI panels for each of the statues and wall clings to describe the piece and recorded voice-over audio. The Rose Gallery was created in Blender, the wall clings were photographed and turned into usable textures, the DeGrazia Madonna was turned into a 3D model using Meshroom, and "The Juggler of Notre Dame" stained glass was modeled in Blender and textured painted from a photograph. The wind/water mill was modeled in Blender based on a course. These assets and models found on Sketchfab were used to create a simple environment in Unreal Engine 5.

Attributions: