Senior Series: The Senior Project – An HRA senior combines his love of computer science and history
Pursuing independent study has been a tradition for Hampton Roads Academy students. While Senior Projects are a requirement for graduation it is also an opportunity for students to learn about a subject that sparks their curiosity, passion or interest. In this Senior Series we will highlight unique, impactful and fun projects from this year’s senior class.
A junior class ‘Wow Factor’ assignment inspired Henry Waddill’s senior project. For his ‘Wow Factor’ for Ms. Speece’s AP English Titanic Project Henry decided to use his Computer Science class knowledge to create a rough Java program that could convert Morse Code into letters and vice versa. During the project presentation at the Mariners’ Museum, Mr. Mark Arduini, Mariners’ Museum’s Manager of Public Programs, was especially interested in Henry’s project and asked to feature it in a Civil War based event, “The Battle of Hampton Roads,” which took place in March 2018 at the museum. This interest gave Henry the idea to continue his work on the converter for his Senior Project.
During the first semester of Henry’s senior year, he took an independent study on website building and learned HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), JavaScript, and CSS (Cascading Stylized Sheets). He used his new knowledge to translate the original Java converter program to JavaScript and created a user-friendly HTML page which included sound functions allowing the user to listen to the Morse Code.
Henry did run into a couple of obstacles along the way. American Morse Code was used during the Civil War but his program only converted International Morse Code. He worked with Mr. Arduini to create an option to convert with International or American Morse Code but because American Morse Code included spaces in the letters the program could not differentiate between the two Morse Codes. After many attempts to correct the issues, they decided to move forward with the International Morse Code converter only.
During the weekend of “The Battle of Hampton Roads” event Henry’s International Morse Code converter was on display. He and Cindi Verser, Mariners’ Museum Collections Management Specialist and Morse Code aficionado, answered questions about Morse Code and let guests experiment with the old and modern machines. Henry’s converter is currently on www.battleofhamptonroads.com under the “Morse Code” tab, and the Mariners’ Museum plans to integrate it into the main website.
During the first semester of Henry’s senior year, he took an independent study on website building and learned HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), JavaScript, and CSS (Cascading Stylized Sheets). He used his new knowledge to translate the original Java converter program to JavaScript and created a user-friendly HTML page which included sound functions allowing the user to listen to the Morse Code.
Henry did run into a couple of obstacles along the way. American Morse Code was used during the Civil War but his program only converted International Morse Code. He worked with Mr. Arduini to create an option to convert with International or American Morse Code but because American Morse Code included spaces in the letters the program could not differentiate between the two Morse Codes. After many attempts to correct the issues, they decided to move forward with the International Morse Code converter only.
During the weekend of “The Battle of Hampton Roads” event Henry’s International Morse Code converter was on display. He and Cindi Verser, Mariners’ Museum Collections Management Specialist and Morse Code aficionado, answered questions about Morse Code and let guests experiment with the old and modern machines. Henry’s converter is currently on www.battleofhamptonroads.com under the “Morse Code” tab, and the Mariners’ Museum plans to integrate it into the main website.
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