What I've done so far

Hello there! I'm Alperen and I'm 16. As this is my first blog, I'm going to give basic information about myself, and talk about the projects I'm working on as of this blog post. I plan to post more tutorial-like articles as I work more on this blog, but that's just my plan.

What am I interested in?

Coding and making music is a big part of my life. The school isn't open yet, and I'm trying to fill that time up with useful stuff (that are usually fun), instead of boring stuff (that is always boring) like just sitting and doing the summer homework I've been given to do.

I'm learning web site writing and programming these days (and CSS is harder than I expected). Also, I have got a Pokémon ROM hack I'm working on, and I'll cover that in my projects. I'm interested in cyber-security, too but I'm just doing some general research about it. Plus, playing and editing music is something I love to do! (though not professionally by any means.) I really should stop downloading MIDI's and editing them, and my own MIDI's instead. Which, thankfully, I 'll be able to do thanks to an MIDI piano I've found!

What are the projects I am working/have worked on?

In this part, I'll be covering which projects I'm working on or have worked on before.

PaperSecure (Seeds of Future - Garanti Hackathon)

We have a team called "Seeds of Future". As you can tell from our name, our team was assembled last year, and consisted of four people, all of them 15 years old and 9th graders. One thing we did as a team was attending to Garanti Hackathon. Our team did consist of four people (from left to right) Can Erdoğan, Alkın Kaz, Ege Mert Özenir and me!

So what is PaperSecure? PaperSecure is a tool that allows your phone's camera to see the fibers that make the paper, by aligning your phone into a lens. This can map a paper's "paper fingerprint" which we, and scientists, believe is unique to every piece of paper, just like our fingerprints! Then we turn this fingerprint into computer language (hex code of the image -> Base64 -> md5 (WIP)). When the same paper is scanned in another phone, the code summary should be the same. If it isn't, then that means the real document might've been stolen duting the process of delivery.

We won the special jury award and the bluemix award in Garanti Hackathon, and had the chance to meet and network with lots of people.

FRIPA (Intersection Spero - First Lego League)

We had a project called FRIPA in the First Lego League. FRIPA stands for Friendly-Packaging. As you can tell from the name, it is a environmentally friendly way of packaging. But the main role I took at the team (we were 10 people), was the general programmer.

You know, in FLL, along with projects we also design and build robots from pieces of lego and then we program them. To be honest, I wasn't really all that familiar with lego programming, so instead I wrote a game with ROM hacking a Pokémon game. In fact, I wrote two games, one in English and one in Turkish. While I was writing those ROM hacks, I learnt a lot about ASM programming, how MIDI music works and very basic designing. Of course, as an FLL team, we created much much more than some computer games. With our robot and our project FRIPA, we won the nationals, and we got the chance to participate in the Asia Pacific Championship in Australia by winning the second-place in national tournament. Here is a screen shot of Intersection Spero The Game - Version 2. We also won the gracious professionalism award in Australia.

I liked the idea of making a Pokémon game so much, so I started making my own.

Pokémon - Music Mix Version (ROM Hack of Pokémon Fire Red)

I like editing music, so I said "why not hear them in a game I love?". Of course, this was more like a learning project, rather than a full-featured product. It is still in development and I am changing more and more music every day.

So what is the idea? It is basically getting (or ripping) MIDI files from other games (especially Pokémon games) and then editing them to work with this Pokémon game. The game has no story changes, though this might be changed in the future. You can check out current music right here.

Note : Pokémon is intellectual property of Nintendo, The Pokémon Company and Gamefreak.I do not have any relevance to them.

CelebIstanbul (Masters of Code - Mentalistler)

We also attended to another hackathon called "Masters of Code" last year. It is a hackathon from MasterCard and AngelHack. Our project there was called "CelebIstanbul" which we programmed with Unity3d and C#. It was basically a room where you watched a 2-minute film and then answered some questions. If all was answered correctly, you would get a prize such as a $5 gift card to be used in a café.

We were in the list of honorable mentions, and we got a PS4 as an award. We also met with lots of people, most of them working on their on project at Koç Incubation Center.

Website Designing (MSK Kuyumculuk - WIP)

I'm also working on a website for a jewelry shop. There is not much to talk about it, as it is still in development, but as soon as I finish it, I will post it here.

That is it for today. However, if you are interested in Pokémon glitches and music, you can check out more at my second youtube channel. Thanks for taking time and reading!