Blog

I thought as a good chunk of this year was spent playing with AI technologies, text, audio, images and even video. I asked ChatGPT 4 to write the rest of this post for me, so here it goes:

As the curtain falls on another year, it's a perfect opportunity to pause, look back, and reflect on the past twelve months. Each year is packed with its unique blend of surprises, trials, triumphs, and essential learnings, radically shifting our lives in ways we often can't predict at the start. The vibrancy, resilience, and adaptability shown this year will be remembered as some of the key highlights. It has been a year where we have been nudged to redefine our 'normal,' broadening our perspectives, and reminding us all of the transience of things we always thought were stable.

As we stand on the brink of the forthcoming year, our hearts are filled with hope and a head full of ambitions. The fresh start comes with a clean slate and a bundle of endless possibilities to paint ou...
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Over December I purchased myself two Maker Advent Calendars from The Pi Hut, The 12 Projects of Codemas and Let it Glow each came with 12 days so combining the two means I had a full 24 days advent calendar.

Both of the calendars come with a Raspberry Pi Pico H and contain several electronic components each day, I won't spoil what was inside but it was a lot of fun to have a different electronics project ea...
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Unfortunately due to a knee injury I have had to temporarily suspend my steps. I still intend to walk whenever I am able. I appreciate every penny that has been raised so far for a wonderful charity and while I may have to extend the challenge by a few days to make up for lost time, I still intend to complete to the best of my ability.
I will continue to keep this page updated with my progress.
Thank you, Sam

I'm taking on Mind's 10,000 steps a day in October challenge.

Now more than ever, people struggling from mental health problems need our support. In the UK, 1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem this year. Mind needs your help so that they can be there for anyone who needs them, on the phone, in local communities and campaigning for change.

Please support my 10,000 steps a day challenge by donating to my fundraiser. You donation will help to make sure that information and support is available for everyone - on Mind's website, the helplines they run and through their online community, Side by Side.

Thank you.

Donate here: https://fundraising.samkemp.me/...
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Continuing my work at Person Centred Software, a UK-founded but expanding technology company specialising in the healthcare sector.
I have moved from working on the support desk to a personally much more exciting and stimulating role as a QA Specialist, still working with the Atlas eMAR suite of products, where I am now responsible for testing any new software releases as well as helping to develop automation tools to streamline our workflows.

I officially started today, Monday the 26th of September with a slow transition to my new role only doing 2 days a week QA the rest on support but with every other week, I will be moving another day onto my QA role until by Monday the 7th of November I will be full time on my new QA role.

After only working here for a little over a month, Atlas eMAR has been purchased by Person Centred Software off of Invatech Health.
This will be a big move but luckily I am here for the ride as Person Centred Software is also bringing along staff members who had previously been working for Atlas eMAR at Invatech Health so while under new management the transaction will hopefully be as smooth as possible.

Person Centred Software's blog post about the acquisition: ATLAS eMAR joins Person Centred Software's family of products

I have started working at Invatech Health, a UK-based technology company specialising in the healthcare sector.
I am working for the Atlas eMAR side of the business taking inbound calls and support requests from customers and providing them with prompt, efficient assistance.

For a while, I have been making bots for the popular VoIP, instant messaging and digital distribution platform Discord.

Most of the bots have been relatively simple, however, over the last couple of days I have worked on making a Music Bot that joins a voice channel and plays the audio from a specified YouTube video. It also has functionality for queues, skipping and stopping the audio.

More information about my bots can be found here https://samsdiscordbots.co/

Sitel, a worldwide customer service company, have not renewed my contract as a Community Admin for NHS Test and Trace.
Due to the combined efforts of everyone working for the NHS, in both front line and Test and Trace roles, as well as the country working through the virus the Test and Trace campaign at Sitel is coming to an end and thus slowly reducing the workforce. I was unfortunately in one of the first groups to be let go.

Continuing my work at Sitel, a worldwide customer service company.
I have moved from an Outbound Caller for NHS Test and Trace to a Community Admin, also for NHS Test and Trace, where I am now responsible for assisting the Outbound Callers with difficult cases as required.

I have started working at Sitel, a worldwide customer service company.
I am working for the NHS Test and Trace side of the business making outbound calls to those who are directly affected by the Covid-19 virus

Working with my friend over at TWIISTED STUDIOS I have created a website to pull random things from the website Thingiverse.

You can view the website here: https://thingiverserandomizer.com/


This was partly inspired by the scourge that is the random and newest pages that are provided by the site. They are full of Customized things however with this randomizer you can filter them out, for the most part.

Today I decided to make my own simple 2 Factor Authentication system using the IFTTT webhooks system to send a code to my phone, in future I wish to modify this to use my own notification system but this is the first version so I made it easier for myself by using another library for the time being.

Quick Code Breakdown
The code for this is rather simple for now, PHP generates a random number and saves it in a session.
After the code is saved to the session we then send it to the IFTTT webhook which sends the code to my phone where we input the received code onto the page and another script checks the code against the saved one, if they match then we allow the user into the site, if not we redirect back to the login page.

A quick side note: This system does not impliment any actual username/password login system it is just the 2 factor part

Along with my friend I am working to turn a spare room in my dorm into a penetration testing suite.
Currently in the suite we are running a TP Link router to act as an admin interface for managing the network and then an old Netgear/Virgin Media router, A Virgin Media SuperHub, a BT Home Hub 3 and two more TP Link routers for testing WiFi.
Moving down in the image we have a chromebook, which is my daily driver laptop, a monitor that we plan to use to monitor the network with the help of a Raspberry Pi and a Macbook Pro which we had lying around and intend to use as a client for connecting to networks and testing for security flaws and injection.
Some of the future plans for this suite include adding a server of some kind running VM’s of various software, Windows, Linux, Apache, etc to check for vulnerabilities and to avoid accidentall...
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I started working on this site on the stream and really liked the design, it came to the morning and I was looking at the design again and decided I didn't like it anymore so its scrapped

The Chameleon Game is a website I made that is a version of The Chameleon Board Game by Big Potato Games that makes it possible to play the game without having to be in the same room, aka playing over Discord.

Due to some unforseen cercumstances I have had to change my project and move to something non-VR. This is annoying because it means I have less time to produce my game however I am determined to produce something I am happy with and I plan to go back to my VR project in future in my own time when I am able as I really like the concept.

My new design idea is to make a top-down local multiplayer tank game where players want to be the last man standing.
This game concept would work really well on console as a party game.

Overview

Assault of Democracy is a first person VR game where the player has to protect their stockpile from other survivors of the apocalypse who are all fighting for resources. Assault of Democracy takes gameplay inspiration from Robo Recall (Robo Recall, 2019) and Raw Data (Raw Data, 2016) and an art style taken from games like The Last of Us (The Last of Us, 2013).

USP’s

Engaging
Intuitive gameplay/controls
Immersive

Technical Outline

The biggest technical issue I expect to face while developing Assault of Democracy is making the game VR as I have not created a VR game before and I will have to learn a brand new SDK and different techniques as the game will have to run at a high frame rate.
My final obstacle is that I have a tendency to burn myself out which I will have to overcome by forcing myself to stop working after periods of time.

Asset List

Tools/Programs
Unity3D (Unity3D,...
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This Bastion skin from Overwatch matches the theme of the game in a post-apocalyptic environment that is overgrown and getting a bit rusted/dated.
Also from Overwatch I want my weapons to be a similar style to the guns used in the Overwatch universe, the example above is from the character Mercy.


I am also taking inspiration from The Last of Us a game set within a zombie apocalypse. The art and feel of the game is the style I am after with this project as it really shows off the decrepit nature of a world that has been abandoned in a hurry. Another example of this is the real life setting of Pripyat which is a town in the northern U...
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As part of my university course, I have to create a game based around the theme: reclaimed while posting regular dev blogs and sticking to scheduled milestones.

My initial idea for the game is to make some kind of post-apocalyptic shooter taking inspiration from games such as Overwatch, Left4Dead 2 and The Last of Us.

Almost a year ago I created this website. In December 2018 I added this blog feature and finally I have added a backend for the blog so I can add new posts quickly and easily.
Some credit for my new backend goes to TinyMCE who make a rich text editing platform for websites. Using this editor I am able to embed images, tables and many other objects into the posts quickly and easily.

My new business cards arrived today, they came out amazing.
The metal finish really brings them to life, to go along with them I also received some products for an upcoming project which I can't wait to reveal in future!

My contract at SizzleCreative has come to an end and I will hopefully be moving on to something new soon.

I have started working at SizzleCreative, a Manchester based creative advertising agency, specialising in advertising, graphic design and web design.
As a Junior Web Developer, I will be responsible for small web-based jobs such as fixing broken sites and adding contact forms.

Sacred Aftermath is a game made in 30 hours, as a solo project, during the 2018 GameJam at the University of Bolton.

God Won't Let You is a game made in 32 hours, as a group, during the 2017 GameJam at the University of Bolton in aid of Special Effect.
As well as working on the game I was also responsible for making the website and online leaderboard system.

Hacked Website is a small website that shows the anonymous motto using javascript to make the text slowly appear.

Unix Epoch Time is a small website that uses JavaScript to change the background color based on the current time.

Golf is a game I made after playing alot of Golf With Your Friends and wanting to try my hand at my own version.

FirstPersonPool is a game made as part of my college course whilst learning how to use Unity.