Edward Quicksall...
... knew since high school that he wanted to go into Computer Science – his father is a programmer, too. Now, Edward just completed a team project in which he worked on designing a new swipe-card access system for some of the laboratories on campus.
In his senior design class, Ed collaborated with a group of students to solve a problem set up by the Department: create a swipe-card access system that would recognize SVSU’s student identification cards, and allow access to a computer lab on campus only to appropriate students, and to lock the door for new entries once the lab’s closing time had passed.
“The hardest part was that we had to write the program to work with a variety of different doors that were essentially made differently,” Edward explained. “We got it to work though, and we learned a lot about the need for effective communication while working as a team.”
Professor Scott James, who assigned the project, is now working with the University and its Information Technology Services division to permanently install Edward’s work on campus.
“Professor James is definitely my favorite professor – he has great industry experience, and he is in-tune to what’s going on the world of computers. He teaches on a practical level that students can understand.”
Ed is also President of SVSU’s chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a national professional-level organization. The group hosts an annual programming contest for area high schools, and the members have the chance to serve as judges in the competition.
While attending classes, Edward divides his time between part-time two part time jobs. He works in SVSU’s Programming Lab, and also at Mahar Tool Supply Company, where he performs such duties as maintaining the servers, building laptops and PCs, and providing support to the company’s 120 employees.