Introduction
Hello, I’m Jacob Zierolf. This past year, I’ve explored the world of coding through both structured coursework and hands-on project work. I’ve had the opportunity to apply my skills in real-world settings and collaborate with a team to bring useful applications to life.
This blog documents my key project(s), highlights how I’ve grown as a developer, and provides stats and artifacts from my year-long coding journey.
Key Interests & How Coding Intersects
I’m passionate about using technology to improve people’s lives. Whether it’s making healthcare data more accessible or designing user-friendly experiences, coding allows me to turn ideas into practical tools.
One of my strengths is flexibility — I can quickly adapt and contribute where the team needs me. I’ve worked across front-end, back-end, and deployment tasks, learning new skills along the way.
Favorite Project: MediPulse
MediPulse is a healthcare insights platform that empowers patients to make informed hospital choices.
My Contributions:
- Helped design and implement the front-end user experience
- Supported the back-end development and deployed the API on Cockpit (AWS)
- Worked on integrating social media optimization for San Diego hospital YouTube channels
- Contributed to the hospital analysis feature with interactive dashboards
Teamwork Highlight:
My flexibility allowed me to contribute across multiple parts of the stack — wherever the team needed extra support.
Homework Success & Certification
Over the course of the year, I successfully completed a full sequence of coding assignments and homework projects.
Key accomplishments:
Completed all required AP CSP homework tasks
Contributed to team project codebases
Practiced and applied concepts such as backend api, gathering and organizing data, deployment, and UI/UX design
This consistent effort has built my confidence and competence as a developer.
| Category | How I Practiced It |
|---|---|
| Software Engineering Practices | Planned project features with teammates; used Google Docs for checklists; tracked progress via GitHub Projects; wrote commented, readable code; contributed to help documentation on GitHub. |
| Software Development Lifecycle | Used GitHub for source control; forked and branched repos; built and tested components locally and in cloud environments; created pull requests; participated in PR reviews and merged code. |
| Retrospective Engineering Practices | Presented project (MediPulse) during N@tM and on LinkedIn; conducted live reviews with teammates; demoed project features; participated in code reviews; revised project plan as we progressed. |
| Data Types | Used numbers, strings, booleans in Python and JavaScript; worked with arrays, JSON objects in APIs; used SQLite tables for structured data storage and retrieval. |
| Operators | Performed string operations for display and formatting; used mathematical operations in data analysis and visualizations; used boolean expressions in control logic. |
| Control Structures | Wrote loops (iteration), if/else statements (conditions), nested conditions in both Python and JS; used try/except for error handling in Python; practiced .then/.catch for promises in JS/Node.js. |
| Input/Output | Used HTML5 input fields in project front-end; validated user input; manipulated DOM using JavaScript to create dynamic user experiences. |
| Classes | Wrote Python classes to organize data and functionality; created methods; instantiated and used objects; called methods with parameters and handled return values in both Python and JS. |
| Deployment Practices | Learned and applied DNS configuration for project deployment; used Docker and docker-compose for containerization; configured nginx to serve the deployed app through AWS Cockpit. |
Homework Success & Certification
Over the course of the year, I completed a wide range of coding lessons and homework assignments as part of AP CSP. Here is a list of the key homework topics I worked on:
Big Idea 5
- Beneficial / Harmful Effects (Due: 3/21/2025)
- Digital Divide (Due: 3/24/2025)
- Computing Bias (Due: 3/26/2025)
- Crowdsourcing (Due: 3/26/2025)
- Legal / Ethical Concerns (Due: 4/1/2025)
- Safe Computing (Due: 4/3/2025)
Big Idea 3
- Binary Search Algorithm (Due: 4/8/2025)
- Lists and Filtering Algorithm (Due: 4/9/2025)
- Simulation/Games and Random Algorithms (Due: 4/21/2025)
- Big O and Algorithm Efficiency (Due: 4/22/2025)
- Undecidable Problems, Graphs + Heuristics (Due: 4/24/2025)
- Binary Base 2 Math + Logic Gates (Due: 5/2/2025)
- Color Codes/Images/Base64 (Due: 5/6/2025)
By completing these homeworks on time and participating actively in group work, I demonstrated both technical understanding and strong collaboration skills.
Project Showcasing
We showcased our project on our LinkedIn pages, allowing it to reach a broader professional audience and demonstrating our ability to communicate project impact to others.
GitHub Participation: Stats & Artifacts
I contributed actively to our GitHub repositories through:
- Issues (bug tracking and feature suggestions)
- Pull Requests (PRs)
- Commits (code contributions)
Conclusion
This year has been an incredible learning experience. Through building MediPulse, completing homework assignments, and showcasing my work publicly, I’ve grown as a developer and as a teammate.
I look forward to applying these skills in future projects and continuing to explore new technologies.
Next Steps
Improve linkedin page and attempt to make more connections