I began developing games two years ago and am entirely self-taught.
While not traditionally considered "Aerospace Engineering", I believe the work I've done in game development represents a solid understanding of software and systems engineering experience. When designing tools for myself, I emphasize modular design, abstraction, robustness, and long-term maintainability. These are all skills that translate directly to engineering problem-solving across disciplines. A brief example of this core design philosophy can be seen in the event/trigger architecture I designed and implemented to generalize interactions across gameplay systems:
Event Trigger System (Simplified Overview):
Trigger:
A node that, through the means of its attached method(s), sends a "triggered" signal.
Examples: A Pressure Plate, A Lever, A Button, etc.
Method:
A fundamental detection that a trigger can leverage to know when to emit it's "triggered" signal.
Examples: Area Was Entered, Player Interacted, Health Changed, etc.
Event:
A node that does some sort of event when it receives the "triggered" signal from any of its attached triggers
Examples: A Door Opening, A Particle/Sound Effect Playing, A Platform Moving, etc.
Example:
Consider a button that should be pressed whenever the player:
Interacts with it (presses the interact key while looking at it)
Damages it (with some sort of weapon)
Let's also say we want this button to toggle (open/close) a door whenever it's pressed. Using this system:
A button trigger would be created with internal logic defining its response to a received activation.
The two methods of interest ("Player Interacted" and "Health Changed") would then be attached to the button, defining the button's activation conditions.
This button would then be added as a reference to the list of triggers inside the door to control.
Now, whenever either of the method conditions are met, they will cause the button to emit its "triggered" signal, and the door state will toggle (open or closed).
Conclusion:
More examples of systems I have work designing and implementing are as follows:
Subtitles/Localization
UI Screen Navigation and Design (Mouse vs Controller)
Character Movement/Input State Machines
Rigid Body Interaction and Collision Layering Standards
Inventory Management Systems
Project File Structure Standards
Scene Progression and ID Systems
Scene State Inheritance and JSON File Saving
Documentation of all Systems
Most (if not all) of my development has been done using the Godot Game Engine.
Throughout my time in grad school, I have developed a few code bases while taking relevant courses. I primarily do my work in Python, but have some experience in MATLAB and C/C++. Right now, up on my GitHub, I have made my work for two relevant courses public:
ASEN 6080 - Statistical Orbit Determination
This code primarily consists of numerical Kalman Filtering techniques and filters, both Linearized and Non-Linear.
ASEN 5090 - Intro to GNSS
This code primarily consists of performing GPS Signal Acquisition and Position Solutions using raw data files (RINEX, etc.)
Here is a link to my GitHub.