Ryan Finlayson

Ryan Finlayson

Software Engineer

About

A highly motivated and enthusiastic Software Engineer with five years combined industrial experience in Cyber Security and Advertising Technology (Ad Tech). Team leader of the Atmosphe.RED software engineering project in co-operation with UCL and IBM. Also a member of the team of four who built an award-winning Android application hosted by the British Computer Society (BCS).

I thrive off challenges and aim to work to the best of my ability; inspiring others to work to their full potential. In my free time I enjoy building applications, experimenting with projects (available on my GitHub) and conducting research to hone my software development skills. This includes studying design patterns to develop robust systems.

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Achievements

Here is a gallery of some of my recent achievements.

University of West London

BSc (Hons) Computer Science
A major project of the computing club at the University of West London is the development of two types of mobile applications: native and hybrid.
Winner of the "The Heathrow Innovation Award – Awarded to the highest achieving student with a home address in the 5 boroughs surrounding Heathrow (Ealing, Slough, Spelthorne, Hillingdon or Hounslow)"
I was a part of the team of four who won the BCS West London Android Application competition 2017. Our rivals were other Universities within the West London area, including Brunel and Westminster University.
I submitted two posters for the University of West London Research Showcase 2018. Very happy to have received the first place prize for the MyPocketSkill project.

University College London (UCL)

MSc Software Systems Engineering
Improving verbal communication using IBM’s Watson and Node-RED The aim of this project is to develop a progressive web application (PWA) to assist the communication of users with speech impairments. Instead of typing a full sentence, users can type or select a keyword and sentences are generated for them. The Node-RED flow creates sentences from relevant social networks such as tweets (from Twitter) which are filtered by IBM’s Watson for content and tone. The project is supported by IBM and has been published in the UCL Student Showcase 2019 Book of Abstracts (pg.30 - 31).
Visit our IBM Watson Progressive Web Application here.
UCL MSc Software Systems Engineering Final Project with IBM (IBMMind) - Atmosphe.RED Project Atmosphe.RED is a Node-RED library that acts an an intermediary between game engines and Consumer-based Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. Tested with the two most powerful game engines on the planet: Unity and Unreal. Atmosphe.RED games developed using these engines work with IoT devices such as Philips Hue and Amazon Echo. FHIR integration also allows games to work with Fhirbase.
IBM Festival of Innovation 2019 at IBM Lab Hursley! We demonstrated our master's final group project, Atmosphe.RED, in association with UCL and IBM. Atmosphe.RED is a Node-RED powered game library which allows game engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine to work with IoT devices (Philips Hue, Amazon Echo) to provide an immersive experience for users.

Projects

SpaceBlaster

[C++]
SpaceBlaster Game img
One of my greatest programming achievements is the PC game SpaceBlaster, a retro-themed 2D side-scrolling game coded in the programming language C++. The game was coded from scratch, and consists of a variety of sprites, animation and cool music. The game is still currently in development. It features challenging obstacles, a boss battle, power-ups, audio and more.

Unity Projects

[C# | Unity]
Unity Logo img
Click here to view some of my Unity Projects.

Spotify Web App

[Go| HTML | JS | CSS]
Spotify Web App img
I built a Spotify Web Application that consists of a HTML/JS/CSS frontend and a Go backend. The application utilises the Spotify Web API with a Golang wrapper. The use of RESTAPIs allows the program to function efficiently, providing users the ability to search for artists, albums and tracks. The application is currently hosted on Heroku.

Go Star App

[Go| HTML | JS | CSS]
Go Star App img
I built an Astronomy Application that consists of a HTML/JS/CSS frontend and a Go backend. The application uses the NASA API, WikiSky API and the Aladin Sky Atlas. The application allows users to search for any star or constellation and view them. One of the most important features is the apps ability to retrieve the most recent Mars Rover images. The application is currently hosted on Heroku.

Go Mountains

[Go | ReactJS | MongoDB Atlas]
GoMountains img
Built a full-stack application from scratch. The app allows users to view mountains and their attributes. App consists of a Go API back-end and a ReactJS front-end (both currently hosted on Heroku). API allows users to perform CRUD operations and interact with the data saved in MongoDB Atlas.

Mountain API

[Go | Heroku]
Rapid API img
Developed a mountain API in Go, hosted it on Heroku and published it on Rapid API. This is the same API I use for the 'GoMountains' website. The API retrieves information about Earths most interesting mountains, likely providing details such as names, heights, locations, geological features, death zones and climbers.

usePopcorn

[ReactJS | Heroku]
use-popcorn img
Developed a React JS web app to list your favourite TV shows and movies using the omdbapi IMDB API.

Holiday Checklist

[ReactJS | Heroku]
travel checklist img
Developed a React JS web app that allows users to create a checklist of items.

Classy Weather

[ReactJS | Heroku]
travel checklist img
Developed a React JS web app that allows allows users to view the weather of any country of their choice in real-time using geocoding-api.open-meteo API.

Certifications

Here is a gallery of some of my recent certifications.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)

AZ-900 certification
Getting this qualification has helped to cement the core concepts of using Azure for cloud and software engineering. It provided a solid foundation for me to develop as an engineer; equipping me with the skills to design, implement, and maintain cloud-based solutions. All of which are increasingly in demand in today's technology landscape.

Date Acquired: 23rd April 2024