Resume

Michael Plasmeier's Extracurricular Resume What I Do for the Governor's School Application version and College Applications

Websites

GridView

GridView [1] is an application for Facebook which lets users put all of their friends on their profile and makes a photo mosaic of themselves with their friend’s photos. GridView has over 900,000 users, of which >500,000 use it every month.

I work with a business partner who is a professional in the industry. Using his experience, we are building up GridView by adding new features and seeking optimal monetization strategies. So far, I have already learned much about running a real world business, including managing contractors, and focusing on strategies to increase revenue.

So far with GridView I have worked with an outsourcing firm to build multi-thousand dollar flash application which I designed.

SeniorQuoter

SeniorQuoter [2] is an installable PHP application which lets high school yearbooks streamline their senior quote collection process. SeniorQuoter is freely licensed under the GNU GPL.

In the second quarter of the 2007-08 school year, I lead a group study at my school to instruct 4 students in building dynamic websites with PHP and MySQL. After we learned the skills, we put them to use developing the admin interface for version 2 of SeniorQuoter.

Tecker 911

Tecker 911 [3] is a video podcast which shows ordinary people how technology can help their ordinary lives. Tecker 911 is also shown on Haverford’s local cable public access channel, bringing the show to tens of thousands of people.

Tecker 911 is great community service, since we bring technology education to the both the residents of Havertown (on their televisions), and the world (on their computers and iPods).

Tecker 911 is also great leadership experience for me. The show is shot over the weekend in my living room. I coordinate all of the shoots, equipment, writing, and editing. Tecker 911 has 6 regular contributors.

Tecker

Tecker [4] is a social question and answer service I wrote in PHP during 10th Grade. Although Tecker never caught on with the public, it was very helpful for me in developing my coding skills and researching online communities. The skills I learned working on Tecker have helped me work on GridView and SeniorQuoter.

ThePlaz.com

ThePlaz.com [5] is my main website. It a centralized repository of what I am up to. It also servers as a place to store my smaller projects, such as pure CSS dropdowns for MediaWiki and applications for the TI-83+ calculator. I also post up educational resources which I hope will benefit others.

ThePlaz.com served up more than 80,000 page views in 2007, and has about 4,000 pages of content. I also have over 7,000 of my photos on flickr. Most of my photos and work on ThePlaz.com is licensed under a Creative Commons license, allowing reuse (for non commercial purposes).

Dictionary Robot

Dictionary Robot [6] is an upcoming website which lets students look up multiple words at a time in an online dictionary. This will revolutionize the way students make vocabulary lists. An alpha version of Dictionary Robot is now online.

The Physical World

• I was part of my school’s FIRST robotics team last year, and was one of the few newbies who traveled to the competition in Annapolis, Maryland. This year, I am in charge of the team’s website.
• I am a regular host and contributor to H-Vision, my school’s morning news program. Last year, I was a regular sound engineer for the show. I have since passed this job on to younger members to concentrate on appearing in front of the camera.
• I have many years of theater experience, steaming mostly from my involvement with the Haverford Middle School Theater Co. and People’s Light and Theater Company, a professional theater, in Malvern, PA. In middle school I was the stage manager for the 6th Grade production of Wonderland! with about 100 participants. In 2004, I acted at the Constitution Center in one of the only 2 youth shows ever performed there. Backstage, I volunteer in the lighting department at People’s Light.
• I am also involved with policies regarding technology at my school. I have a deep relationship with the director of technology and the principal of my school. We meet almost every month to discuss upcoming programs and policies. For example, this month I am trying to change Haverford’s policy regarding student brought laptops and PDAs.