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| − | ==A Note From the User== | + | =Explanation of Username and Alcumus= |
| − | Everything here is written in third person view. If someone somehow knows me, thinks I forgot something, or wants to add something for some reason, I would prefer that you pm me(this is my page, after all), but if you didn't read this, you were lazy, forgot, or didn't for any reason, that's ok. Note that i am watching this page to know who's been editing it.
| + | When I was in 5th grade, I won 1st place in my grade in the Bergen County Academies Math Competition (now renamed to Joe Holbrook Math Competition), and one of the prizes was a $40 AoPS gift certificate. Back then, I didn't know what AoPS was, so one day, I came onto this site for the first time and browsed the bookstore. I ended up getting Volume 1. Later, I came back and checked out the other sections of the site. I wasn't interesting in classes. Nor did I pay much attention to the forum. But Alcumus, FTW, and the Videos caught my attention. Eventually, I started using my friend's account in order to use Alcumus and play FTW (I could watch the videos without an account). Most of the time I spent on AoPS back then was on Alcumus. I ended up getting redirected to the forum for solutions to many questions, and started exploring the rest of it. At the same time, my friend was also occasionally using Alcumus, but got many questions wrong, lowering the progress and making it harder for me to level up. I decided that it would be for me to start fresh. There was no reset feature back then, so I created my own account. Hence this name. I posted for the first time on the forums two days later. Alcumus is a very motivational math platform to help encourage math. |
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| − | ==About==
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| − | AlcumusGuy is a 6th grader that lives in New Jersey and is still pending membership into the New Jersey Usergroup. Being excellent at math, he has done well in many competitions, and managed to make it into not only the MathCounts practice sessions after the 1st test, but also the MathCounts competition taking place in February after a whole series of tests. Note that the Computer Programming section is not finished yet.
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| − | ==Competitions==
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| − | ===Bergen County Academies Math Competition (BCAMC)===
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| − | He first tried out in 4th grade. Unfortunately, that was in 2009, the exceptionally hard year, and did terrible (a score less than 30). The next year in 2010, he took the 5th grade test and got 1st place with a score of 45. In 2011, he took the 6th grade test and got 6th place with a score of 35, 5 points away from the first place winner. Nevertheless, he won the game of countdown during the lunch break.
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| − | ===AMC 8===
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| − | This is the first year he took AMC 8, and got a 21. His score qualified for AMC 10 and is currently doing practice problems. He has so far done 1 test and got a score of 105 with 16 correct, 6 unanswered, and 3 incorrect. He is still trying to find a way to convince his mom to let him take AMC 10 this year (if they can find somewhere that offers it) but is out of ideas, except perhaps scoring very good at the practice tests.
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| − | ===CML===
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| − | In 3rd grade, he got 1st place for his school (he does not remember his score). The same happened in 4th grade with a score of 28. In 5th grade, after bombing the first test with a 3, he lost his confidence and the next test scores were as follows: 6 (that one was exceptionally easy), 4, 6, 4. This year in 6th grade, he currently has a perfect score, and is looking forward to Math League, where he scored a 39 on his sample test
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| − | ===MATHCOUTNS===
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| − | His entire school district, which composes of 2 middle schools, is coached by 1 coach: the coach who went to nationals for 2009, 2010, and 2011. As stated above, we first had a entrance test composed of 20 problems in 25 minutes. The cutoff was 10 correct problems. He and his friend were the only 6th graders to get into the practice section this year. Every practice, everyone took a sprint and target round test, and practiced team rounds with reasonable teams and also countdown rounds. Last practice, the coach announced the 10 people (not necessarily the top 10 scorers) that would continue to the February competition (AlcumusGuy thinks that she's skipping the school competition)
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| − | ==Progress in Math==
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| − | AlcumusGuy currently remains the smartest, or knows the most math in his grade. He has been doing math since kindergarten, and started his self-teaching of algebra with a textbook from the public library in 5th grade. Now, he is almost through with Algebra 2, using yet another textbook from the library along with Khan Academy. He is currently using Khan Academy to begin his study of trigonometry.
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| − | ==How He Came to AoPS==
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| − | After getting 1st place for BCAMC in 5th grade, one of his awards was a $40 gift certificate to use on an AoPS book or class. He and his parents didn't know how well the class would be, so they bought a book. He had a big debate with himself whether to get Introduction to Geometry, Introduction to Counting and Probability, or The Art of Problem Solving Volume 1. He ended up buying Volume 1 for certain reasons that will not be explained in this section because this is not the proper section to do so.
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| − | In order to buy the book, he of course had to go to artofproblemsolving.com. After buying the book, he experimented with other features. However, most of them required an account. Suddenly, he remembered his friend (not the one mentioned above) mentioning he had an account here. He shared that account for some time to play FTW and use Alcumus. However, in October (this year), he decided that he wanted an account of his one, so he created one and that's how he came.
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| − | =Hobbies=
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| − | ==Writing a Book==
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| − | AlcumusGuy has always wanted to teach, but not become a teacher as his job. He doesn't want to spend his career as a teacher at school because he would have to teach the same thing over and over again, along with having to attend boring meetings on how to improve teaching styles. However, he has enjoyed helping people with their problems here and there. Unable and not knowing how to find people that may want him to tutor, he has decided to write a book to release the information he knows. He is currently using TeXnicCenter to write a book on Algebra 1 in his style.
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| − | ==Computer Programming==
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| − | After playing computer games for a while, he decided that he wanted to create his own. After trying out many programs and having no idea how to work them, he decided to start smaller with a programming language. He searched up "programming languages for beginners" and one of the results was Python. He downloaded Python, but had no idea how to write scripts or anything. He tried read through a online book, which wasn't much use since he accessed the shell through command line. Then, another one of his friends told him about "a guy from youtube". His friend was learning Objective-C from "the guy" so that he could make I-Phone apps. His friend said "I just searched up Objective-C Tutorials on youtube and a load of results from the same channel came."
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| − | So that day, he went home and tried that to. He first searched up Objective-C tutorials to figure out who was "the guy" his friend was talking about. It turned out that he was Bucky Roberts and owned a youtube channel called thenewboston. He then searched up Python Programming Tutorials, and bam! A whole list of tutorials from thenewboston came out. The tutorials taught him how to access the shell through IDLE, and all the technical stuff about Python.
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| − | One day, he decided to check out Bucky's youtube channel, and the first video on the list was an update video. He decided to watch it, and it talked about Bucky's tutorial plans, how he planned to finish the C++ tutorials then go into game development with Blender 3D and Ogre 3D. He was very excited. This was exactly what he needed. A 3D game engine and a good way to learn it. However, a month later, Bucky said that he changed his mind to teach 3DsMax and UDK instead, because they were the industry standards. He was devastated. He didn't want 3DsMax because he would have to sign up for the Education Community and stuff. And he couldn't get UDK because his graphics card wasn't good enough.
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| − | He decided to learn Blender by other means. He downloaded it, and then went to the tutorials section, and started reading the documentation. It taught a lot, but it was sometimes hard to follow. He went to see if there were any videos, and then he saw Blender Cookie. They had a set of videos to start of beginners, plus others. However, once he finished the beginner videos (there were 8), the other videos seemed very far off to his capability. He went back to the documentation. Today, he stills switches between the two.
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| − | He realized that Ogre3D was based on C++, so he started learning it from Bucky. However, the Ogre documentation wasn't that good, and there wasn't any good tutorials on it. He tried out GameMaker, but it wasn't good for 3D. He tried out Unity, but when he opened it, there was a pop-up on a 30 day free trial (he read somewhere that it was free for all uses) so he closed it.
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| − | This can go on forever so he's going to decide to stop now. Nevertheless, he managed to get a graphics card supporting SM3 later on and when he downloaded UDK, he succeeded! However, when he opened it, it said that his graphics card didn't support "alpha shader with pixel blending" or something like that. His dad suggested he try an older version. He then downloaded the March version from 2010 and it worked. Now he is working on learning it and excited to create his game that he and his friends has planned.
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| − | ===Help Wanted===
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| − | He currently needs people to help with the game. If anyone is interested, please pm AlcumusGuy to learn more. He currently needs people to make 3d objects either with Blender of 3DsMax, help with level editing in the UDK, or make some music to put in the game (perhaps using MuseScore). He also would like people to look over his book and proofread it, and see if they have any suggestions.
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| − | ==Currency==
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| − | AlcumusGuy does not have a defined currency at the moment, but will later on. For now, his currency is simply UC (Unknown Currency)
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| − | ===How to Gain===
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| − | UC are extremely high in value, and are not so easy to get. One way to get some is to help out with his game. Other ways include winning his tournament, or even participating when people are in need.
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| − | ===How to Spend===
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| − | In the future, you will be able to use them to gain an advantage in his games, and maybe a *very very small* advantage in his tournaments. He is planning to open a shop later on for CSS styles so you can spend UC there as well, but it's currently free as he's very bored. He currently wants to make some CSS but has no clue what to make.
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