Overall Experience:

It was not easy if I’m being honest. To code for at least 1 hour everyday for 100 days is not a easy challenge. There are many things that come up in someone’s life in a 100-day-span which makes it difficult to not take a day off. On top of that I tried to be an overachiever and forced myself to produce more tangible results everyday which kept me a bit more focused. Overall though, I think I could have performed much better but I am grateful for the experience, and so here’s the story.

Initial Plan:

I had previously failed all my other attempts to complete the challenge. It sucks to say, but, I had at best gotten up to about day 50 and then just lost my way. The problem during those attempts was that I did not have clear goals for the challenge. Without clear goals, I could not measure my progress besides the daily time commitment. Inevitably I lost my motivation and started making excuses like “I’ll make up for it tomorrow, no big deal.”

So I zeroed in on a plan for this attempt. I had three main goals and one bonus goal for this challenge.

1. Update my website (portfolio) / start a blog – DONE
2. Build at least one Machine Learning project – KINDA
3. Restart in making weekly YouTube Coding videos – FAILED
4. BONUS: Produce visible results from my daily work. Don’t just tweet – share a picture or a video or something.

Highlights:

During this challenge I accomplished a decent amount.

I learned:

1. How to animate webpages using the Greensock JavaScript framework.
2. How to code in Python.
3. How to use Data Science principles and Python Data Science libraries:
   1. NumPy
   2. Pandas
   3. Matplotlib
   4. Seaborn
4. How a Neural Network(NN) works and wrote my own NN Code for the first time

I completed:

1. A bunch of small GreenSock animations
2. Two freeCodeCamp certifications on Python and Data Science
3. Building a new blog website
4. A new YouTube video about one of my animations (It’s ‘meh’ tbh)
5. A bunch of new graphic art pieces just to keep me mentally balanced during the process

Challenges:

Every journey has it’s bumps and I had my fair share over these past 100 days. There were 3 main challenges I faced during the journey. I struggled to find balance in my work, I struggled accepting failure during my coding, and I struggled figuring out what to do next to meet my goals when there wasn’t a clear path.

In reality I always code for more than an hour a day for work but I didn’t want to share any of my work projects for this challenge since it felt too easy. I wanted each day to be focused on my learnings separate from work. That way I can share everything I am working on without privacy concerns. With that being said, I tried to do too much each day. I would set daily goals and outcomes but found that I was trying to do too much. I kept moving the goal posts. I did not have much time to workout or relax. I was just constantly on the computer. I realized I was going to burnout so I set some rules. I can code for a max of 3 hours a day for the challenge. If I wanted to code more I needed to do something else before I could come back to my computer. It helped me come back the next day hungry for more.

I would fail A LOT, make tons of mistakes and feel dissatisfied with my progress. I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling but it really hit me hard. I felt like I just wasn’t doing enough. Ultimately, I never really got over this and I still feel this way. I eventually ended up accepting being somewhat of a failure. As long as I am making some amount of progress each day I can live with being a failure. I can eventually fail my way into a bigger success if I just keep working hard.

I started my journey towards Machine Learning from near 0. I had no idea what I needed to get there. I started off with what many recommended – learning Python. I continued on the recommend paths until I got stuck. I had followed tutorials but when you get to real projects tutorials aren’t much help. In the open water of real-life projects you need more than just structured lessons. I lacked that, and finding the next logical step in my learning process was tough. I eventually came to understand that knowledge is derived from asking questions and finding the answers to those questions. Once I learned how to ask the right questions on Google, I was able to keep moving forward on my learning journey. I am currently studying Recurrent Neural Networks for a ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ robot project. I never thought I would get here so soon so now I just need to get it done. Step by step with the right questions and Answers.

So What’s Next:

Since I left a lot on the table from the last challenge I will be diving back in. I took today to reflect on the challenge and I will be starting again from day 1 tomorrow. Just like last time I have 3 goals.

1. I want to continue working on my artificial intelligence studies and complete the machine learning certificate with freeCodeCamp. Following that I want to further improve my knowledge on the subject and work towards building some of my dream projects (Shhhh… I can’t share those yet – It’s a secret).
2. I want to work on an open source project for the first time. I will very likely contribute to freeCodeCamp and Inkscape since they are both two open source platforms that I have significantly benefitted from.
3. I want to figure out how to better improve my video editing and make some YouTube videos. I would be really happy if making videos becomes a regular part of my week since I failed in that regard in the last challenge.

If you have gotten this far – Thank you all for reading. Until next time…