Field notes

The macro pad began with one client's limited mobility and rheumatoid arthritis, but the design questions were broader: How much force should an input require? How precise must a movement be? Can the control be understood without explanation, and will it activate reliably every time?

Large targets, low-force switches, clear feedback, wireless operation, and configurable actions reduced effort without making the device narrowly specialized. Debouncing and calibrated thresholds mattered as much as the enclosure; accessibility fails quickly when an easy-to-press control is not also predictable.

The Q-Arm gripper had to create useful clamping force from limited motor torque, stay below a 100 g end-effector allowance, and be manufactured with 3D printing and laser cutting. A 4:1 gear reduction traded speed for force, while opposed racks kept the two jaws moving together.

The first physical parts revealed what the CAD model could not: printed gears need clearance, long rack supports flex, layer direction changes strength, and extra material must be placed where loads travel rather than added everywhere. We widened support geometry, adjusted fits, and kept parts simple to orient, print, replace, and test.

HTTP-PyServer started below the abstraction layer used by most web projects: open a TCP socket, bind it to an address, listen for connections, read bytes, and turn an HTTP request into structured data. From there, route matching selected a Python function and response code serialized status, headers, and a body back onto the connection.

Implementing those steps with Python's standard library made the protocol feel concrete. Thread-per-connection handling introduced concurrency; sessions and caches introduced shared state and expiry; TLS introduced another layer around the socket. It also exposed why production servers spend so much effort on malformed input, partial reads, path safety, timeouts, and load.

A quick look at the first-place hackathon project: recorded audio becomes a transcript, then concise BERT-powered notes.

Coverage of our autonomous FIRA race car after a first-place national finish and before the world competition.

I made a small series of one-minute videos about decorators, generators, lambdas, unpacking, custom exceptions, Flask APIs, and React. It was a fun way to practise explaining technical ideas without overcomplicating them.

A short walkthrough for hosting a React project on GitHub Pages. I made it because deployment had confused me before, and I wanted to leave behind the simple explanation I would have found useful.