Wins… and go!
Win this week, literally a win… I finally won a game of mario party! (I’m notoriously bad at the mini games… and rolling… and just general awareness of the board.) So I finally won a game.
Otherwise - built some fun little simple dashboard tool for general use:
This is just random data, but if I can stuff the data into a python dict it just works.
I’ve got several weekly wins to combine since I haven’t posted in a while
First: I got done with a hugely annoying project at work. I had to sort through these coin cell batteries one at a time to organize them by chemistry. It’s so they can be properly recycled.
Second weekly win: I started drumming. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for several years now. When I was a kid I wanted to either play piano or drums. I never liked piano so I’m really glad I picked up the drums.
Finally, my own cute animal gif:
edit: I found one from 2015 as well!! I’m really excited to have three of them, it’s gonna be so cool.
Funny things happen when FRC teams end up at together at school board convention. Thanks 5119 for coming up with this idea😅
Actually last week, but forgot to share. I’m engaged! 
Didn’t really get any engagement photos due to circumstances, so have this one of my fiancee with Gizmo (who is adjusting very well to inside life outside of going a tad rough on my hand’s thin flesh at times during play, but that’s correctable in time)
My fiancee has also been feeding my recent Dresden Files obsession with a series of “early Christmas Presents” to round out my Dresden Files Books as well as some of Jim Butcher’s other works. (These won’t stay like this, just moved them all to one shelf for the photo)
It’s been a rough week for me at college, but I got to go to the IDKHow concert tonight! It was incredible!
Aaand this just reminded me to check the current status of Twelve Months… oooh 80%.
I survived my first week of finals and have all but one of them done.
Went to my colleges tree lighting event, as well as the finals breakfast where they had pancake artists! Here are some me and my friends got
Mostly just been surviving this week, I’m home for break on Monday so I’m excited for that
Busy busy week at work
One of my clients from my former job likes my system and customer support enough that they want me to support it going forward even while im at a completely different company from when I made it. I’m working on the support contract, but I’ll get to go back and improve/revamp one of my favorite projects again.
The original project was a collaboration between my current employer and my former so one of the two companies would be responsible for it either way, but I’m glad it’s sticking with me.
I got sent out to a different customer site twice this week to help with training and PLC integration. I love talking with the controls/engineering people at these plants. They have lots of info, tips and tricks to make things work day to day in their environment. I also like getting to see behind the scenes of the manufacturing process for a bunch of the tier 1/tier 2 auto suppliers. Getting to work out in the field is always a fun break from my desk back at the office.
Finally this week we got all of the indoor Christmas decorations done, but something is wrong with our tree lights. When they were left on for more than an hour we started to smell a burning plastic smell. I couldn’t find a hotspot precisely after we disconnected it, so we will undecorate the tree today and replace it with new better lights. So my win is we were vigilant and didn’t burn our house down!
Sort of a “back up” win. There are 5 California regionals with open space (according to frc-events). Even week 4 and 5 (not YOU Sacramento, you’re actually week 3). So my team has in-state options if we don’t get a waitlist invite soon.
Big progress with Pairwise, slowly getting things integrated with api calls^ for the pick-list-work-space - effectively the ability to have live cards for the teams at an event to drag around, sort, query, search through notes/tags, add your own data to the cards, visualize (plots to see if you missed something 
), tweak, create flowcharts/decision trees (hopefully) etc, etc, etc.
All this is in the name of reducing scouting system complexity. I am trying not to compete with the data collection apps out there, (except for my very niche qualitative ranking stuff) but I want teams that can only spare 2 people for scouting or teams that are new to the whole thing to be up and running in minutes and take the labor out of the process somewhat. Basically I want a free and accessible minimum competitive baseline for that fusion and organization. I want as much to be mobile friendly as makes sense as well.
Beyond that I have been slogging through a massive data processing task that needs some babysitting at work… somewhere around 25% done. Most of the “work” is just keeping an eye on things, but I have streamlined a bit of the process to remove chances for human error in file naming and parameters. just a small thing, but it is nice to just “keep an eye” rather than actively manage parts of it.
Oh and I got access to the HPC resources I requested!
^(Thanks for the accessible data TBA and Statbotics!)
yooo i have all 3 of those books (2006, 2007, 2015)! great reads.
my win this week is i acquired a blahaj (IKEA shark) which is basically the mascot of the trans community.
also the shirt i am wearing is from 1519.
Got our 2023 robot working again, just needed a new Rio as we stripped the old one after the one in 2024 died during States.
Also finished our Mock Kickoff of 2022, the most surprising design was quite literally a cannon powered by surgical tubing.
Also just finished the first draft of my Math IA, which I will eventually share the results of here after I graduate, but the basic conclusion is that Regionals are bad.
I’ve been messing around with simulation stuff and actually getting things to happen which is fun.
Just got back from volunteering at an FTC qualifier in Huntsville. I always love seeing what the teams cook up I’m always so impressed.
Got the highest grade in my class on my AP macro test (a 66 ). Our teacher is being very gracious with test corrections thankfully.
I’m working on another (non-FRC-related) PCB design that will eventually be sold in a product my good friend is designing. I made some significant changes from the first prototype, and it’s looking a lot better (although I’m not super excited about spending another $200 on prototypes of the new board. If anyone has recommendations for a PCBA company that does low MOQ, please lmk!).
Through talking with him on the product design side, and changing the PCB, I’ve learned actually a decent amount about designing for aesthetic purposes, which isn’t something I’d had to care about for FRC. It’s very interesting how something like bolts may make a design look good or bad depending on if they appear to be haphazard, or placed with intention.
Of course, I have a midterm coming up, but after that its Thanksgiving! I’ll be visiting some family in DC and I’m excited to see the Air and Space Museum.
Applied for college, which I’ll take as a win at this point haha!!
I had a great time yesterday volunteering at an FTC competition. As co-emcee it was my first time serving in such a large role.
Although it was a bit stressful not being fully accustomed to the process, it went pretty well, and people seemed to think I did a decently good job.
Also, whenever I would speak, in my head I would instead hear the voice of @Bgraham111 saying the words instead.
Ultimate Frisbee team just won the state championship for I think the first time!!
