This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Anyone into to 3d printing? My A1 mini is arriving tomorrow and I wonder what is the most efficient way to jump into this rabbit hole.
Design your dream house in OpenSCAD, print a 1/64 model of it, and put your favorite 1/64 die-cast car in the driveway.
Which you can also kitbash with 3-D printed bits and guns into a fun post-apocalyptic war rig a la gaslands!
There are also lots of open source miniatures and "create a character" places to make custom miniatures if you play any tabletop RPGs.
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Didn't get a chance to do a lot this week. Any better luck @Southkraut?
Yeah actually, thanks for asking.
I'm slowly getting into a groove, experimenting with Unreal, narrowing down what I'm doing wrong, and correcting it. Still not much to show for it. I refactor a lot to square what Unreal and C++ demand of Code with what I personally consider good code. This - wrangling code itself and seeing it evolve into better shapes with each iteration - I actually enjoy quite a bit. Which may be a bit of a breakthrough; the last months I had to force myself to get acquainted with Unreal, but now I'm at a point where I'm actually looking forward to spending more time on it. It's nowhere near the flow states I used to spend entire days in, but there's less mental resistance and the idea-to-product pipeline is becoming shorter.
Edit: I just realized that Unreal's coordinate system is
And dammit, why can't any two engines use the same? Tomorrow I need to go over my entire (modest) codebase and check every coordinate.
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So in an effort to update my skills and move in on the AI hype I've been doing a MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration project.
I couldn't think of a useful and functional project to do, so I'm building an api into Minecraft and integrating it with Claude Desktop.
So far it's pretty fun. The limits of Claude have been interesting.
There must of have been a huge amount of work fine tuning models to get them to work with images.
I assumed it would be able to complex shape generation by reading a region into a 3d array and modifying it. Claude seems to have a lot of problems manipulating a big chunk of json data like that.
I asked it to generate a small house in front of me, and this is what it gave me: https://imgur.com/a/CDNKm7K
Also it was behind me. It seems to have a lot of trouble understanding the direction I'm facing. There might be a problem with the data I'm sending.
It seems to handle the more simple tasks I built primitives for well. Creating cuboids of a block type, messaging players, finding players, spawning creatures.
Lately I've been trying to Dockerize it for easy deploy. I'm not all that experienced with Java so it's been an adventure. Or Docker really, there must be easier ways to debug Docker failures than what I've been doing.
I'm looking forward to doing a deploy and terrorizing my friends with AI commands. I see potential for it in twitch streams.
Longer term I'd like to introduce some features for better building generation. I kind of assumed that the currently available tools would be more advanced given how fast everything else seems to move. But after reading up on Model Synthesis and Wave Function Collapse it seems like it'll be a ton of work to get anything working.
I can probably get it to spawn in things from .structure files, but that's much more limited than what I was hoping for.
Do you mean Claude Code ? If you're running a mcp/code setup then claude code will perform noticeably better. In absence of Claude code, I'd try to use Cursor's agent mode.
Yeah, large jsons cause context rot
For any transformation, it's always good to write a strategy document and define a few unit-tasks that the model can orchestrate together. For building houses, asking it to write a blueprint or put foundational blocks on first, may work better. If you can break down your primitives further, that's always good. They don't need to be explicit MCP/tool-calls. A simple prompt stuffed reference will do.
Lastly, creating typed intermediate structures with better semantic flow helps. Json schemas are wonky, I like pydantic (java probably has something similar) for creating large structured schemas that can be validated in real time. Pydantic captures the semantics better than json. It also allows the model to make edits deep into a nested dataclass, without fear of a breaking change else where. This way you build out the entire house in the intermediate structure. And then relegate the intermediate representation -> projection task to a post processing step.
As long as we're talking about data structures, please use dataclasses for storing data and raw functions as transformations. We are in the year of the lord 2025, and OOP should not be used.
Don't know your familiarity with coding, but Java isn't a good place to start. I would recommend python, but most times it's good to just go out there and do things. Getting stuck choosing between tools is never productive. So, maybe ignore me.
Ok so coding is the part of this project I know, I'm just not super familiar with all of the Java tooling. Unfortunately Java is a necessity for Minecraft mods. The MCP interface stuff is in Python.
Getting a jar file with dependencies into a working Docker container was more of an adventure than I expected.
Nope, Claude desktop is a thing with MCP support: https://claude.ai/download
Using an IDE with an open project to do things unrelated to that project seemed peculiar so I didn't go down that path. I tried out using the MCP in VSCode and it worked well, although the agent did try to re-write my MCP code when it couldn't initially connect. The downside to Claude desktop was that it didn't let me try other llms.
I wasn't aware of the VSCode support, so that's neat.
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My second draft is well underway. So far I've cut out 18% of the first draft, representing over 15k words - more, actually, as while cutting I've been adding in some details as I go. Would love to have the second draft ready by the end of the month, but it may not be until the end of the first week of August.
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I finally found a few hours to work on Tron LED lights. Only about halfway done doing it for one helmet. I have a lot of bends to do which means cutting the strip into segments and then cutting wires to size and doing 6 solders.
The workflow for each LED strip segment is
Guessing I have 3-4 hours to go.
It seems like convenient connectors exist that can join cut segments of LED strips together. That could speed this up significantly but they seem to add a lot of bulk. So, perhaps out for the bike helmets but maybe for the runs I'm going to add to the bikes or other accessories...
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Over the years, I've begun to develop a moderate interest in leather shoes - the idea of a long-term solution for footwear that, if properly maintained, could provide good use for potentially decades appealed to me a great deal. This appeal, I suspect, was likely driven by being soured over shoe makers turning out very nice shoes that did an excellent job while only lasting a year, tops - only to find that the newer incarnations of the model were far worse than the originals(I'm looking at you, Merrel).
Red Wing came up while researching the matter - how could it not? - and I, being curious, snatched up weird, mystery pair of used Red Wing Irish Setter Moc Toes that served me disturbingly well over two years of hard use doing damn near everything.
Sadly, this wasn't to last - they finally gave up the ghost, and will require submission to a cobbler and a resole(if possible) to continue their use for years to come, which I plan to do so in the future, likely next month, once I've made my choice of cobbler and sole.
But, given all the walking I do, I found myself in a weird situation where I didn't have a pair of walking shoe/boot to really use. Work, sure - I have another pair of actual Red Wings that are wonderful for some of the heavier stuff I do outside, but not good for walking(they're used, and developed an odd stick in the leather that's rubbing at the ankle that I'm seeing if I can correct through useful of neetsfoot oil and a shoe tree).
So. Off to ebay I go once more. And stumbled across a pair of red wing boots for a measly thirty bucks. The pictures were... something else, but a part of me couldn't hold back the idea of a challenge. The description of said boots called them 'distressed', and once I got them in my hot little hands, well... yeah, I'd have to call that distressed.
Thankfully, after the judicious use of saddle soap and Saphir(with a medium brown dye, to restore color), they're looking far better off. I don't know how they work on my foot while walking, but I'll find out over the next day or so. Hopefully they'll work well enough and last atleast a few months so I can sort out the rest of my footwear situation.
As an aside, if anyone knows of any good online cobblers aside from KW Shoe Repair or Potters and Sons, feel free to toss them out.
I wear a pair of Iron Rangers about 100 days per year, and have been for the last... 17 years (damn, time flies). They need a new heel about every second year, and a complete resole every 4 years.
For the resole, I just send them to Red Wing directly. It's around $130, I think. They're gone for a few weeks over the summer, then they return completely rebuilt with new, original soles. On one of the first resoles, I asked the cobbler if he could use the vibram sole from the Red Wing Beckman instead of the original leather sole from the Iron Ranger (since the leather soles are extremely slippery in mud and snow) - no problem, looks perfect.
Love those shoes.
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The wife wanted me to take a break from my chairs to put up some wall shelves for her real quick. Now sure I could have gotten some cheap particle board wall shelves with a cheap veneer, from an unpronounceable Chinese brand name that will cease to exist in 3 weeks just to be replaced by another amalgamation of letters that mean nothing. But damnit, what's the fun in that?!
It took some doing, but eventually we agreed on some nice steel J Brackets as the hangers. Then the family headed out to the lumber yard 2 weeks ago to pick out some rustic walnut at roughly $5.50 a board foot. If you've read any of my post by now, it's a fairly straight forward process from there. Mill, cut, glue up panels, sand, finish. Although I was especially proud of the panel glue ups this time, as I did my best job yet matching grain and wood color such that they are barely perceptible. Also, to add just a smidgen of craftsmanship, I took out a slot in the back of edge of each shelf out for the back of the J-Bracket to sit in, and rounded the front edge where the J-Bracket comes up so that it sits perfectly flush. This brings the shelf about a 1/4" closer to the wall, and looks quite nice IMHO. I just finished with a plain danish oil, and gave it a light once over with some #0000 steel wool after letting it cure for a week.
Finished product. Not bad for 2 weeks. We're thinking of maybe adding a few more around the room.
It's too late now but it would look extra nice if they had slots all round so that the bracket fitted seamlessly into the shelf. Could still do the undersides.
You know, I floated that by the wife, and she wasn't a fan. These were really for her, so she gets them how she wants them.
But man, it was fun flexing some craftmanship on those back slots. Used a spacer to make sure they were exactly 24" on center apart to match the studs they'd attach to. Outlined the brackets with a marking knife, hogged out the middle with a router, and then finished up with a freshly sharpened chisel. Was a perfect fit. Probably couldn't slide a playing card in there.
Fair play, I can see the appeal of honesty over artifice.
I'm almost ready to start activating the glue on the replacement headphone band I've been making out of built up layers of edge banding I had leftover from my shelves that I've boiled and clamped on a form. It's only taken me... ohhh, four months. Lol. Gardening takes priority in the growing season.
If that doesn't work out I'll have to buy some solid oak stripwood and try plan B. Getting pretty tired of these dinky earbuds.
Fascinating. Are you making a wooden headband to replace a busted old one, or did you grab some free range headphone electronics that need a housing?
They're expensive broken ones that snapped at the apex of the curve where it's not conducive to a satisfactory mending job.
The original band is nylon and after exhausting the possibility of finding official spares or eBay parts donors I initially started by looking at 3D printing. I found an stl for this model of headphones on Thingiverse and got some quotes for nylon prints (FJM process if I remember right) but while the quotes were reasonable I wasn't totally happy with the model. It wasn't a 1:1 identical match, and even if it had been the originals were a little tight fitting so I thought it would be a chance to modify the model to my own spec. Turns out that 3D modelling isn't like image editing and I would need the "step" file to edit it, like having the layers for editing a photoshop file instead of printing out a finished jpg. Sadly the Thingiverse model didn't include these. Okay, it's not a hugely complex shape. Maybe this is my motivation to finally learn a bit of 3D modelling.
So after installing FreeCAD, uninstalling and writing it off as a nonstarter I got an account on SketchUp and started drilling the same YouTube tutorial each evening for a week until I could replicate the example bedside drawers without needing to follow the video. Equiped with the basics I started on modelling the headphone band, building up the shape as a flat linear form that I would then curve into shape as the final step. Turns out the curving function is locked behind a premium plugin. Sigh. I could pirate the software but that's a whole other tangent of a tangent.
Anyway, I was sitting here thinking about how I could DIY it when I remembered I have about 10m of beech veneer edge banding gathering dust. It's flexible, it's easy to work, it's near enough the right width, it's preglued and I can build it up to achieve the right amount of flex to rigidity. I had all the measurements I'd taken from the original product that I was going to use for the 3D model so I marked out a form on some crappy old pine board from the scraps box and got the jigsaw out. After that I looked up soaking and boiling times for bending wood (only 2 minutes for material this thin) and progressively clamped more strips to the form after allowing the previous one to dry and set. The strips needed softening with heat and water because the inside half of them have to bend counter to the way they'd been stored rolled up, and all of the layers have a tight dog-leg bend at the ears to accommodate the drivers.
Now I have six layers clamped in the form and I'm ready to heat the glue and stick them together. After that if the flex feels right there's only a little cutting and drilling to do. I have a feeling I'll have mixed results at best, but I'll be content just to have made something usable while I work on a better solution. Apparently oak is one of the woods that is both amenable to bending and also widely available here and reasonably affordable meaning I can buy a 3' strip of suitable dimensions for a little over £10 in town without having to mail order from a specialist supplier or buy a large board that I only need a fraction of.
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Very nice. I always forget about j-hooks; they've fallen a bit out of failure for mainstream production, but they're so much nicer-looking than the standard L- or Z-bracket.
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