Lee's Weekly Dev Journal

Lee’s Posts

  • Week 27/28 – 04/05/26 & 11/05/26

    “This is the beginning of the end, the end of the end is still coming!” – The Croods

    We are onto testing and at first I was not excited. I know things need to be tested, but for this I just wasn’t bothered. With only 2 weeks left the stress started getting to me, and all I wanted to do was submit and be done with it.

    But once I started testing my mind changed very quickly. The amount of issues that revealed themselves when my sisters started using the app and toy, it was awesome. There were SO MANY things I hadn’t considered, and both siblings had such different ways of trying to figure out the app it was extremely insightful. We’ve changed a lot and the app feels much more thorough now!

    The last thing I had to do was edit the video. It was a bit frustrating because we planned that everyone would film their own part and then I would edit them together, but last second everyone was busy and I had to record most of it as well. I found that I wasn’t mad at my team though, just the circumstances. They let me know in advance, it’s just frustrating to be in that situation in general. I’m glad to have had a positive group project for once, it had ups and downs but I am proud of what we’ve accomplished!

    It’s so nice seeing everything put together, I am very excited to submit and even more excited to enter the Creative Conscience Awards!

    Figure 1: Render I made of the 3d Model for the video

  • Week 25/26 – 20/04/26 & 27/04/26

    “We fixed our mistakes and the day turned out great!” – Shimmer and Shine

    I accidentally burned off the solder points surrounding the pins that connect to our battery management board. with the way things need to connect there was no way to move the pins or bridge anything. My solution was to solder wire from the diode directly to the pins, it doesn’t touch the protoboard at all.

    I also made a mistake at handling a different situation, my teammate Ro seemingly broke the motor while assembling the shell she printed for our project. It turns out it wasn’t broken, I managed to fix it after looking at it for under a minute, but I was refusing to look at it for half the morning, I just kept telling her to take it to Bevis because it belongs to him.

    I have done a lot of reflecting on this, Diana mentioned I should write about it yet I couldn’t see why. In my head Ro was the one who broke it and if I had even acknowledged it then it would be my fault the piece was broken. I did the 5 Whys again, and I think my response to both situations stem from past experiences. If I had broken something like that when I was younger, I would’ve surely been yelled at. I forget how easily replaceable electronic parts are, and how it’s ok to make mistakes because I’m not used to that mentality.

    That seems really sad but I swear these weeks went great, I just feel like this was the most important thing to write about haha.

    Figure 1: My finished proto board. The leftmost red wire is bridging over the ruined solder points.
    Figure 2: The ruined solder points on the back of the board

  • Week 23/24 – 16/03/26 & 23/03/26

    “When thе stars all fall we’ll all become
    anothеr stain on the universe!”     – PAiDA, PLANET KiLLER

    I was sick for the weekend of week 22 up until Tuesday week 23, which I found very stressful. Because we only work 2 days a week I always feel like I’m extremely behind if I miss just 1 day, and I was planning to push myself and attend class anyway but then I remembered I could get my classmates sick and decided to stay home. I made sure to keep my team updated and check that they all has things to work on which helped me feel a lot calmer.

    Besides that slight setback I think we’ve made great progress! Grace and I have gotten solar panels, a hand crank made from a motor, and a buzzer turned button all generating energy, and Katie has done an awesome job planning out the app. I am slightly worried about the other two team members as they’ve not done much yet, but I am now a lot more confident that our project will turn out great.

    I have been asking Bevis about our project. He has helped a lot by explaining what is and isn’t feasible in 8 weeks time, and explaining different ways we can generate energy. Our current plan is to use the solar panels, crank, and buzzer to power an Arduino that bluetooths to the app which will show how much energy is being generated. We are on track to get everything done, and if we finish early we have plans to add more components and add educational facts to the app.

    Figure 1: Whatsapp Message I sent to my team, I stayED home the next day and of coure let them know that
    Figure 2: Testing Grace’s Battery Management Board

  • Week 21/22 – 02/03/26 & 09/03/26

    “Mamma Mia, here we go again!” – ABBA

    We are now onto the collaborative project, and I am very nervous. The worst part of games was the group projects, nothing was organised and I didn’t know anyone in my groups. I am very glad to be paired with Grace at least, she has the same worries as I do so we can have each other’s backs.

    I tried to take charge during my group’s first meeting. Usually I would get talked over in games with everyone fighting to take control, but I found the opposite with this group. I had to push people a bit to speak their mind, but it was a very nice conversation and I am a lot more confident in our project.

    Following the brief, I setup a miro board and let each group member vote on what discipline they’d like to go for. One of my main issues with group projects was that I never enjoyed them due to not getting a say in what we were making, so I am doing my best to make sure everyone in this group is working on something they enjoy. We ended up picking education as our focus, and proceeded onto coming up with our project.

    We made a list of everyone’s strengths, and came up with making something that teaches children about energy conservation through energy generation and a phone app. Our original idea was to make a dance mat that charges a phone through kinetic energy, but Bevis mentioned that may be difficult with the 8 week timeframe. So after doing more research we decided to make a toy that can generate energy to charge AA batteries!

    Figure 1: Miro Research Conducted by Team

  • Week 17 – 02/02/26

    “FINISHED!” – Mario Party 9

    I spent a lot of time working on this project at home, which I hadn’t been able to do for the others which either required soldering or taught lessons to walk me through what to do. My 8 year old sister really loved the pololu, which is great motivation for my list, she came up with a lot of the shapes I coded.

    My sister was very intent that I had to make it draw a star, which is not what I had originally planned. I didn’t think it’d be possible to do point turns with the pololu, but since I chose to have the pen on the side of the pololu instead of the back I managed to figure out the angle through trial and error. I’d like to look into the actual math of doing things like point turning, if there is any, instead of just figuring it out through testing.

    I haven’t felt very stressed during these last weeks, which I am very grateful for. I’ve kept track of the weeks and made sure to complete everything on time, and I really only have my essay and final documentation to finish. I am also proud of the work I am sending in, which I cannot say the same for my previous uni years.

    I learned that our next unit is a group project. I am extremely nervous as my last two group projects were awful, I was paired with strangers who would edit my code without my permission and didn’t listen to my ideas. I hope that I am paired with friends that I enjoy working with, and that we are graded separately so if anyone doesn’t do any work they can’t steal the credit.

  • Week 16 – 26/01/26

    “Oh, we’re halfway there!” – Bon Jovi

    I got my draft essay read by Jamie and he really liked it! That has calmed a lot of my nerves and I am confident about getting the rest done now. He game me some minor feedback to improve a few things, such as using less quotes and adding images to help support my claims. I’ve already added the images and will work on the quotes next week.

    We started out final project this week, robot hacking! This is more of adding a component to the pololu than actual hacking, but it is still very interesting though. My first idea was to get the pololu to draw a line and then follow it, but no matter how thick of a pen I used it refused to detect anything. I am unsure why that happened, the pololu documentation didn’t have any helpful information, and I found multiple kids toys that at least claim to do so https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306446295189. If a childrens toy can do it the pololu should definitely be able to, unless its sensors being too strong is the reason it doesn’t work.

    Instead I chose to use an idea Diana came up with, allowing the pololu to hold multiple pens and draw different shapes. I knew I wanted to utilise the buttons on the pololu in some way, so I think coding multiple shapes into the pololu using the same menu you’d usually use to change its speed would work very well!

  • Week 15 – 19/01/26

    “The…” – SpongeBob SquarePants

    For Banking Hall we got to use plotters to create artwork using p5js. I was a bit worried as I’ve never coded in p5 before, but I paired up with my classmate Ava and she showed me the basics. We ended up reusing some of her code from last year to make a halftone effect with the plotter.

    Banking Hall was fun, it was a lot better than what I did in the games course the past 2 years. I think making the even graded is what cam make it unenjoyable, the pressure to make something good in such a short amount of time while having other projects as well can be very overwhelming.

    I used the rest of the week to work on my essay, I’ve finished 2 out of the 3 sections which equates to roughly 2,000 words. I’ve found it much easier to write about the capture card than the upscaler, which surprised me as I assumed it would be the opposite. Though the upscaler is much more technically advanced, because it’s a very good product it’s hard to find any critical reviews on it, whereas the capture card is simpler but the reception of it is mixed so I have a lot more material to work with.

    I am going to take a break from writing it and plan to talk to Jamie again next Wednesday, I am doubting whether or not I’ve been analytical enough.

  • Week 14 – 12/01/26

    “You can’t go fast if you go too slow!” – The Backyardagains

    I finished the Pololu3pi project on Monday, and filmed the video as well! I feel so proud of both myself for coding this and the Pololu for solving the maze haha.

    I’m still using the body doubling technique I mentioned in a previous post. It really is a game changer for getting work done. I wrote the whole README file for the Pololu in one sitting while in class, and I just know it would’ve taken me a few days and multiple breaks to get it done if I was my myself. I think it’s because having someone else near you that is also doing work makes you feel obligated to work as well.

    I talked to Jamie about my essay and explained the 3 products I chose to write about. He likes the sound of my idea, but said I may have trouble writing about the Elgato capture card as feature-wise its a very simple plug-n-play device. So our solution is to generalise the categories a bit. I’m going to write about all Elgato brand capture cards, as they each have different features and uses. I’ll also do the same for Retrotink and Retroarch to balance things out.

    I have never felt so accomplished about something before, this course has taught me so much about productivity on top of actual subject matter!

  • Week 13 – 05/01/26

    “It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.” – How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)

    I spent some time over Christmas break finishing up task documentation and any other documents needed for submission. My careers folder is finished, and I even found a job listing to apply for on profile! I sent in my CV and Cover Letter on Thursday, so I hope to hear from them soon.

    For once I feel caught up with all my projects, I am not behind on everything and feel relaxed about submission. I am really enjoying these projects, and I think I’ll actually be sad when it’s over, which is crazy.

    My plan is to finish the Pololu project on Monday, and get the video and task documentation done by Wednesday next week. Then I’ll have the rest of next week and Banking Hall to write the 3000 word essay, which I am also very excited for. After that I’ll have nothing to do except the final project, which I will probably enjoy as well!

    I have the essay planned out, I just need to do some more research into my 3 products before starting. I’ve chosen to compare the Retrotink 4k upscaler, the Elgato HD60x capture card, and the Retroarch emulator. They’re very different products that all market to the same demographic, so I think it’ll be very fun to compare them. They’re also all things I am very interested in, and I’ve used all 3 of them before, so I’m sure I’ll have a lot to write about!

  • Week 12 – 08/12/25

    “Gotta go fast!” – Sonic the Hedgehog

    Out of the 2 races my robot won one and came 2nd in the other!!!! I am very proud of myself, and the race I won was the one I put more effort into optimising as it was trickier. But the point of these guys isn’t speed, they need to solve mazes!

    We looked into more algorithms this week, and I really enjoyed it. Math is one of my favourite subjects, I really like working with variables and doing algebra in general. We looked at algorithmic complexity and binary trees and I’ve never taken more notes then I did in that lecture. (I also learned a new focusing technique, having a very pretty notebook makes you want to write in it!)

    We also learned what our essay would be about, another thing I was dreading until I got to the class, I need to stop judging before I try things. Basically we have to review 3 things. Those things can be anything! Electronic devices, websites, or other creative tech projects., we were given free reign.

    I really like essays. Though I get bored if the research isn’t something I’m interested in, and I hate writing, and I get bored rereading my own work, BUT I love how smart and proud I feel afterwards so it’s very worth it. If the research is something I’m interested in I do so much of it. And this specific essay feels like it was made specifically for me! I have tons of ideas, and anything I pick will be fun to write about, so my plan is to try and be ahead of the game by getting it mostly drafted over the 3 week break!