LUMLE *

College time! To prepare to move into a dorm, I did what every aspiring college student does and looked up “top 50 college necessities” on WikiHow. One item that kept popping up was a calendar or planner, which was a big of a problem because I’d rather spend hours developing something to do it for me than to just take five minutes to do it myself. Lumle was born.

This project was designed with simplicity at the forefront, although I didn’t want to sacrifice any usability. Therefore, Lumle displays the time, weather, alarms, and the day’s events streamed from Google Calendar, all on a 2.5 inch monochrome OLED display.

At the heart of Lumle is an ESP8266, which I used because of its built-in WiFi and fast clock speed. Inside the device, there is also a touch sensor and photoresistor (light sensor) to detect the brightness of the room. If the lights are turned off, Lumle will automatically turn off the display. Tapping on the back of Lumle while it is in this sleeping state will bring up a fullscreen clock for a few seconds before shutting off again, and tapping a second time while the clock is active will bring up the regular display.

cyclet **

This is my longest and most complex project to date.

After the success of “A (not so) Electric Bike,” which you can see further down the list, I wanted to make a similar device that was universally compatible with all bikes.

I began work on Cyclet -- named after the word “applet,” or a utiilty program with simple functions -- in 2021. I kept a lot of original features like the front and back light, turn signals, and speedometer, while removing useless features like the rotary encoder and dual displays. To operate Cyclet, users can tap two touch sensors on the front of the device. I used tap sensors to minimize the amount of holes in the case to improve waterproofing.

Aside from the 3D printed (later to be injection molded) case, I also designed a full custom circuit board designed around the ATmega 4809, wrote the software, designed and created the website, and designed the packaging with foam inserts.

While the future of Cyclet is uncertain, I have plans to continue it... soon.

Quizza *

Despite wanting to own a business and create products that will one day end up in people’s homes across the world, there are two things I hate: monopolies and subscription services. And Quizlet just so happens to check both those boxes.

After the popular online study site introduced stricter paywalls for its features, my friend Ryland and I began developing our own version that would be available to anyone at no cost. We implemented many similar features such as flashcards and games so new users wouldn’t feel lost.

We also decided to cater our version directly to schools, and therefore sorted “sets” (which are groups of terms, for example English Vocab 2nd Semester) by class specific to our school. Additionally, we added the ability to collaborate on sets so students wouldn’t need to make their own if one already existed.

After designing and coding this website in only a matter of days, we published it and then advertised it to our school. Within days we had hundreds of users, and many students still use Quizza today, over two years since its inception.

@reporttheride *

My interest in cars started back in 2021 and hasn’t subsided since. Today, I have three main projects I focus on.

Honda Prelude: This was my first car that I purchased in October of 2022. I’ve done plenty of work on it, such as replacing the thermostat, rewiring the radio, replacing all lug studs, replacing the crankshaft sensor, and most notably, wrapping the car white (similar to painting but with a giant vinyl sticker).

Mercedes Benz S600: I bought this car in January of 2024 because it has a V12 engine also found in the multi-million dollar Pagani Zonda C12. While this project is still work-in-progress, I hope to be able to put the engine in a different car shell to create my own “supercar.”

Photography: I started car photography in late 2022 when my friend got a cheap Canon camera. Since then, I’ve invested in professional phootgraphy equipment and done dozens of paid photoshoots for clients.

You can see my work and car projects at the link below.

Self Driving Bike

I built this project my junior year for a class called Advanced Science Research. This project was my first complex Raspberry Pi project, my first time thoroughly working with Python, and my first time working with custom object detection.

To cut costs, I used a miniature bicycle instead of a full-scale bike. The back wheel was controlled by a brushed DC motor, while the steering was controlled by a servo motor for accuracy. To view obstacles in the way, a webcam was hooked up to the Raspberry Pi.

Since I didn’t have much experience when it came to software, I decided to do all processing on my computer. This meant that the Raspberry Pi only worked as a middleman: it would stream the video feed to my computer, where obstacles were detected, and motor instructions were sent back to the Pi.

With this project, I won two Honorable Mentions at the Synopsis Science Faire. And while it wasn’t as advanced as I had initially hoped, it was my first introduction to the world of machine learning.

QR Code Car

Marketing is one of those things that I usually hate, but if it’s cool then I like it. In this case it’s cool so I like it.

To get more people interested in our school investing club that we ran, we decided to advertise our club in a unique way. The previous year, we put out flyers with the “stonks” meme and a QR code, which gained a fair amount of traction, but we knew we could do better.

This year, we got a remote controlled car and stuck a QR code on the top. We didn’t add any context, hoping that people’s curiosity would make them want to scan the code.

It worked. People would flock around the car to scan the code, and because the remote fit in my pocket, no one knew who was driving it. By the end of the week, we had almost 100 members join the club.

Over the next two years, we used the car to advertise different things, including Quizza (see above).

Rocket

In winter 2021, Ryland and I decided to enter into a high school engineering competition. After looking around for a bit, we stumbled up the American Rocketry Challenge, and decided to try it. We recruited Joe Sanchez and Jaehu Lee to help us as well, as they expressed interest into the newborn “club.”

We then spent December through March designing, building, and testing our rocket. It had to travel up to exactly 835 feet, fly for 41 to 44 seconds, and carry two eggs. It was not an easy task. Jaehu, Joe, and Ryland worked on the simulations, while I designed the flight controller that would release the parachute. Ryland later implemented code to detect the best time to release the parachute, so that we met our altitude target and our time target as accurately as possible.

However, when it came to launching, we ran into some problems. Because we live in California, laws about launching model rockets are extremely strict, and we were unable to launch our rocket.

Despite this, it was still a very fun project, and we all enjoyed the bonding time spent together.

Code:ART

Back in May 2020, I was contacted by one of my dad’s friends, Ben Flatau. He asked if I was interested in helping out with a project for an upcoming art faire called Code Art. Along with about 10 other people, we worked on a display that used split flaps, spinning boxes, and floppy disks.

The theme of our project was IO, or input and output. We created a large sign with 108 split flaps on one side and 24 rotating boxes on the other side. When people rotated the boxes, the split flaps updated to display either text or colors. The goal was to rotate all the boxes in the correct order to display a secret message.

Since its creation and exposition in Palo Alto's Code:ART festival in 2021, this project has been on display at both the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and OpenSauce 2024.

Marble Machine

During the summer right after my freshman year, I got hooked on watching Wintergatan’s marble machine videos. The mechanical engineering behind the multiple mechanisms all working together fascinated me, and I decided I wanted to build my own marble run.

This wasn’t the first time a marble machine caught my interest. When I was a kid, I was at our local airport when a flight got cancelled. Instead of sitting on my mom’s phone, I wandered off and found a marble machine in an empty part of the airport, and proceeded to watch it until the next flight arrived.

I made this track as simple as possible. I 3D printed the supports while using aluminum wire for the track that would shortly prove too malleable. To recirculate the metal marbles, I used a bike chain and printed little scoops to pick up the balls with. The speed of the ball dispenser could be changed with code as I used a stepper motor that was also practically silent.

While I still haven’t finished this project due to marbles deciding they’d have more fun off the track than on it, I still hope to one day complete it.

A (not so) Electric Bike *

In March of 2021 I got an email from Arduino, promoting a competition they were holding. Interested, I quickly thought of a project idea. Since I had been biking a lot, sometimes at night, I wanted to design an all-in-one lighting and information system.

The electronics were fun on this one. I used a knock-off Arduino MEGA that was tiny so it could fit in a small case. Taking inspiration off my scoreboard, I used addressable LEDs to make the front and back lights. These had more than one upside, as while being super easy to wire, also allowed me to animate the turn signals on the bike. I added a GPS module to give me speed and distance, and displayed the information on two OLED displays. However, my favorite part of this build were the power, light, and horn buttons, for which I used tactile stainless steel buttons. And let me just say that they were soooo satisfying to press. I finished this project by 3D printing a case that matched my bike to put it all together.

While I didn’t win, I had a great time building it and used it all the time... that was until my bike got stolen.

Track Timer v2 *

As the next track and field season rolled around, I wanted to bring back my track timer. I had one big complaint about it, though: setup time. Because it used a laser beam to detect an athlete, I had to precisely position the laser beam, sometimes in bright sunlight. Not fun.

For this version, I decided to eliminate the laser-photoresistor combo and switch to using a LiDAR sensor. This came with two advantages: one, it didn’t need to be precisely positioned, and two, it could detect distance. Detecting distance meant that I could differentiate between different lanes on the track, as lane number one would be much closer than lane number eight. This meant that I could set the timer up so that it would only count athletes in a specific lane, preventing false flags from others crossing the finish line.

I also reworked the UI to use a mini OLED display, giving me more flexibility when designing the interface. I kept automatic start mode while adding a manual start mode, and also added a mode that would give splits for cross country athletes.

This project came out incredibly and fixed basically every issue with the first version. I used it plenty during high school, as did the coaches and other athletes.

brieframe

I’ve always wanted to make a device that people use every day. One idea that came into mind was a smart screen, similar to Alexa or Google Home.

I started by designing the UI layout in Illustrator. I added lots of apps: health, notes, reminders, news, etc. that would be mirrored off a phone. To display this information, I added two “views:” one that would display the information on 6 tiles, and another that would display the apps in a slideshow format.

I decided that project would not only just be catered to everyday people, but to businesses as well. I added a third “view” that included a note section, a room number section, and a public WiFi information section.

While it was fun developing the first prototype of this device, I soon ran into issues. The microcontroller I was using was way too slow to run the large display. Additionally, I was using a library that only supported bitmap graphics (no anti-aliasing), meaning that everything appeared grainy.

Biosphere

It’s always fascinated me to see how many sensors exist for a wide range of applications. So when by freshman year biology class told us we had to each build a miniature biosphere, I decided to fit as many sensors into it as I could.

I used a temperature sensor, humidity sensor, soil moisture sensor, water level sensor, air pressure sensor, light sensor, and a UV light sensor, all connected to an Arduino MEGA. Originally, I was planning to use an ESP8266 to send all the information to a web server, but decided that was overly complex for my needs. Instead, to display all the information, I used a small OLED screen that would animate between all the information using bitmap images and text.

It was really fun to work with all those sensors, and to anyone making fun of me for “getting the same grade as everyone else,” I got extra credit muahahaha

3D Face Shields *

Coming from a family of doctors and having an immuno-comprimised dad, I quickly began to understand the importance of staying safe during the COVID pandemic.

In an attempt to help, I used my 3D printer to print face shields for hospitals. I purposely chose a simple design to minimize costs and speed up production: one single 3D printed headpiece paired with a transparent sheet of overhead projector film.

Over the next few months, I was able to produce hundreds of face shields that I distributed to multiple hospitals. While doing so, I was contacted by the San Jose Earthquakes, who wrote an article about my “business.” They also got me in contact with another hospital to which I donated almost a hundred face shields to.

You can visit the website I made and read the San Jose Earthquakes article below.

8 BIT COMPUTER

I've always liked vintage computers. I began collecting them in 5th grade after receiving an iMac G3 from an old teacher. I went on to collect an original Macintosh, IBM typewriters, Apple II systems, and dozens of other vintage electronics.

In January 2020, I saw a video posted by Ben Eater about an 8-bit computer that he made. I was instantly hooked. I went on to recreate it with only the bare components necessary for the computer to function. I also created a custom PCB to hold all the components inside a custom case.

This project was dubbed “8BC,” standing for 8-bit computer (it also sounds like ABC). Despite never having a VGA output, the computer was able to display information to the user through LEDs and a liquid crystal display. The user was also able to input data through a keyboard.

Scoreboard v2

Shortly after I completed my first scoreboard, the director of my soccer club contacted me asking if I’d like to build a second scoreboard for their new futsal arena. I told him that unfortunately I was too busy and didn’t really want to... who am I kidding of course I jumped on that opportunity :)

This scoreboard was a bit more ambitious. It would be very similar to the last scoreboard but be double the size (4’ x 2’) and had to be a bit more user friendly so coaches and parents could learn how to use the board quickly.

The hardest part was by far machining the front of the scoreboard. I again went with wood as the material because cutting metal just wasn’t feasable, but I had to take CNC classes at Maker Nexus to even be allowed to cut out the front. After that, though, the rest wasn’t too different. I used the addressable LEDs again because of their simplicity and 3D printed diffusers for the digits.

I really enjoyed this project, primarily because I had already faced most challenges while building my first scoreboard.

Track Timer

I was scrolling through Hackster.io for project ideas when I came across a track timer that a user had made for super cheap. Liking the idea, I ordered some parts and made my own.

This device consisted of three modules: a start module, a finish module, and a laser module. The start module would say “ready, set,” and then play a start tone while starting the timer. Meanwhile, at the end of the track, the laser module would point a beam at the photoresistor in the finish module, and when an athlete crossed the beam, the finish module would wirelessly tell the start timer to stop the timer.

Like any project, I improved on the project based on what I knew I wanted as both a cross country and track runner. IPrimarily, I added modes to timer so athletes could time sprints or miles.

I finished this project right as the track season began at my middle school. My friends and I all had a blast trying to beat each others’ records.

Smart Watch

One of my favorite saying is “if you can’t afford it, build it for cheaper.”

I’ve lived by this saying through my projects; for example, the scoreboard. So when I wanted an Apple Watch but couldn’t afford one... well you get the idea.

I designed this watch to be as simple yet feature-filled as possible. I wanted it to have a color screen and bluetooth, while not being too big. A lot of DIY watches I had seen just sort of sandwiched all the components on top of each other, which led to a very thick watch.

Instead, I decided to put all the components next to each other. This led to the watch being only around 12mm thick while still boasting all of the features I described earlier.

I designed the UI to be even simpler, using only two buttons to control it. I used bitmap images everywhere to make navigation easier, and added an always on display to make the most out of the OLED screen.

The only large caveat was the battery life, which was abismal, and while I began work on a second version, I never finished it.

Phone by Mako v2

While version 1 wasn’t exactly a breakthrough in cellular technology, it did teach us a lot about how to run a company and how to make a successful product. Hoping to redesign our product with these new lessons in mind, we began work on Phone by Mako version 2.

To make assembly simpler, Phone by Mako v2 would use a custom printed circuit board (PCB) instead of a regular perfboard. The screen was also upgraded to show color, and the phone’s thickness was made to be half of version 1.

On the software side of things, we added features such as text messaging, the ability to store contacts, and games. We also looked into designing a custom IDE to make changing and uploading code to the phone easier for users.

Unfortunately, shortly into development, cellular providers started to end their 2G and 3G services, meaning we had to use the faster but more complex 4G (LTE) network. We weren’t able to meet our pricepoint with the new technology, and thus decided to shelf the project for the time being.

Phone by Mako *

This project started out as another typical “I want to build that” thought that popped into my head as I read a Make: Magazine. I bought the components, started soldering everything together, and attended a Maker Nexus summer camp to help me laser cut the wood enclosure.

Later that week, I visited my friend Ryland’s house to show him what I had built. After I showed him, we both had the same idea: sell it. However, since this phone was by no means a modern smartphone, we knew we couldn’t just sell it as is. Instead, we decided to sell it as a kit. That day, we submitted a Kickstarter application and began finalizing the project.

The electronics weren’t anything to be proud of: an Adafruit Feather FONA that has a built in 2G cellular chip, a janky keypad I soldered together, and a small OLED. The most difficult part was trying to convert all this fancy dancy engineer language into something other kids like us could understand.

After writing dozens of draft instruction manuals, 3D printing lots of prototypes, and adding features to the software, we finished our product, dubbed Phone by Mako. We presented our product to inverstors and ultimately sold around 15 units at our local farmer’s market, a business faire, and website.

Scoreboard *

For my second advanced project, I decided to turn things up a notch and attempt to complete my childhood dream: to build my own scoreboard.

Going into this project, I had many goals I wanted to meet. The scoreboard had to have bar-style digits, it had to be wireless, and (unsurprisingly) it had to have a loud horn.

With these goals in mind, I began building the scoreboard. I laser cut the board face and cut out vinyl stickers for the home and guest labels. I went through dozens of diffuser designs before settling on a 3D printed design that I liked.

For electronics, I used an Arduino UNO for the board and a MEGA for the controller. I used WS2128B addressable LEDs for the digits, which let me control everything with only one data pin. Two nRF24L01 modules allowed the board and controller to talk to each other, being controlled by a keypad and character LCD.

This has to be one of my favorite projects because of the attention to detail in both the design and user experience, as well as how perfectly it matched my vision from the beginning.

Calculator

This was my first major “solo” project. Before this, I had built many things at camps or modeled off videos, but I had never built something completely from scratch.

In February 2019, I got the idea to make a calculator. I wanted to use mechanical switches to operate it, as it would be really cool and satisfying to use. Despite not using them in the end, I still used similar switches that also had a tactile feel.

The case was a regular utility box I found at Frys Electronics. In fact, many of the parts I bought from Frys, as I’ve always preferred buying things in person as opposed to online. There weren’t many parts to this project; only a few buttons, a screen, an Arduino, and a 9 volt battery.

Everything was operated by an Arduino UNO. Key presses were imputed through a four by four keypad, and data was displayed on a small character LCD. Since I didn’t have room for a reset button, I used the “=” key as a reset button as well.

Binary Computer

This was my first project that had some level of complexity to it. I followed a tutorial by The 8 Bit Guy on how to build the device, and while it didn’t come out perfect, I was super proud of it.

The “computer” is really just a text terminal which takes advantage of the character LCD’s built-in microprocessor to display text based on binary input.

To use the device, you can flip the right-most switch above the “enter” button to switch between instruction and text mode. Instruction mode allows you to initialize the display, change where the text is displayed, and a few other commands. Text mode just outputs numbers and letters based on the binary input.

After building this project, I shared it with some of my teachers and even gave in-class presentations about how the device worked.

Computer Museum

As a kid, I watched The 8 Bit Guy on YouTube all the time. I especially liked watching his vintage computer restoration videos, and so I decided to collect and restore computers myself as well.

My collection started when my one of the 4th grade teachers at my school gifted me two iMac G3s (yes, the bubble iMacs). I also received two typewriters from my grandmother, and later a PowerBook 5300cs from my actual 4th grade teacher.

From there, I purchased an original Macintosh and Apple IIc on auction for cheap. While on vacation, the house across the street from where we were staying had another iMac G3 for sale, and so I bought it for $5 and brought it back to show my horrified parents (”another computer, WHY?”).

I also bought an original iPad, second and third generation iPhones, an Apple IIe, IBM typewriter, Macintosh IIci, PowerBook G4, and PowerMac G4.

While these computers are only on display in my room at the moment, I hope to showcase them somwehere later.

Early Projects

I was a maker since day one.

When I was little, my two parents, who were both doctors, gifted me a toy doctor kit. Instead of using it to, you know, do doctor stuff, I opted to turn it into a toilet. I used tape and construction paper to make the handle, and used the bulb from the blood pressure monitor to act as the water level detector. While this toilet didn’t actually work (whew), it still was a prelude to what was to come.

As I grew up, I built lots of small things. I made model rockets out of cardboard; some to launch at sites, others to deploy a parachute that I would test at my local park.

In second grade, I “started” my first company: Timetronics Scoreboards. I designed the website in... Microsoft Word, and made the scoreboards out of cardboard and aluminum foil. Despite not fully working, they did have a functional horn.

For the next few years, I kept building and tinkering with things, like boats, projectors, and computers.