@FrogDude

FrogPad Devlog 07: we’re so back. (Please ignore any formatting issues, I am currently typing on my mobile device) MY KIT SHOWED UP! The past hour has been putting together parts, test fits, and overall design checks. I also had to sand some things because I accidentally made the port hole too small - hopefully that wound be an issue in the future… Next steps are to learn to sauder and then put stuff together for the case-off test, then install the case! (Image: my case, printed by the nice people over at #printing_legion)

Herptionary Devlog 006: I give up, I have something functional kinda, lets ship that

So… I disappeared for a bit… I left town for like a month for college visits and supporting a family member in travel. Looking at my API troubles with a fresh set of eyes really did not help, but y’know what? I tried. I failed. But the website does function and I did manage to get it to send requests to a free dictionary API and actually return something, so I am okay with putting this temporarily on the backburner while I learn more about website building and shipping it for hopefully enough stardust to not show my name with every visit.

Changes:

• Added python file that will hopefully be the basis of my custom API in the future
• Added “progress” warnings to all pages left unfinished this ship; will add more text and write the articles soon hopefully
• Added logo to header

“how did you spend two hours on this?” I spent most of that struggling to get an API working, installing extensions, testing the site, and reloading VScode so many times I think i have the button pattern burned into my brain. Someday I will succeed at this. That day is not today.

WE HAVE A LOGO!!!!

Not much else to note; been working on trying to get a basic API up and running and failing miserably, which is what the time is. I did try to track the two hours I spent working on this logo but lapse broke - twice - so that’s gone out the window. But. Frog book :)

(To the one dude in the slack who said the snake was cooler: yes, but it looks TERRIBLE vectored lol)

Devlog 4: WE’RE ON THE WEB!!!

The Herptionary is officially online! And formatted properly!

What I did:

• Redid my file organizaton so Cloudflare would recognize it as an actual site

• Put it on Cloudflare

• Fixed a bunch of issues, including the footer being stuck to the top of the screen on the dictionary and the header not being a header.

What’s next:

• Build an API for all the herp terms I want to add

• Vector my logo (to be revealed next devlog!)

• Write the Reptiles landing page

Herptionary Devlog 3: simplified, but at what cost

So, instead of building 26 letter-based pages and crying over file organization, I bit the bullet and found a tutorial on how to make the site access an API and retrieve a definition from somewhere else (thank you codingartistweb.com).

The formatting is still off, but now that I am actually using a CSS stylesheet I should only have to do this once and then all my pages should be formatted properly.

I am hoping that building an API from scratch does not require me to work with a fourth coding language, especially since I will have to eventually build three of them (one for the dictionary itself, and one each for reptile and amphibian searches), but for testing purposes I am currently using a free online dictionary API thing that came with the tutorial. It doesn’t have all the terms I am planning on including, so I can’t keep it that and skip building an API, but it is funny to search swear words while I am making sure that I didn’t break it while reformatting my site.

I love my tadpole stage website :)

Herptionary Devlog 2

So I had to redo my file organization TWICE to get it to work and make sense but I HAVE PAGE NAVIGATION WORKING!!!

What I Did:

• Added several home and landing pages, including the Dictionary Home Page and an About Us page
• Linked (and re-linked) images to the site for proper display of visual data
• Set up page navigation, including a functioning link in the header (to be replaced with an image)
• Cried over file organization
• BUTTONS!!! I HAVE BUTTONS AND THEY WORK!!!

Next Steps:

• Build the main Dictionary pages (…oh. 26 letter pages ALONE. I may have bitten off more than I can chew guys)
• Figure out how to make a wiki-esque edit system to make expanding the site to multiple people a LOT easier when I need help actually filling in the dictionary
• Ask if I can count graphic design time as hours spent on this project before I learn a new vector design system
• Develop a wiki-esque source system so I don’t have to link every single ^# credit by hand

Herptionary Devlog 1

So I happen to be an aspiring herpetologist (amphibian and reptile scientist). Much to my annoyance, some guy in the 1200s decided my favorite creatures in the world were “monsterous” and grouped them together, and now everyone is afraid of them. So, I’m gonna put my other interest to work and fix that!

What I did:

• Set up the workspace, hackatime, etc. for my first true coding project
• Made my first few (VERY basic) pages in HTML.
• Made bug/error/incorrect info reporting google form for when I do get this on the web.

Next Steps:

• Figure out how to link pages
• Find hosting stuff
• Graphic Design?

(Screenshot attached: a quick build of my homepage)

FrogPad Devlog 005:

• Began work on firmware for keyboard; established key layout.
  – Swapped from numpad to sort of a themed quick commands pad (music control, delete key, etc)
• Discovered that OLEDs are probably the hardest part I could have chosen to include (what do you mean my two options are “probably doesn’t work with your OS” or “learn an entirely new coding language”)
• Began work on baby’s first GitHub Repo! Link should be accessible now, if not as soon as I ship.

Next Steps:

• Setup QMK-Now Playing (https://github.com/dob9601/qmk-nowplaying) on board for OLED? Hopefully? I am not sure if it’ll work since I’m on Windows but worth a shot.

(no I don’t know what this code stuff means, this is from my first test compiling)

FrogPad Devlog 004: FINALLY, MODELING

• Redid the PCB. Again. I got it down to 99.925 mm on the larger side, so now I’m in compliance! Still waiting on a sanity check but hopefully I am finally done with this after (checks notes) THREE HOURS???

• Began modeling my case for this on OnShape. It’s frog shaped. I am nothing if not on brand. I only have the bottom case so far, and I’m aiming to finish the whole thing by the end of the week.

Next steps:

• Finish case
• Code/modify code for firmware
• Write README

SPACE IN YOUR PLACE!

After several months of development, I’ve finally published my first major physics project: A Planetary Body Simulation.

This is a real-time N-body gravitational simulator written in Python using Pygame. The goal of the project was to explore orbital mechanics, chaotic systems, and numerical simulation while building an interactive application that visualizes how celestial bodies move under gravity.

Features

Current systems included in the simulator:

-Solar System simulation
-Binary star system
-Three-body chaotic system
-Gravitational slingshot demonstration
-Lagrange point (L4 & L5) system
-Horseshoe orbit system
-(I want to add more)

Other features:

-Verlet integration (had to spen an AMOUNT of time to ad Verlet)
-Energy analysis (KE, PE, Total Energy)
-Velocity plotting
-Camera controls and zoom
-Trail rendering
-Configurable timestep

Physics Concepts

The simulator uses:

Newtonian gravity
N-body interactions
Orbital mechanics
Energy conservation
Chaotic dynamics

One of the most interesting things I discovered while building this project was how sensitive some systems are to numerical accuracy. Small changes in timestep can dramatically affect long-term stability, especially in chaotic systems.

New Feature Added Today!

Today I added 3D trajectory visualization.

Instead of only plotting motion in X-Y space, the simulator can now generate a 3D graph where:

X-axis = X Position
Y-axis = Y Position
Z-axis = Time

This allows orbital motion to be visualized as a path through time rather than just a flat orbit.

Stable systems produce smooth helical structures, while chaotic systems create much more complex patterns.

This was my first time working with Matplotlib’s 3D plotting tools, and integrating the graphing system with the existing simulation data took some experimentation.

🔧 Challenges During Development

Some problems I had to solve while building the simulator:

-Numerical instability
-Energy conservation issues
-Chaotic three-body behavior
-Restart system bugs
-Data collection for plotting

A lot of development time was spent debugging rather than adding features, but that ended up teaching me much more about simulation and computational physics.

What’s Next?

Potential future improvements:

-True 3D simulation (maybe)
-Adaptive timestep system
-Better visualization tools
-Collision handling
-More orbital systems

Frog Pad Devlog 003: AHHHHHHH

So I had to redo the PCB. Three Times. It was easier than rearranging all the parts to reorder them, but it sure did take a lot of trial and error. I had multiple YouTube Tutorials open; I am sorry to whoever watches my Lapse clips because I made a lot of cuts trying to not count research time.

Most of today was reorganizing my parts for wiring/copper-ing and trying to align all my parts. I was going to do edge cuts today but it’s 10 PM right now and I have to be up in 8 hours. But everything’s connected!

Tomorrow is hopefully edge cuts and updating the silkscreen, then running a sanity check before I do this all over again with OnShape.

🐸🗒️!

FrogPad Devlog 002: PCB? what’s a PCB?

• assigned footprints to the components and added to the PCB builder in KiCad. Twice. I accidentally made my switches LEDs, got very confused by the three tutorials I was referencing, and then asked the nice people in #hackpad for help.

Next Steps (this weekend hopefully):

• Copper wire (?) PCB
• Edge cuts
• Screen Details (lilypads, frogs, cleanup text)
• Make the case!!!

🐸🗒️

FrogPad Devlog 001: what have I gotten myself into

• Tried to make a matrix while keeping pins clear for my OLED plans. I am not sure if I succeeded, will continue with tutorials and stuff tomorrow.