First and Last Devlog

Whats good, I made myself a portfolio website. I really want to start making websites for people or apps as I cannot get a job at the ripe age of 14. I need college funds so I am hoping I can freelance.

How I made this really quick

There was some pre-planning to this as I made a base sketch of how i wanted the website to look. I had wayy bigger plans for it and I wanted to fill in the blank space but thats for another date. I got the site up and running really quick because most of the code was copy paste, for example, buttons, cards, badges, etc. Also because i partially used the tailwind framework to make it look better. I personally love their spacing and sizing options as they are flexible. I locked in and produced a quick static website. thanks to inline suggestions.

Why is the css and js in one file?

If I do host this on a real domain, I would use infinityfree for hosting and they have limited “hits” so I cant afford making the website bulky with files or I can run out of usage pretty quickly.

Devlog 1: Project PathSense

BEHOLD the second project I am bringing to OutPost!

PathSense is a lightweight wearable vest designed for the visually impaired. It packs four Time-of-Flight (ToF) distance sensors, a GPS module, three vibration motors, a camera, and a Raspberry Pi 5 acting as the main command center.

Here is how the system handles the heavy lifting:

• The Hardware: The ToF sensors map out the environment up to four meters away, tracking obstructions to your left, right, and center.

• The AI (vague ykyk) : The camera runs a custom Python program for real-time object detection. The software uses the video feed as its primary source of truth. For example, if you are eating, the sensors might get blocked by your arms. The AI intelligently identifies your hands and ignores the sensor data during that time to avoid false alarms.

• The Haptic Feedback: If an obstacle appears on your left, the corresponding motor vibrates. The intensity changes depending on how close you are to the object.

• Audio Input: You can pair the vest with headphones for voice alerts. It will read out what is ahead, like letting you know a person is walking by or screaming “STOP!” if you approach a flight of stairs.Between the computer vision navigation and the GPS tracking, a person can confidently navigate both indoor spaces and busy city streets.

• Smart Navigation: As a massive upgrade, the Raspberry Pi 5 will run a custom navigation engine that combines active GPS coordinates with real-time computer vision pathfinding. Instead of just giving basic turn-by-turn directions, the system uses the camera feed to analyze the ground layout. It will actively look out for obstacles, steer the user away from rough or rocky terrain, and track the edges of sidewalks to ensure they never accidentally drift off the path.

The entire experience is designed to be fully voice-activated through a pair of headphones. The ultimate goal is to build it out like an interactive assistant (with possibility of combining it with the new and improved SIRI for fetching messages) , allowing the user to simply speak their destination and receive continuous, real-time auditory guidance as they walk.

As for today’s progress, there was only one main objective on my radar. I spent the hour designing a custom hardware HAT for the Raspberry Pi 5. This lets me drop standard JST connectors onto the board so all the sensors and motors can plug in cleanly without messy loose wires.

That is all for now. I will update everyone as soon as the grant clears and the manufacturing parts arrive!

Devlog 1

Well the time logged states what happened in this devlog and it’s not much. Mainly because my project is more or less towards the software side, building it will be a whole nother story though.

My project is a Schlieren Imaging Device. It can visualize airflow, heat and soundwaves by sending a pinpoint intensity light through a Plano-Convex lens and a NPBS (Non-Polar Beam Splitter) and out the device. That same light beam will reflect off a First Surface mirror then proceed to bounce back the same path it came from. Pretty confusing right?? I will still need to get this all alligned 😭 That light beam then will get sent through ANOTHER lens and a knife edge to make sure the contrast is good. THEN that light beam will finally HIT the camera!!

Here’s how my project works from the inside:

The ESP32 P4 handles all the important stuff and driving the LED through that AML driver. The pin sockets let me swap things in and out without desoldering, which is critical when you are still figuring out what works.
The USB C port is for charging ONLY, the TPS charging IC manages the battery so we do not overcharge or drain too low. The 5V boost bumps the single cell lithium up to a stable 5V for the ESP32 and the LED, which can pull some real current when cranked up.
The four 1x2 sockets break down simple: one for the battery, one for the LED, one for the power switch, and 1 for the fan, although I am planning on adding some more sockets for the LED fan. Those can get prettyyyy hot.
The rest of the day was spreadsheets and stuff. BOM, part numbers, stock checks, the usual.

Well that’s it for my project. Ill seee y’all when this is funded!

Devlog 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pretty long header, huh? Let me catch you up. I am running a dual boot with Arch basically, and my Windows 11 partition gets mad sometimes. A few days back it snapped. Yep, it snapped. It destroyed itself and I don’t have enough time to debug the issue and fix it, so I decided… how hard can setting everything up on Linux be? (Big understatement.) Turns out I recorded from the browser for like 4 hours and then the recording completely crashed on me. Thankful for the Stardance staff though, as they said I can just directly add entries to my journal, so here I am!

I got a limit on how much I can type so I’ll be quick.

Devlog 2

I added a boost converter, fuel gauge IC, and an SD card slot. That’s literally it. The reason? I went through 90 different Reddit forums and a few datasheets later just to find out that my schematic is COMPLETELY unusable. Reason? Because the values I inputted were completely wrong and I forgot to account for the actual traces and distance. Yeah… big mistake.
(I’m just exposing myself at this point)
~5 hours

Devlog 3

Things picked up from here. I proceeded to wire up the Neo M9N and also proceeded to wire up the audio and microphone chips. The GPS module took me the most time. I needed to calculate the actual performance in real-world testing because if I didn’t, I would be fried indefinitely. RF signals are too picky.

~3 hours

Devlog 4

Wired up most of the things I got to the CM4 connectors. Not much I can say here. I spent most of the time trying different layouts on where to put it. I was basically shuffling in between the schematic editor and PCB editor (big mistake later, traces got jumbled).

~1 hour

Devlog 5

I realized I AM COOKED if I don’t finish this ASAP, so I started grinding. I rushed through everything and you’ll see why this was a bad idea in a bit.

Devlog 6

I am done with the whole PCB. Time to run the DRC checker. What can go wrong? (Foreshadowing: everything went wrong.) I got like 500 errors and 300 warnings (actual count). The whole problem? I crammed everything TOO TIGHT. So I spent devlog 6 and 7 cleaning everything up.

~9 hours

Devlog 8

FINALLY, MY PCB IS DONE! For my first PCB, this isn’t too bad, considering I did a more ambitious project. I have no DRC errors anymore, so I ran the project inside a simulation. I checked every signal output and power planes/ground planes. Everything was expected except I ran into problems with the SD card trace. I knew this was coming either way. The traces spanned everywhere and weakened the signal. I fixed it right up though, so in theory this thing will boot and run without issues.

What Did I Learn?

Absolutely nothing. (Jk.) I learned to not RUSH. In this case I absolutely had to because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t make the project deadline. Maybe I should have rushed more gracefully, but now I am 3 textbooks down. I wrote like 90% of my schematics on my textbooks and datasheet references until I screwed that part up by not doing math. I thought it’d give me actual good info, not mathematical nonsense. Oh well. It’s finished and I’m proud that I got a device like this done.

Now the hard part: CHEAP SOURCING. Apparently this won’t be covered if it’s too expensive and the PCB isn’t polished, which I can’t say much about because the PCB looks like sh!t. I was not making a Mona Lisa, bro. Now I can make a total calculation. I’ll use AliExpress because those are the CHEAPEST and fastest part suppliers. JLCPCB gets the rest, and once I get the correct amount I’m sending this in. Meanwhile, tonight I’ll work on the GitHub and demo… which I don’t have, so I guess I’ll make a website for the GPS.

Devlog 1: The 43-Minute Charging Core

Project Context & Architecture

I’m designing a custom handheld navigation device from scratch. The goal is a custom carrier board in KiCad that ties together high-performance computing, location tracking, and power management. Here’s the hardware stack:

• The Brain: Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) — Runs the core OS, custom parsing utilities, and handles all the high-level computing.
• Location Tracking: u-blox NEO-M9N GNSS/GPS Module — Connected to an active external antenna for live coordinates literally anywhere.
• Power Management: BQ25895RTWR (QFN-24) — A highly efficient switch-mode 3A buck charger handling autonomous LiPo charging, direct power-path management, and a deep-sleep “Ship Mode” hibernation circuit to prevent battery drain.
• Power Input & Battery: USB-C Interface & 1S LiPo (via JST-PH) — Hardwired strictly as a one-way power sink (charging input only because I have zero motives to actually use the port for anything else).

The Update

PS: My incompetent brain used plain text boxes for my schematic labels instead of just pressing the L key to make actual net flags.

So, here’s what I got done in exactly 43 minutes: a charging circuit. That’s it. That’s literally all I did. Right now, there is absolutely nothing connecting over to the CM4 compute engine yet. I’m an absolute beginner at physical PCB layout, but I am a certified pro at reading datasheets. If you think about it, it’s the biggest engineering bottleneck of the century. Either way, I need to get this entire hardware project finished by tomorrow to actually get this PCB sent over to JLCPCB, get leads on parts, get it shipped ASAP, and take measurements for the enclosure. (That is if I get actual funding..) I’m currently sitting at a solid 5% completion. This is going to be an absolute sprint. (Not like my teachers once asked me to write a drama script last minute that was like 50% of my grade and I managed to pull off a 30-page script in one night… but yeah.) I’ll see you in a bit when I’ve actually got a few more sheets knocked out.

Devlog 4

Hey everyone. Yeah, it’s been a while. Don’t worry though, I didn’t abandon this thing. I’ve actually been working way harder than these 4 logged hours suggest. Major improvements happened. Also, I laid the groundwork for something kind of insane: PlainScript C++ for Arduino. You read that right. Arduino support is coming, and I’m maybe 12 hours of actual implementation away. (REAL UNDERSTATEMENT) 😭
Anyway, here’s what went down.

Hour 1: JS Generation and Smart Syntax

First hour was all about hardening the JS generation. I added what I’m calling “smart syntax.” Unlike Python, where a syntax error just kills your program, PlainScript will actually catch it, suggest a fix, and apply it automatically.
I also threw together a setup script for anyone who actually wants to use this, plus some compiler customization. You can tweak how aggressive the smart syntax correction is, or turn on auto-run after compilation if you’re into that.

Hour 2: SQL and File System Stuff

Built in SQL database creation and management tools. Also gave it full local filesystem access, but I made sure it won’t destroy anything. Ran 15 different scenarios to test that and they all passed, so… it’s probably fine. Probably.
Also added support for both symbols and regular English in the syntax because honestly, sometimes you want to type fast and sometimes you want to actually read what you wrote. Both works.

Hour 3: Cleanup and VS Code Extension

The code was a mess. Like, genuinely unreadable. I split the original 5 files into around 15 separate ones so it’s actually maintainable now.
Also added color coded words (syntax highlighting, It’s syntax highlighting.) My brain is absolutely fried right now, sorry. It’s packaged as a VS Code extension too, though I still need to get it approved on the marketplace. That part’s pending.

Hour 4: Arduino Framework (Actually 3 Hours)

This logged as one hour but it was really three hours of work. I have lost my sanity slightly but it’s fine. I planned out and wrote a chunk of the C++ and Arduino framework.
The plan is: PlainScript compiles to C++, which compiles to an Arduino binary, which you just flash. Simple. (Nope..)
The hard part is that I can’t just port every C++ library over manually. That would take forever. So instead of oversimplifying everything, I looked at how library calls actually work. A normal C++ line looks like this:

library.action(params);

If you break it down, you really only care about two things: the library name and the action. So in PlainScript, that becomes:

library do action on pin (whatever) with (x, y, whatever you need)

This feels solid. I’ll figure out the weirder libraries later, but this approach should cover most cases. I just need to pick a good prefix word for library calls, like cpp or something. I’ll sleep on it.

What’s Next

The JS side is basically done. All that’s left is finishing the Arduino implementation.
Wish me luck.

Oh, and here’s what the syntax highlighting looks like:
(quick edit, I spent wayyy too long writing this than I should have. I wanted it to look good since it’s a major achievement in development)

Devlog 3

“Don’t spend 12 hours coding a day or you’ll end up insane like me” Quote of the day

Overview of today

Fixed a couple memory leaks today. The math functions were holding onto heap space longer than they needed to (I have no idea how but I believe it was due to some of the preset math variables I created like PI had wrong values) , so I cleaned that up. Also tightened the JS output pipeline, since the whole point is you write in plain English, the generated code needs to be locked down on both security and performance.

HTTP connections are in now. Requests looks like this:
make request <request name to store response> (get/post) "https://apiendpointhere"

Then you review it with:
review request <request name> (you can either make a if statement or if else statement here or you can store the response to a variable)

Networking still has some edge cases I want to handle before I call it done, but I’d say the JS transpiler is sitting at about 75% ready to ship.

Future Plans

Once the JS version is shipped, I’ll move on to the C and C++ transpilers. The dictionary is already mapped out, so the port should be fast. Python is on the list too, but I want C/C++ shipped first so I can demo it running on ESP32s and Arduinos.

Opensourcing

Planning to open source after this JS release. Last time I initialized a git repo it completely split my projects and times, so I’m holding off until the codebase is stable.

Closing

That’s it for now. I’m home all day so I’ll keep working on this. No screenshots to share at the moment, so here’s a cat picture instead.

Devlog 2-

psst, I just found out markdown works in this devlog box, I think, we will find out.

Overview

I got significant progress done in this “one hour” period that was logged.

I actually worked for like 5 hours nonstop but most of the things I did was debugging so it really didn’t count the time I spent looking at logs.

Either way my language is basically a transpiler now. You can compile PlainScript to JS. It is a backend language as of now so you can do what you can expect from any other language like python and C++.

Future Plans

Using this for backend is just very limiting in my opinion and I am planning on a full Arduino Port which you can code simple projects like blinking LED’s or Wi-Fi communication. I am planning on making a very specific way to print graphics on a screen connected to the Arduino but you would need prebuilt graphic libraries to even do all that and it’s just a pain unless it dynamically generates the keywords for such headers. Right now PlainScript exists for JS and I’m proud of it, of course it needs some security tightening here and there to be actually usable which will be done in my 3rd hour. I will ship the PlainScript V1 after that and work on Arduino port. Right now I haven’t started the demo’s and such so those will come likely tomorrow morning. The rest is planning.

Closing

Alright I spent like 30 minutes writing this then realizing there’s a character limit so I can’t even type the capabilties of the language. Oh well.

Cya later tonight or tomorrow morning chat.

Devlog 1-
PS: I wrote this like a product pitch so bear with me.

Introducing PlainScript. It’s a programming language that uses English sentences instead of whatever alien syntax normal languages use.

Why am I making this? Because I spent 4 hours yesterday looking for a missing semicolon in my C++ project and I’m still PISSED about it. If I can write instructions in English and the computer understands it why isn’t it a thing yet? We live in 2026 no?

Here’s what it looks like:
Print colored magenta "Hello World!"

Right now it handles basic print, math, and variables. Still working on bools, typed variables (ints/strings), arrays, and more complex math stuff. It compiles to JavaScript under the hood, might add Python later if they are willing to behave.

Currently I don’t have any “usable” screenshots to share so maybe check again within the hour for my next devlog.

See you in an hour! (maybe.. no promises)

Devlog 2-

People said my last devlog sounded like AI, so I’m just gonna type this like a normal person.

Anyway, I got a huge part of this project finished and I’m basically ready to ship it. I added a ton of new elements: badges, buttons, inputs, and all that stuff you’d expect from something like Bootstrap, and made it so you can actually edit every little detail.

The main thing though was the debugging. Node.js and Vite were being a total nightmare. Vite kept crashing because it couldn’t find my files, and then the whole server refused to start just because of some dumb syntax errors I made while setting up the automatic code. It was a massive pain to get it all talking to each other, but I finally got it working.

Also did I mention how stupid JS syntax errors can be? Like it throws errors that aren’t even errors.

This project is basically finished now, if you want to use it go to my GitHub and follow the instructions.

Still sad on how I lost 50 minutes of log time because of stupid HackaTime.

(PS: I love intellisense now, saved me 30 minutes. Big W.)

Devlog 1: Building LiteStyle

Okay so I made a CSS library. This is my first devlog and honestly I have no idea what I’m doing with the format, but here we go (no yap).

Here’s the thing about existing libraries. Bootstrap? Fine. Works. But you hit a wall eventually where you’re fighting it more than using it. Tailwind? Incredibly powerful. Also incredibly easy to turn your HTML into unreadable alphabet soup if you don’t already know what you’re doing. I watched a friend who’s genuinely smart spend twenty minutes trying to center a div with Tailwind and I thought, there has to be a middle ground.

So LiteStyle. Modular, lightweight, actually makes sense if you’re new to this. The idea is you grab pre-built CSS blocks, plug them in, tweak what you need. No config files. No memorizing forty utility classes to make a button. Just clean, readable code that does what you expect.

What I actually built in 90 minutes:
Repo’s up. File structure’s mapped out. Built a rough dashboard for customizing builds.
The dashboard looks like garbage right now. Also I built it with Bootstrap and Tailwind which is obviously absurd. I’m building a CSS library to replace those and I used them to build the tool. You have to start somewhere I guess. It’ll get ripped out soon enough.

HackaTime decided initializing my repo meant I started an entirely new project so my time tracking is completely broken. Small tragedy. Code’s committed at least.

What’s next:
Write the actual utility classes. Get the dashboard running on LiteStyle instead of the competition. Then we’ll see if this whole thing actually holds together or if I just wasted days.