Posted by Drew Bednar on October 19, 2024
Tags: life

The year end is fast approaching and it seems appropriate to take stock on what I have not accomplished in 2024. Because much of what I have to talk about are half finished projects, this article has become more of a walk of shame.

My 2024 Walk of Shame

I hope I can give myself a "healthy" dose of criticism on this one. At the beginning of the year I sat down and wrote out a list of desires for the 2024 year. I say desires, because not all items could be translated into measurable goals, or to do so would be to adopt a level of obsession that I think could be unhealthy.

Lately, I have suffered from a low grade anxiety that can easily ratchet itself up into a full blown productivity killing brain fog. I'm pretty confident this is a learned behavior to protect myself from feelings of failure. Putting it front and center, I fear failure. My reaction to failure however is disproportionate to the actual impact said failure has in actual life. I don't know exactly how I got here, but I know it's happening. The best way to deal with this I feel is to just come out and list all of the things I intended to do, but have neglected to finish yet.

The list

The AR4 Robotic Arm

I have been day dreaming about a 6 DoF Robot arm for years, and one of the first things I identified as a 2024 want was to "get a legit 6 DoF robot arm". In 2023 I had been designing my own BLDC actuator using a cycloidial gear box, but progress was extremely slow. I did finish the mechanical design and a prototype, but programming the Moteus controller was becoming a blocker. Kickstarter had some cool projects targeting hobbyists in the space, but I didn't want to risk a multiyear wait on a campaign.

Chris Annin's AR4 foot the bill. It was low cost because it came as a kit, it was functionally complete, well documented, and community members had great feedback on it. So I purchased it for a little over $1800 including shipping and gave myself till the end of the year to finish the build. In the first month, I plowed through most of the build up to the motor wiring. Now, I can't even look at that end of my shop because it's just sitting there, in the same state as it was in early February. The mode of failure on this one, I don't need a 6 DoF robot arm. I really had no reason to buy one besides "its cool" and I think my interest tanked once I realized that when I finished, it would have no purpose. Finishing this build would mean to admit there was no point to the 20-30 hours of investment it takes to assemble this unit.

Necron 40k Army

I grew up playing Warhammer 40,000 with my brothers and hitting up the game store with Ken is one of my happier teenage memories with him. I've kept somewhat in touch with the brand, mostly consuming the video games or audio books, but this year I decided I'd get back into painting and try to make it to game store at least once a month to play with some strangers. I assembled roughly 1000 points worth of models, painted roughly half, and have played exactly once. That one time was just last week when Ken was visiting. I don't know if this is a failure since I can technically play, but I definitely consider it unfinished.

Retrofitting the CNC Router

Unlike my 3 axis mill, which I did finish, my CNC router remains inoperable. This one took a while to be delivered, and I have managed to dodge making the time to finish the wiring. It'll take a weekend probably to put it back into operational shape, and honestly it has one of the larger potentials for making some side income. To avoid looking at it I bought a $8 grill cover off of Amazon. This type of behavior is reinforcing my wife's belief that I simply am a collector.

Designing my own PCB

In 2011 I really got into the Maker scene. 3D printers were just starting to hit the home, and learning how to build circuits was all the rage. I bread boarded up plenty of projects, and fast set my sights on designing my own PCB. Back then the best resources I had was an Eagle CAD book, and a bunch of DIY PCB components from Fry's. As with most things I pick up, this fast got shelved. Fast forward to 2024 though and open source CAD had caught up with professional suites and proto-board companies like PCBWay sponsor every Youtuber in the DIY electronics space. The "I could do that" became strong again.

First I set my sights on the STM32, just because it was popular, not knowing anything about it's ecosystem. Then I switched gears to focus on the Pico 2040, but why not ESP32-S3 too? It was just side quest after side quest, and here we are sitting in the end of October and I just installed KiCad yesterday. The long story short on this one I think is, I like to talk more about what I want to do rather than do what I say I'm going to.

Interviewing for a new role

Oh, this is a big one for me. I have applied to and been rejected by two places this year. To a certain extent I am surprised I managed even two. When it comes to fear of failure, a coding interview locks me up. I know it's strange. I have been working in the field now for 11 years but in the last 5 it seems like the entire industry has settled on LeetCode style brain teasers as proof you can program, rather than focusing on the more important aspects of the job which I believe can be boiled down to:

Can you understand what needs to be done? I have seen the wrong thing built multiple times by the leetist of coders. This requires actually speaking to a human being, listening carefully, and asking questions.
Can you get it delivered on time? This usually requires planning and negotiation of scope.
Can you manage stack holder's expectations? This requires communication skills again. Those 10x leet coders may know how to write a min heap from memory, but they sure won't seek feedback from customers on whether the solution is trending towards meeting the desired outcome.

Either way, I have yet to learn the "secret handshake" that is the DSA interview, and that causes me to lock up each time I go to apply somewhere.

The never ending graveyard of programming ideas

I think I started and abandoned at least 5 to 6 application ideas these 11-ish months. My one win I guess in this area is https://webserialconsole.com.

The eight blog entries half written

Yup, I have put hundreds of words down that still haven't seen the light of day because I can't find the enthusiasm I once had for the various subjects.

The admission

So I admit, I have not been finishing my projects. I could easily cite my work or family obligations as reasons why these quickly fall off the band wagon, and I am certain that is the case for plenty of them, but ultimately these are all projects I chose and have control over finishing. There is hope however. The year is not yet over. I am not proposing a heroic effort to touch on all of these projects, but there is still time to get some of them shipped.

Tags: life