welcome to da journal :)

(fyi dates are in mm/dd/yy cuz 🦅🇺🇸)

5/17/25

be me
wake up
highway announcement
wtf

First entry into the journal! Today I brainstormed a bunch of ideas on what to do for highway, such as: * combat robot that flips onto opponents with a vertical spinner (slam jam) * horse racing robots with mash-able cheer buttons that have a very small chance to boost the robot forward * irl V1 wings from ultrakill

Ultimately, I decided to choose something that is somewhat within my comfort zone of circuit boards and 3d modeling (though I hope to do the other ones someday), that being a keyboard in the shape of a biblically accurate angel. I chose this idea due to the existing tutorial on hackpad which should be a great stepping stone into this project, while also being unique and funnier from the usual, flat micropads (though I'm unsure if this idea would count as a custom or starter project 🗿).

I have some ideas on what the keyboard should look like, with the shape of the board most likely looking like the usual orb angel with the revolving rings of eyes.

5/18/25

second entry ahhh

This morning I hopped on and decided to start on how i wanted the PCBs to look like. I made a preliminary model of what the keyboard should look like, as well as some research on possible microcontrollers. * currently im thinking of using a rp2040-ZERO microcontroller due to the small size and large amounts of pins (20 switches from what i counted), possibly could also use a larger microcontroller like an esp32 from what i read (credit to Adedayo Adeleke on slack for telling me about the rp2040-zero) * the microcontroller could be located in the center of the angel, with the outer pcbs containing the switches being wired through the supports using copper contacts and soldered on wires * could also use flex pcbs or ribbon cables to manage the wiring more efficiently, though im completely new to them

sometimes its not about the ergonomics, batman...

5/23/25

5 days later from the second entry but we ball (too busy being sleepy and playing balatro)

I didn't get much done today since I was on call with friends for most of my time after school, but I managed to create a type of testing platform for the wiring for my keyboard. Currently, I'm using a Raspberry Pi Pico WH and push buttons from my old Sprig to simulate the keyboard, but couldn't get it to work (probably due to me uploading the firmware wrong and/or apple not accepting it as a keyboard, xd)

I also want to remake the preliminary model of the keyboard, since it doesn't look much like the biblically accurate angels depicted before (the rings being too large, the center being too small, etc.)

5/24/25

IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and by it the prototype)

I tried finagling with raspberry pi pico code found on adafruit and the hackpad website, but eventually got it working with the QMK Keyboard Configurator using the adafruit/pico-pad configuration.
I plan to change up to code the keyboard by myself for an easier time tweaking the keyboard, but this currently shows that my wiring idea for the core microcontroller and outer PCBs works.

Next should hopefully be another remodel of the current design, followed by PCB design and the first iteration of the keyboard!