Things I wanted to understand badly enough to make.

A notebook of weekend experiments: party games, generators, music machines and small hardware. Each one tried properly, then written up with what went wrong.

Seedling: An idea, half-built.
Growing: Works. Still changing.
Evergreen: Finished and written up.

aQuiz night on the televisionbPaint-by-numbers kitscMusic box from a MIDI file

No. 002 · puzzles · experiments · growing

Birthday crosswords made of private jokes

Five arrow-word grids for Lo's birthday, built from 157 words only his friends would get. Notes from writing my own generator, and why every grid still had to be rewritten by hand.

grids: 5
own words: 157
filler words: ~62,000
grid shapes: 7,358
code: ~13.6k lines
print: A5 booklet

Read the notes

No. 003 · painting · experiments · growing

Custom paint-by-numbers for a holiday with friends

One box of acrylics, a stack of A3 paper and a poster for each guest. Notes from building my own paint-by-numbers kits, and what happened when people started painting.

No. 001 · games · experiments · growing

Building a TV game show for a house party

Three teams, a big screen and everyone's phone as a buzzer. Notes from building Le Grand Quiz d'Yport, and what turned out to be hard.

Room for the odd idea.

I spend enough of the week making sensible things with roadmaps and deadlines. Here, an idea can begin because it’s funny, oddly specific or simply worth testing.

About this notebook