It's a smart mirror! About a year ago, I thought it would be really cool to make my own smart mirror from scratch – software and hardware. So, I decided to see if I could build the mirror for less money and with fewer tools. The answer was yes! The mirror works by using a device that outputs to a recycled monitor behind the glass. The glass has a one-way mirror film on it to give the mirror effect. I manually cut all of the wood because I didn’t have electric tools, so some of the structure came out a bit uneven. This was my first real introduction to woodworking, and I think it came out good despite that. The software is a web page served by an Angular server and a Node.js backend. The backend also has Spotify integration. A Raspberry Pi works well as the video input, but anything that can display a webpage also works. In the end, the project helped me develop my woodworking and IOT skills, and I ended up with a pretty cool mirror.

A few years ago, back when I lived in Northwood V, I had to take two buses to get downtown. The official app for the bus system didn't make this very easy; I couldn't see where I was on the map, the app was unresponsive, and it looked dated. I often struggled multiple times to figure out where a bus station was, was late to where I needed to be, and was frustrated overall with the app. When I decided to attend Michigan after graduating high school, I decided to see if I could make an app that was useful and enjoyable to navigate with. A few weeks later, M-Bus was born. Initially meant for only me to use, it quickly grew from "just me," to having over 50,000 downloads and thousands of daily users. Today, it has many more features like favorite stops, accessibility features such as a dedicated colorblind mode, and dynamically changing images to celebrate festivities. You can read more about M-Bus here!