Hello. My name is Andy Gross, and I am a nerd. I’ve been a nerd since as far back as I can remember. When I was in about 5th grade I started reading the Q basic manual that came with our family’s first computer, and pretty soon I had a little pixel moving around the screen. Things snowballed from there, and I ended up with Ph.D. in electrical engineering. Now I work as an optical engineer on AR and VR devices, but I still like to do projects that keep my electrical engineering and coding skills sharp (or if not sharp, at least not completely neglected). I also like nerding out about bikes and windsurfing, and now that I’m a dad, I like to do nerdy projects with my son.
There are tons of projects that I would like to do, and skills that I would like to learn. And really not enough time to do all that. Life has a way of getting busy, and I have often had to take breaks from projects, only to come back months later, having forgotten half of what I learned the first time around. Or some new shiny thing has caught my attention. Either way, the original project ends up languishing.
A colleague of mine is fond of this quote from Myth Busters : “Remember, kids: The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.” (although my friend’s favorite variation not quit so PG ). My hope is that this website will add some structure to my play, and help me document my projects for myself to look back on. I doubt that anything on this site will rise to the level of actual science, but maybe others out there will find some of it useful or interesting as well. These are my nerdy projects.