Category Archives: Programming

Material related to computer programming.

Module Monday #11: IR-08H Avoidance Sensor Module | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

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You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video.

Silly Job Title: Current Commander. I am the Current Commander!

In this video we take a look at the IR-08H avoidance sensor module and another similar component. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make them work in the end. :(

We use the Rigol MSO5074 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope to investigate the signals on the module.

We use the Kaisi S-160 45x30cm Repair Mat as our workspace.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)

Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Swann & Morten No.4 Scalpel HandleThis is an image of the product.

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Electronics Project #27: Space Drop Handheld Game | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

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You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video.

Silly Job Title: Current Curator. I am the Current Curator!

In this video we follow the instructions to build the Space Drop handheld computer game which you can buy in kit form from here: Space Drop Solder Kit.

The kit comes with the software preinstalled on the D1 Mini microcontroller, but in this video we replace the code with our own version of the code just to see if we could. And we could! Our code is here: Space_Drop.ino.

We use the METCAL PS-900 Soldering Station for soldering.

We use the Pro’sKit SS-331H Desoldering Pump to remove the OLED screen which I accidentally installed without the spacer.

We use the MUIN Solder Fume Extractor to clear the air.

We use the Bysameyee Head-Mounted Magnifier for magnification.

We use the Scotch Titanium Scissors to chop up the packaging for scrap-booking.

We use the Hakko CHP 3C-SA Precision Tweezers for holding solder off cuts.

We use the Plato Model 170 Wire Cutter to snip off component leads.

We use the Kaisi S-160 45x30cm Repair Mat as our workspace.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)

p.s. today I added OLED to my spell check.

Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

DUTRIEUX 14pcs Hexagonal Socket SetThis is an image of the product.

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Module Monday #10: HW-390 Soil Moisture Sensor Module | In The Lab With Jay Jay

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You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video.

Silly Job Title: Sparky. I am Sparky!

Today is Module Monday and the module we’re looking at today is the HW-390 Soil Moisture Sensor Module. This is a capacitive sensor which is different to the two previous moisture sensors which were resistive.

The code for today’s demo is here: 2026-04-20-HW-390-Capacitive-Soil-Moisture.ino.

We use the Rigol MSO5074 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope to look for a waveform (there was none).

We use the EEVblog BM2257 Digital Multimeter to measure voltage and resistance.

We use the Kaisi S-160 45x30cm Repair Mat as our workspace.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)

Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Yum Cha 4pcs 30mm Deep Hole PenThis is an image of the product.notes

Let’s go shopping!

Git Commands to Run Before Reading Any Code

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Via Hacker News today was The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code. I made a git-rep.sh script based on these:

#!/bin/bash

# 2026-04-09 jj5 - SEE: https://piechowski.io/post/git-commands-before-reading-code/

main() {

  set -euo pipefail;

  report 'What Changes the Most';
  git log --format=format: --name-only --since="1 year ago" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20;

  report 'Who Built This';
  git shortlog -sn --no-merges;

  report 'Where Do Bugs Cluster';
  git log -i -E --grep="fix|bug|broken" --name-only --format='' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20;

  report 'Is This Project Accelerating or Dying';
  git log --format='%ad' --date=format:'%Y-%m' | sort | uniq -c;

  report 'How Often Is the Team Firefighting';
  git log --oneline --since="1 year ago" | grep -iE 'revert|hotfix|emergency|rollback';

}

report() {

  echo;
  echo "$1":
  echo;

}

main "$@";

Reporting in on vibe coding experience

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I was chatting to some friends on IRC about my experience vibe coding so far. Figured I might as well take some time to check in about that. I suppose first I should say that I am definitely not an AI coding guru, I have pretty minimal experience with it so far.

On some of my computers I have vscode configured with Github Copilot which gives me some auto-complete type support using AI technology. This is sometimes useful and sometimes not. I am yet to use Claude in vscode.

Mostly when I’m vibe coding something I am using ChatGPT via its web interface. I have a “Plus” account with them that I pay for each month. Usually I will ask it to do something for me, it will give me a pretty useful response, then I might get it to tweak a thing or two, or I might edit myself for a few tweaks, and we’re done. Following are things I have done like this recently.

Times Tables Practice. This was an app that I got ChatGPT to help me write. You need a large monitor to view this, it won’t work on your phone. This actually evolved in stages. First I got the 15 x 15 grid on the left working, then the visualization in the middle, then the visualization on the right. It was pretty ugly integrating those bits and pieces, I just copied-and-pasted them into one big file but didn’t take any effort to make them mutually consistent. I have been debating myself about what I should have done here. Maybe I should have used separate JavaScript and CSS files for each major feature so it was clear which code was generated with each feature, or if I should do what I did and just paste it all into the same HTML file. I’m still not sure about that, but the mono-HTML file does work.

Mental Arithmetic Practice. These are practice questions mostly to help me learn my fifteen times tables, but they have simple addition and subtraction questions too. This was pretty much one shot, I asked ChatGPT to make it and I got this result pretty much on the first try. I needed to make a very small edit to make “Random” the default choice instead of “Addition”.

Arithmetic Practice. These are longer arithmetic practice questions which require a pen and paper to figure out. ChatGPT got this pretty much right first go, but I made some minor tweaks to improve legibility and the results when printing on A4 paper.

Thevenin Equivalent Practice. This was my first go at generating practice questions for Thevenin equivalent circuits. This wasn’t quite what I was after so I gave it anther go.

Thevenin Equivalent Practice v2. This was my second go at Thevenin equivalent circuit practice. The visualization as given is pretty shit and I kinda gave up on this. Now my plan is to work through example problems I found elsewhere on the internet: Thevenin & Norton practice problems.

So that’s three successful vibe coding projects and two failures.