{"id":906,"date":"2025-03-23T23:48:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T23:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uselesspickles.com\/portfolio\/home\/"},"modified":"2025-06-19T14:28:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T14:28:55","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.uselesspickles.com\/portfolio\/","title":{"rendered":"Useless Pickles’ Personal Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Useless Pickles’
Personal Projects<\/h1><\/div>

Professional Software Engineer.
Amateur Electronics Engineer, Auto Mechanic, Warranty Voider.
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What is “Useless Pickles”?<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“Useless Pickles” is the internet user name of a passionate software engineer with over 20 years of professional experience, primarily specializing in front-end web development. Driven by curiosity and a fascination with developing innovative solutions to complex problems, he has also amassed a wide variety of personal projects ranging from electronics and microcontroller programming, to automotive modification, diagnosis, and restoration. This page is collection of some of these personal passion projects.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Microcontroller \/ Electronics Projects<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Car Phone Bluetooth Conversion<\/h4><\/div>

I converted a vintage car phone to be fully functional on modern cellular networks via a Bluetooth connection to a modern cell phone. This involved reverse-engineering the handset so I could develop custom hardware and software to completely take control of the handset, and re-implement much of the original behavior from scratch.<\/p>

Read More<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Proportional Throttle on a Power Wheels<\/h4><\/div>

Power Wheels have on\/off switches for throttle control. My kids deserve better. I modified the Power Wheels to have smooth fully proportional throttle control, using custom electronics, microcontroller programming, and a speed controller for R\/C cars.<\/p>

Read More<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Motorcycle Fuel Map Switching<\/h4><\/div>

I programmed a microcontroller to detect when I am cruising fairly steadily on my motorcycle and automatically trigger an after-market fuel tuning system to switch between two fuel maps: one for smooth power, the other for better fuel economy.<\/p>

Read More<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Open Source Libraries<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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ts-enum-util<\/h4><\/div>

Strictly typed utilities for working with TypeScript enums (and string\/number literal union types).<\/p>

View on GitHub<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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strictly-typed-events<\/h4><\/div>

An Event emitting\/subscription library designed for simplicity, convenience, and type-safety in TypeScript projects.<\/p>

View on GitHub<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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promise-delegate<\/h4><\/div>

A simple type-safe wrapper around a\u00a0Promise<\/code>\u00a0that provides an object-oriented interface for settling (resolving\/rejecting) the promise. Particularly useful for mocking promise return values of functions in unit tests.<\/p>

View on GitHub<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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ts-stopwatch<\/h4><\/div>

A stopwatch-inspired timer utility for measuring durations of time between different points of execution in code.<\/p>

View on GitHub<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Old Web Development Projects\/Demos<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Mountain Biking Trail Guide<\/h4><\/div>

In 2012, I was struggling to find mountain biking trails in my area. So I developed an interactive map-based trail guide for the Michigan Mountain Biking Association as a volunteer project. Built with the Google Maps API.<\/p>

Read More<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Efficient Triangles from DIV+CSS<\/h4><\/div>

A demonstration of rendering arbitrary triangles using borders of DIVs. Presented as a simple real-time 3D rendering engine. This was in 2006 before WebGL and widespread availability of Canvas. Warning: this is an old ugly web page.<\/p>

See it in Action<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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JavaScript Ball Physics Simulation<\/h4><\/div>

Throw balls around and experiment with the effects of gravitational force between objects, elasticity, rolling friction and viscosity. Implemented with HTML\/JS\/CSS only, of course. This was my “experimenting with web development” project in 2005. Warning: not touch-screen friendly.<\/p>

Try It<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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I Still Play With Cars<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Turbocharged 2013 Jeep Wrangler<\/h4><\/div>

A modified daily driver and off-road toy.<\/p>

Read More<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Turbocharged 1995 Mazda Miata<\/h4><\/div>

A modified summer-time cruiser and occasional racecar.<\/p>

Read More<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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1993 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4<\/h4><\/div>

A time capsule of early 90’s advanced technology.<\/p>

Read More<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Social Links<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n