The Curious Engineer

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Circus Scientist

circusscientist.com

Tutorial and blog site – created by the DevSoft South Africa lead developer. Fun electronics and programming projects for kids and adults, with a sprinkling of magic and circus. Just released: Pinwheel Poi! Go check them out on their own website OR build your own. I am also currently focused on perf

ElectronicsEmbedded / microcontrollersPythonAI / ML

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
174 from 8 Sep 2017 to 21 May 2026
Posting
monthly (20 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://www.circusscientist.com/feed/

2026 9

  1. Installing SmartPoi D1 Mini version with Arduino IDE V2
  2. How to get patterns on POV poi – so many ways!
  3. Upgrading cheap LED Juggling Balls
  4. SmartPoi Accelerometer Controller
  5. I just discovered Kokoro free Text To Speech that runs locally
  6. Failure is part of Success
  7. Connect SmartPoi to Android Hotspot
  8. I used AI to play my Classical composition
  9. Happy New Year (resolutions)

2025 47

  1. Google is dead. Where do we go now?
  2. Breadboards that are set up on my desk right now
  3. Notes about CH32V003 chips
  4. Building the One Button Remote
  5. Uploading SmartPoi-ESP32 version without PlatformIO
  6. The new Aider-CE fork of Aider AI Assistant is now official
  7. US Govt Shutdown stopped my Desktop Wallpaper from updating
  8. Tools For Developers
  9. aider-ce building a webapp and testing live with a single prompt
  10. Fix SmartPoi Android app not sending messages to poi
  11. Cheapest remote controlled LED Juggling Clubs
  12. Introducing One Button Player and One Button Remote
  13. Updating a Minecraft Bedrock Server
  14. DIY AI Browser with Chrome-Devtools MCP
  15. Failure is part of Success
  16. OpenCode with Chrome Devtools automatically testing Magic Poi website
  17. Re-factoring a large Flask template to accommodate Jinja and AI coding
  18. DeepSeek browser testing with claude-cli and chrome-devtools-mcp
  19. I hacked Claude Code to work with DeepSeek API
  20. Connect your poi to your phone – instead of connecting the phone to the poi
  21. Online Hackathon was a bust
  22. I got accepted to participate in an online Hackathon
  23. Cutting GitHub out of the loop
  24. It’s time to talk about PRICE
  25. I hired an AI Pirate to sing me praises to recruitment agents
  26. Smart vs Magic Poi – current situation explained
  27. Magic Poi Product Launch Timeline
  28. Agentic Embedded Development
  29. Playing with MCP enabled Chatbots
  30. Router Mode Unlocked
  31. Text to Image for SmartPoi
  32. FastMCP LED Control Server
  33. AI Generated Images for POV Poi
  34. LLMAP advanced context generation for AI coding
  35. Android Devices
  36. The Problem of Timelines
  37. Rookie mistake – forgot to pin library versions!
  38. SmartPoi Controls Android App updated
  39. SmartPoi JS Utilities Update Demo
  40. Building 10 websites at once using AI
  41. I spent some of my Patreon subscribers money on an AI bot that plays Minecraft!
  42. Moving On
  43. I cloned ChatGPT Operator using DeepSeek R1
  44. I was using DeepSeek for 3 months, then it blew up!
  45. A Cyber War is preventing me from working on Magic Poi?
  46. Testing Deepseek R1
  47. Magic Poi 2025

2024 21

  1. Boost Your Online Reach: How Multiple Related Websites Can Grow Your Business
  2. Using the SmartPoi WebApp
  3. Setting up Smart Poi
  4. Try and try again
  5. Magic Poi first test board arrived!
  6. MagicPoi is going online soon
  7. Don’t forget to yield
  8. Wireless Streaming Audio to your phone from LibreElec Kodi
  9. SmartPoi and Magic Poi updates again
  10. SmartPoi AI Podcast Episode 1
  11. SmartPoi Firmware Downloader – made with AI
  12. Introducing MagicPoi Alpha
  13. The deal with PlatformIO and ESP32 Arduino
  14. My 10 year old son made an Android Game with no coding experience
  15. Monkey Detector web service!
  16. Magic Poi Lite update April 2024
  17. Magic Poi Lite Firmware (Definitive Version)
  18. Smart Poi WebView Android app
  19. The Monkey Squirter in action!
  20. SmartPoi js utilities update
  21. SmartPoi File List

2023 21

  1. SmartPoi – new Web Software to upload images.
  2. SmartPoi have a hidden feature I didn’t tell anyone about yet
  3. I hired a pirate to take orders for my entertainment business
  4. Introducing LED WebSite Indicator
  5. Writing code for products is different from writing code for yourself.
  6. Super Fast PHP WordPress Plugin development with VVV
  7. MQTT port 1883 – access denied!
  8. I got banned from Ngrok after 10 requests!
  9. Manjaro – Have a New Computer after this upgrade!
  10. Don’t Copy VirtualHost files from https to http
  11. Notes for updating LibreElec to a new version
  12. Shout out to ChatGPT for making code documentation easy
  13. The free ChatGPT course was a lot of fun
  14. Image Classification for Magic Poi images using Machine Learning
  15. bin files and Magic Poi
  16. MagicPoi Website demo video
  17. Magic Poi emulator preview
  18. Computer generated Magic Poi patterns with P5.js
  19. Solving a simple problem with ML
  20. Upgrading the Magic Poi site
  21. MagicPoi – slow progress

2022 12

  1. Ubuntu Snap update SPOILED the World Cup
  2. Upgrading K8 Prophecy club with new battery and firmware
  3. Upgrading DigitalOcean Ubuntu Droplet from 20.04 to 22.04
  4. Using maps and geocoding to follow the money
  5. Speech to Text is finally ready – Whisper review.
  6. Smart Poi revisited
  7. Emulating Poi Spinning patterns in software
  8. Upgrading K8 IR RGB Clubs
  9. The Circus Scientist Show
  10. K8 Virtual Juggling with working remote
  11. Magic Poi 2022 update
  12. Unpacking an inverted index with Python

2021 7

  1. I made an LED indicator for my portfolio site
  2. Goodbye Fritz.ai, goodbye proprietary online services
  3. Magic Poi Magic
  4. The magic of open source
  5. SmartPoi going online
  6. DigitalOcean: Migrating WordPress Websites from Ubuntu Server 16.04 to 20.04
  7. Why you should hire a juggler (Or the similarities between learning to juggle and learning to code)

2020 19

  1. SmartPoi Update
  2. Creating an app for Android Gingerbread in 2020
  3. ESP8266 libraries treasure trove
  4. Advanced Arduino editing part 2
  5. Advanced Arduino Editing
  6. Making a Living during Coronavirus Lockdown, part 3
  7. Whatever happened to processing.js
  8. Circus Scientist does Circus
  9. New Shop
  10. Google Play Store Says NO!
  11. How To Fix the dreaded “Error Establishing A Database Connection” In WordPress
  12. Legal Animation
  13. FaceBook is killing me
  14. Making a Living during the Coronavirus Outbreak, part 2
  15. Making a living during the Corona virus outbreak..
  16. postmarketOS first look
  17. Monkey Detector Circuit and App
  18. Mobile Monkey Detector
  19. SmartPoi Code Dump!

2019 7

  1. Stripboard Sucks
  2. tennis racquet juggling
  3. Smart Poi Upgrade
  4. Progress with Monkey Detector
  5. Traffic Light with Button
  6. Security and Monkey Business
  7. More Poi Animation

2018 30

  1. Smart Poi Android app now available for testing
  2. Bouncy Stilts
  3. Juggling 5 clubs – in slow motion.
  4. Animated Poi Spinning
  5. Smart Poi Android streaming app control demo video
  6. K8 One Button Remote with Arduino Nano
  7. POV poi image to circle
  8. Some Pics from my day job
  9. Multiple Poi sync testing
  10. Lets stream some Pixels
  11. Time for some Poi Sync
  12. Some pics of the poi in action
  13. Simple D1 mini Circuit
  14. Added SmartPoi to Hackaday
  15. Android for Africa!
  16. Smart Poi Emulators
  17. Smart Poi 3D Design
  18. Programming the ESP-01 using Arduino IDE – some notes
  19. What it’s really like to be a developer
  20. Made an infographic describing the complexity of Smart Poi project
  21. k8 Clubs what are they and don’t they come with a remote already?
  22. Smartpoi is open source
  23. Breadboarding Stage
  24. Arduino Development Overview
  25. Android Development Overview
  26. ESP8266 Overview
  27. INTRODUCING SMART POI
  28. Embedded Video is easy!
  29. Another new Gif
  30. Checkout My New Gif

2017 1

  1. Some Poi Pics