Personal Projects

This project is an ongoing attempt to build a sleep monitoring device that lives embedded in a mouth guard or retainer. It is designed around tracking bite force, breathing, motion, and eventually more. The goal was always a fully sealed, comfortable device with wireless data offload. Getting there is an ongoing iterative process while I pick up many skills along the way. Iteration 1 — Proof of Concept The first version was never meant to stay in the mouth for long. An ESP32 on a breakout board, a coin cell, an FSR for bite sensing, and a humidity sensor for breath detection — components glued together and embedded in a thermoformed retainer made with a dental vacuum forming machine. ...

Forty minutes into a six hour drive to Crater Lake, the Tacoma lost power and started knocking. Pulled over, called a tow, and had it looked at by a local shop. Their prognosis was total engine failure — rod knock — and they offered to scrap it on the spot. My dad had a different idea. We trailered it back home and lent me the space to rebuild it myself. I’d never touched an engine before — biggest job I’d done was a power steering pump swap — but it seemed like a better outcome than the scrapyard. ...