26 posts tagged with "ai"

Hangman and Color Catch already landed on the board last week. This pass was about making Hangman Solo feel like the rest of Backseat Games: road chrome, a difficulty you pick once from a local word list, and a hitchhiker drawing that grows as you miss — so the car game reads like a roadside stop, not a generic puzzle screen.

1.4.0 with this polish is on TestFlight now (not live on the App Store yet — expecting that later this week).

What happened​

• Painted Hangman and Color Catch onto the host hero so all five games read as real roadside signs
• Gave Hangman Solo an Easy / Medium / Hard choice backed by a local phrase list
• Cream road-dash tiles for letter slots, a wooden hitchhiker drawing as you miss, and host setup that makes solo difficulty an explicit pick
• Tightened the Solo difficulty sheet so Easy / Medium / Hard are clear before the trip starts

On a client SPA this week I shipped facility address + pinpoint radius search: geocode through a swappable Azure Maps service, filter with SQL geography, and persist coordinates on writes without failing the request when Maps is down. Product names and tenants stay off this page — the reusable pattern is the point.

What happened​

• Added facility radius / pinpoint search against geocoded addresses (not just text match)
• Wired a swappable geocoding service (Azure Maps in environments that have it; fake / no-op for local and Maps-down paths)
• Persisted coordinates on facility writes and filtered nearby results in SQL geography
• Extended OpenAPI + tests so the contract and happy/failure paths stay honest

Hangman got a real roadside solo loop on TestFlight, a client SPA picked up facility address + radius search with Azure Maps, and I started leaning hard on GrokBot to talk to my Cursor workspaces — while Homol High kept the week-of-10/12 packs moving and teammates kept audit, contacts, and document uploads moving.

Highlights​

• Backseat Games: painted Hangman and Color Catch onto the host hero as real signs, then gave Hangman Solo a local Easy/Medium/Hard word list, cream road-dash tiles, and a wooden hitchhiker drawing — 1.4.0 is on TestFlight (App Store live expected later this week).
• Started heavily adopting GrokBot: bots that chat with my Cursor workspaces and help orchestrate work inside them (Homol Works marketing, Homol High, ops dashboards, and more).
• Homol High: shipped week-of-10/12 Day Pack v3 (Mon–Fri) — Jacobs Geometry Chapter 2 Week 2 with the Homol test Friday 10/16, atomic-theory / periodic Chem, classical WH start, and ELA launching 1984.
• Memento Mori: stopped tinting ornate tab PNGs into solid circles and loaded chrome sooner after the post-launch restore pass.
• On a client SPA engagement: facility address + pinpoint radius search with scripted Azure Maps geocoding landed (my slice); teammates continued audit logging, contact management, resumable large-file uploads, document download/zip, and API input validation (details stay internal).

Learn More​

• Backseat Games — Hangman Gets a Roadside Solo Loop — local difficulty lists, hitchhiker drawing, five-sign hero
• Facility Radius Search with Azure Maps — geocode, SQL geography filter, Maps-down resilience

Memento Mori actually went live, Backseat Games grew two new road-trip games (and had to bump versions again because Apple closed another train), and Homol High switched Geometry onto Jacobs while shipping the week-of-10/5 packs.

Highlights​

• Announced Memento Mori as live on the App Store (launch post), then bumped marketing version to 1.0.1 so post-release TestFlight uploads can continue, and restored ornate chrome PNGs after the deferred-preload / SF Symbols-first pass.
• Added Hangman and Color Catch to Backseat Games, then bumped the App Store marketing version to 1.4.0 after Apple closed the approved 1.3.0 train — same recovery pattern as last week, this time with the new games on the next number.
• Homol High: switched Geometry to Jacobs (chapter-test Fridays only for Homol Geometry worksheets), moved ELA onto a daily 3-part novel log with Tuesday/Thursday Home Ec hours, and shipped week-of-10/5 packs (Jacobs Chapter 2 Week 1 plus the atomic-theory start).
• On a client SPA engagement: standardized REST conventions, URL-based API versioning so v1 and a sample v2 can coexist, reference-data endpoints, and authorized document download / multi-select zip landed across several merges (details stay internal).
• For a property-management SharePoint engagement: branded property listing web part plus list customizer, property import, Entra-driven leadership stamps, and grouped list views (details stay internal).

Learn More​

• (no deep-dives kept this week)

The polish build was ready for TestFlight — then Apple closed the approved 1.2.1 marketing train. This week’s story is less “new features” and more “ship the hardening under the next version Apple will accept,” while Android stays parked for the long haul. 1.3.0 is live on the App Store now; the next release is where new games show up.

What happened​

• Hardened the three launch games: invalid Sign Game feedback, plate collection, scenery rotation, review prompts, and host-gone recovery (mostly polish, not screenshot-bait)
• Pinned expo-store-review to 56.0.3 so the iOS archive compiles cleanly against Expo 56.0.9
• Bumped the App Store marketing version to 1.3.0 after Apple closed the approved 1.2.1 train — and that build is live in the App Store
• Left Android parked for quite some time (Play listing assets recorded; no public Android push and no “coming soon” tease)
• Lined up the next version around new games, not more 1.3.0 polish

Barry finally hit Amazon as a paperback, Backseat Games jumped an App Store version train to ship 1.3.0 live, and a client SPA week stacked Entra, SQL facilities, and document upload work.

Highlights​

• Launched Barry as a premium-color paperback on Amazon and gave it a dedicated Homol Works home at /barry — cover, favorite pages, buy link (full launch post).
• Shipped Backseat Games 1.3.0 live on the App Store after Apple closed the approved 1.2.1 train — hardening more than new visuals; Android stays parked for quite some time, and the next version is where new games land.
• On a client SPA engagement: Entra pilot + SQL-backed facilities catalog, composable facility filters, Internal Static Web App stubs, and a document upload API slice landed across several merges (details stay internal).
• Refreshed Homol Works Microsoft Learn badges/trophies from a fresh “Download your data” export.
• Homol High’s week-of-9/21 day packs were already covered in last week’s stub — still the teaching spine for this window.

Learn More​

• Backseat Games — App Store 1.3.0 after the closed train — 1.3.0 is live; next version brings new games

After the where-we-are-now status post, Homol High kept moving the way a delivery repo should: ship the next week’s day packs to the hub, then tighten the Reading path so AIOHS next-layer steps are one click away.

What happened​

• Shipped week-of-9/21 day packs so the print hub can serve transformations, Matter labs, and Carroll writing
• Put AIOHS next-layer steps on Reading with direct links (less hunting, more doing)
• Continued the git-backed co-teacher loop: packs land on main, hub deploys, paper hits the table Monday morning

App Store prep earlier this summer got Memento Mori submission-ready. This week’s pass was smaller and more tactile: harden what happens right after the tutorial, and put native iOS chrome back where custom icons had drifted. Hoping this build clears review so we can finally say it’s live.

What happened​

• Hardened post-tutorial boot so first-run handoff into the main app is less fragile
• Restored iOS chrome via SF Symbols for a more native tab/nav feel — tabs use calendar.badge.clock, calendar, star, book, and chart.bar; settings/FABs use gearshape, magnifyingglass, arrow.up.right, and friends
• Kept the change scoped — no feature sprawl, just reliability and platform fit after the tutorial path

A shipping week across personal apps and home study: Homol High got the week-of-9/21 day packs, and Memento Mori restored proper iOS chrome after the tutorial.

Highlights​

• Shipped Homol High week-of-9/21 day packs (transformations, Matter labs, Carroll writing) and put AIOHS next-layer steps on Reading with direct links.
• Hardened Memento Mori post-tutorial boot and restored iOS chrome via SF Symbols — hoping this build clears so we can finally announce it’s live.
• Polished Backseat Games toward TestFlight 1.2.1 (Sign Game feedback, Dynamic Type, Node 22 / EAS CI) — deep-dive skipped this week.
• Kept Homol Works weekly curation reliable under Task Scheduler — no Monday git-fetch hangs, stronger runner hardening.
• On a client SPA engagement: authZ policies and correlation IDs, notes management, document panels, facility catalog/paging, and RFC 7807 error handling landed across several merged PRs (details stay internal).

Learn More​

• Homol High — week of Sept 21 day packs — transformations, Matter labs, Carroll writing, and Reading next-layer links
• Memento Mori — post-tutorial boot and SF Symbols chrome — harden first-run handoff and restore native iOS chrome

Two weeks ago Homol High was a Phase 1 repo and a nervous pilot day. Today it is a running home-study school for Grace: a curriculum spine, a four-sheet Day Pack, a black-and-gold Phat Cats brand, and a family print hub that deploys when we push. Same consulting muscle — version control, conventions, co-teacher ops — pointed at sophomore year.

The remote stays private between me and my wife Kasey. Professor Cursor is still the curriculum coach. Parents run short kickoff, check-in, and wrap — not all-day sit-beside tutoring.

If you want the origin story, start with Homol High Phase 1. This post is the “what matured after the first real weeks” follow-up we promised after that pilot.

The arc in one diagram​

What Phase 1 got right (and what broke on day one)​

Phase 1 shipped the bones that still matter:

• Courses for 2026–27: Geometry, World History, AP ELA, Chemistry, plus a light PE/Arts elective log
• Georgia home-study guardrails next to the ops playbook (Declaration of Intent, 180 days × ~4.5 hours, required cores)
• A Professor Cursor teaching rule: literal language, checklistable outcomes, Must-do vs Stretch, Stuck Protocol, phone-away defaults
• Co-teacher rhythm: ≤15 min kickoff, independent blocks, ≤10 min midday check-in, ≤10 min wrap
• Attendance and learning-log hooks so the year is auditable, not vibes-based

The pilot day told on us immediately. Single-sheet “lesson pages” were too dense. Parents needed answer keys that Grace should never see. Reading directions fought with problem space on the same page. Volume and sequencing needed a real weekly generation checklist — not hope.

So we iterated the product the way you iterate a delivery repo: convention first, then tooling, then brand.

Day Packs: v1 → v2 → v3​

Day Pack v2 — split the audience​

From 2026-09-01 we stopped stuffing everything into one sheet. Each school day became three markdown sources and three printables:

That alone changed the morning. Grace gets a map and a workbook. We get a co-teacher brief we can keep off her stack.

Day Pack v3 — add reading, adopt a spine​

From 2026-09-08 (first AIOHS-aligned day after Labor Day) each day is four files:

lessons/YYYY-MM-DD/
  agenda.md
  worksheet.md
  reading.md      ← new
  cheat-sheet.md

Reading is Grace’s outbound sheet: numbered steps, links to curriculum pages and texts, novel start/stop lines. We do not paste large third-party curriculum into the repo — we link out. That keeps copyright clean and keeps the Day Pack honest about what “open the book” means.

Easy Peasy All-in-One High School (AIOHS) became the primary spine for Geometry, Chemistry, and World History. Older materials (Lassiter / Apologia) are gap-fill only. ELA stays Homol-authored; the semester novel thread starts with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, then 1984, then Rebecca. Friday is the writing turn-in day.

The week of 2026-09-01–09-04 counted as credited intro overlap while we cut over. From 9/8 onward, the Day Pack is the contract.

Print hub: markdown in, paper (or tablet) out​

Writing Day Packs in git only helps if the family can print them without ceremony.

We added:

• print/Export-LessonPrint.ps1 — markdown → browser HTML for letter-size print / Save as PDF
• Cursor rules so any lesson create/edit/rename/delete runs print sync in the same change
• An Azure Static Web Apps family hub that auto-deploys when print/ lands on main
• Per-day mobile hubs (print/days/YYYY-MM-DD.html) so a tablet can open “today” without hunting files
• A school-day poster for the wall rhythm

The hub is family-facing, not a public Homol Works product page — same privacy rule as the private GitHub remote. No live family URL here; Azure Static Web Apps hosts it, and print/ on main is what deploys.

Short videos (often via Khan Academy search) show up on the agenda as tap-able links with a ≤5 minute bias. Assigned video = the only phone/laptop exception for that step.

Brand: Homol High Phat Cats​

School needs identity almost as much as worksheets. On 2026-09-02 we locked brand:

• Team: Homol High School Phat Cats
• Mascot: Randle — black cat, glasses, letterman jacket
• Colors: black and athletic gold

The crest is the hub logo, favicon, and Add-to-Home-Screen icon. Print chrome moved off the older teal palette onto black/gold so every morning sheet feels like the same school.

What a school day looks like now​

Order stays; times float:

1. Kickoff ≤15 minutes — outcomes aloud, phone away, Stuck Protocol, one clear Block A action
2. Core Block A (independent worksheet)
3. Break / movement
4. Core Block B
5. Midday check-in ≤10 minutes — parents use the cheat sheet
6. Core Block C or lab / lighter block
7. Wrap ≤10 minutes — mark must-dos, log minutes, note tomorrow

Most days center Geometry + AP ELA. World History and Chemistry share the remaining weight. Chemistry lab days flag Hands-on (kitchen materials, parent present) or Virtual (simulator / video lab) right on the agenda. We also stood up a home lab kit portal so materials stop being a surprise.

Volume targets stay aggressive on purpose — Geometry must-dos in the teens–twenties, other cores sized for ~40–60 focused minutes — with Stretch as the pressure valve when energy or time runs out.

Learning-style ops (without the trait list)​

We keep a learner profile and learning log in-repo. The public rule is the same as Phase 1: we track the supports that fit Grace’s unique learning style; we do not publish the trait inventory. The Day Pack conventions (literal directions, worked examples, Stuck Protocol, read-aloud → paraphrase, Must-do vs Stretch) are the visible expression of that work.

Where the calendar is as of mid-September​

• Pilot and Day Pack v2 week in the books
• AIOHS-aligned days running from Tue 2026-09-08
• Week of 9/14 day packs shipped, fall outline updated, chem lab kit portal live
• Attendance log aimed at Georgia’s 180-day / ~4.5-hour pattern — logged honestly at wrap

Homol High is no longer a weekend experiment. It is a private delivery system for one sophomore year: curriculum decisions in markdown, paper in the morning, feedback at wrap, next pack on main.