Personal Projects
A collection of personal projects shaped by curiosity, family, creativity, and the instinct to turn useful ideas into something real.
Some of these projects begin with something I notice at home. Others begin with a question, a story, or an idea that seems worth pursuing. They may become books, apps, frameworks, experiments, or something entirely different. What connects them is the process: follow the curiosity, understand the underlying need, and build something tangible from it.
My professional portfolio focuses on the platforms, products, delivery systems, and organizations I have helped build. This page is for the work that begins somewhere more personal: a conversation at home, an observation about how people learn, a story idea, or simply a problem I feel compelled to explore.
Not every useful project begins with a client requirement or a formal business case. Sometimes the best starting point is curiosity. These projects show what happens when I follow that curiosity far enough to create something tangible.
The subjects may vary over time. What remains consistent is the way I approach them: notice what is missing, understand the people involved, create a practical structure, and keep refining it through real use.
Creative Collaboration
Turning family conversations, jokes, observations, and unexpected ideas into stories we can shape together.
I have been developing children's books with my kids, beginning with ideas that emerge naturally through conversation and play. The goal is not only to write stories for them, but to let them participate in making the stories: contributing characters, jokes, situations, reactions, and strange turns that an adult might not invent alone.
The process gives their ideas somewhere to go. A funny phrase can become a character. A disagreement can become a plot. An observation can become the central question of a story. Over time, those pieces become something structured and tangible that we created together.
A playful children's story built around observation, misunderstanding, and the way a simple claim can become more complicated when characters look closer at the world around them.
A funny and slightly absurd children's story that uses contrast, sensory language, and character reactions to help kids play with description, humor, and expectation.
Creating stories together helps the kids see that ideas are not fixed or disposable. An idea can be discussed, reshaped, illustrated, revised, and eventually turned into something other people can experience. The books are creative projects, but they are also shared evidence that their ideas can become real.
Personal Product Build
A learning gap I noticed at home, turned into a working application.
Vocab Aloud is an Android app I created for my kids to practice vocabulary without being constrained by reading ability. The idea came from a simple observation: children can often understand the meaning of advanced words before they can reliably read or spell those words on their own.
The app supports that gap by letting kids hear words, definitions, quiz prompts, and answer choices aloud. Instead of treating reading fluency as the gatekeeper for vocabulary growth, Vocab Aloud gives children another path into language: listening, recognition, meaning, spelling practice, and typed recall.
The goal is not to replace reading. The goal is to let vocabulary development move ahead while reading mechanics are still catching up.
The app was built around a learning sequence I noticed at home: children can understand and use the meaning of words before they can reliably spell or read those words independently. Audio support gives them a way to practice richer vocabulary without waiting for every reading mechanic to catch up.
Learning Framework
Helping kids turn curiosity into structure, and structure into clear communication.
Thinking in Systems started as a simple idea at home: introduce my kids to mind maps as a way to organize what they were already curious about.
I showed them the basic concept: one central idea, connected to related ideas, with branches that could keep expanding. I guided them lightly at first, but I was not trying to force a rigid assignment. What surprised me was how quickly they took ownership of it. They got excited, completed their own mind maps, and then started creating more on their own.
That became the opening. Once they had a visual map of their thoughts, I asked them to write one or two sentences for the most important nodes. Those sentences quickly became topic sentences. Then I asked them to expand each one by imagining what someone else might ask: What does this mean? Why does it matter? What example would help explain it? What connects to this idea?
From there, the essay emerged naturally. The mind map became the outline. The node sentences became the topic sentences. Their explanations became paragraphs. Instead of starting with "write an essay," they started with curiosity, visual organization, and conversation.
The important part is that it did not feel forced. They were excited to participate because the structure helped them express their own ideas instead of simply completing an assignment.
The framework works because each step feels small. A child does not have to jump from a blank page to a finished essay. They start with an idea, map what they know, choose the important parts, explain those parts, and gradually discover that they have built something structured.
The process begins with something the child is already interested in. The mind map gives that curiosity a place to expand instead of turning it immediately into a formal assignment.
Mind maps help kids see their own thoughts. Ideas that felt scattered become nodes, branches, patterns, and relationships they can point to and talk about.
The adult role is to introduce the tool, ask good questions, and help the child notice connections. The child still owns the ideas and the direction.
Important nodes become one or two simple sentences. Those sentences naturally become topic sentences without starting from the pressure of "write a paragraph."
Each topic sentence grows by asking what someone else might want to know: What does it mean? Why does it matter? What example would make it clearer?
The final essay is not forced from a blank page. It grows from a visual map, then sentences, then explanations, until the child realizes they have built a full piece of writing.
The kids were not being pushed through a rigid writing exercise. They were excited because the mind map made their ideas visible. Once they could see their thoughts, writing became less about filling space and more about explaining something they already cared about.
A downloadable version of the Thinking in Systems document, including prompts and notes from the way we practiced this at home.
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Examples of how my kids started putting their thoughts on paper, connecting ideas visually before turning those ideas into sentences and explanations.
These projects take different forms: a children's story, a vocabulary app, or a simple framework that helps ideas become writing. They are connected less by subject matter than by the way they begin.
I tend to notice something that is missing, ask why the existing approach creates friction, and then build a more useful path. Sometimes that becomes enterprise architecture or a software platform. Here, it becomes something smaller, more personal, and often more experimental.
This page will continue to grow as new ideas become projects. Some may involve family or learning. Others may not. What belongs here is the work that starts with genuine curiosity and becomes something real.