Tim Tian
I’m Tim. I build robots, write software, and occasionally write prose about both. This site is one feed of everything — essays, projects, and half-finished thoughts. (Placeholder intro: replace me.)
Drivetrain friction, measured the dumb way
Tilt the field, raise one end until the robot slides, read the angle. A clip of the rig doing its thing.
Writing by subtraction
Most of my editing is deleting. An argument for treating prose the way you treat a pull request.
A flexure battery latch in three prints
Replacing a fiddly velcro strap with a printed flexure clip — and what snapped on the way there.
Reading log, spring
What I read this spring, one line each:
Turret PID control for FTC
A position controller for a shooter turret — feedforward, wraparound handling, and the tuning process.
Me at the zoo, rewatched
Nineteen seconds of elephants, zero production values, and the entire internet that followed.
In defense of slide rules
The calculator that forces you to know the answer's magnitude before it gives you the digits.