About TechCalcs—Hands-On Engineering Notes

I enjoy building, taking apart, and modifying things. I tinker with scooters, build effects pedals, put together circuits with Arduino and Raspberry Pi, and make simple accessories on a milling machine (Kitmill).

While doing this kind of work, calculations come up all the time—"if I increase the piston diameter by 1mm, what does the displacement become?", "will the belt still be long enough if I change the pulley diameter?", "won't the LED burn out at this resistance value?". Searching every time, looking up the formula, and tapping at a calculator started to feel tedious. (And depending on what's being calculated, just looking at a number doesn't always give you a feel for what it means.)

So I figured I'd build my own tool—one that not only returns an answer when you enter values, but also shows what those values mean through animation. That's how TechCalcs started.

I studied physics in university, so I'm comfortable handling formulas, but I'm not a specialist in mechanical design or electronic circuits. That's why I build these tools from the perspective of "someone who wants to use them quickly when needed," rather than "someone used to reading specialist textbooks."