Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)

It's a performance analytics platform for runners who love to dive into the details after they've been for a run and to be able to accurately track their progress over time.

It's not like Strava because I'm not including any social elements, intitally. And not like trainingpeaks because it's focused on individuals as opposed to teams or coaches. Also the analytics and models I offer are peronalised as opposed to one-size-fits-all. It's also running only. No cycling or anything else.

Ideal target market would be fairly decent amateur runners (e.g. sub 3 hour marathoners) who already know quite a bit about training but don't have a coach and are not good enough to be pro and have a full team doing this stuff for them. The pros have awesome tools but sadly most are not available for us mere mortals BUT I can build some of them! Example features:

1. Personalised "adjusted speed" models. The strava GAP model doesn't fit very well for me and many others, so I've made my own personalised model which gets updated each week. If you get better/worse at running up hills then model adjustments take that into account. The idea is not to provide a physiological correct model but more a performance based one.

2. I'm trying to do the same for surface types, heat and humidity as well. Of course these models are not personalised. I'll get to wind later on as it's much more complicated than the former. The idea is to have an accurate representation of "effort pace", which you can use as an input to performance models.

3. Using adjused pace data I will offer a pace/duration model to estimate critical speed/LT1/LT2/VO2max and this model forms the basis of tracking progress over time. Clearly most training wont be all out efforts, so I also estimate race performances based upon current fitness as well. E.g. if you ran X speed for Y time at a sub maximal effort then you can estimate what a maximal effort would be based upon the remaining aerobic and anaerobic power. From reading sports science literure, this is the most advanced way to track performance at the moment. The actual model I use is called an omniduration model.

4. I also have build some other models, e.g. Daniels running formula, which can be used but I don't find them to be as useful as the omniduration model.

5. I'm also trying to model how a workout or training session will effect your fitness. Where it's base/aerobic, threshold, VO2max or an anaerobic effect. Then, the idea would be to look at future training performance to assess whether the model was correct. You can then assess which types of training you respnd best to as well as which types of sessions you need to get the performance gains you need for your next race.

6. Specific race time predictor. Most platforms offer a single figure prediction for a distance but I want to offer specific race perdictions which take the course and weather into account. The model will give you splits taking all this into account.

7. Cohort adjusted performance models. How are you tracking against people your age? But more importantly, how are you tracking against people doing a similar volume and type of training to you? Are you improving at a similar rate?

There's a tonne of other stuff I can add but I'm going to keep it simple and focus on performance modelling for now because no-one seems to offer any decent tools around this at the moment.

If anyone found this interesting then I'd love to hear any feedback - let me know. Cheers!

I wonder if there are any ideas on how to make this a OpenSCAD-style editor instead of interactive? I like the text-based style for simple regular shapes, but they tend to end up too simple and regular. Maybe tools like filleting edges SDF-style is a game changer?

It's compatible with Settlers of Catan. However, I plan to make my own rulesets, artwork, manuals, etc. It will not be a commercial product, of course you can make your own with the files I provide.

Right now the boards, electronics, and firmware are in good working order. Although the routing is pretty YOLO.

It feels like there's a lot of unpleasantness going on in the world right now. I thought maybe I could put my other projects aside and try to make something that might brighten your day (It certainly has enough of LEDs).

A big TODO is to replace the 0402 SMT components with something larger and easier to work with like 0603. I'll find time within a week or so and push it to the repo. (I am notoriously cheap and only keep 0402 in stock)

Take photos of the tree from 6 different angles, feed into a 3D model generator, erode the model and generate a 3D graph representation of the tree.

The tool suggests which cuts to make and where, given a restricted fall path (e.g. constrained by a neighbors yard on one side).

I create the fallen branches in their final state along the fall plane, and create individual correction vectors mapping them back to their original state, but in an order that does not intersect other branch vectors.

The idea came to me as a particularly difficult tree needed to come down in my friends yard, and we spent hours planning it out. I've already gotten some interest from the tree-surgeon community, I just need to appify it.

Second rendition will treat the problem more as a physics one than a graph one, with some energy-minimisation methods for solving.