Wordle Challenge
November 2021
Tools used: Gross Javascript, reverse-engineering hackery
Who could've guessed I would get obsessed with Wordle? Oh yeah - everyone. Back
when Wordle first got big, I reverse-engineered it and added two features: 1)
play infinite
random
Wordles and 2) set up a challenge link for a
tough word and
share it to
stump your
friends.
Investigating Automatically Generated Questions
2020-2021
Tools used: SpaCy, BERT, Transformers (Huggingface), Bookshelf
Helped lead R&D around automatic question generation from textbook content. Was a
published author on award-winning research paper proving our method works. Led productization
effort to launch at massive scale in VitalSource Bookshelf, which has since won multiple awards for
innovative use of AI in education.
Watkins or Not Watkins?
August 2017
Tools used: Python / Flask, Keras, Theano
Inspired by
Silicon Valley's
Not Hotdog, this simple app detects whether
an uploaded image is Watkins (the
Bookshelf
mascot) or not, using a convolutional neural network based on VGG16. Yeah, it's overkill. And yeah,
image models have come a
long way since 2017!
MetaSeek
2017-2019
Tools used: Python / Flask, React, AWS, MySQL
Source: MetaSeek on Github
Think outside the textbook
November 2016
Tools used: EPUB 3, Web Audio API, Firebase Realtime Database
Video of my talk at
Books in Browsers '16. Lots of fun demos in
this one, including three prototype chapters from a hypothetical highly interactive music textbook. This
was a really fun project to build, and an even more fun talk to give.
In C
November 2016
Tools used: Web Audio API, Firebase Realtime Database, MIDI.js
Source: Mind-size-bites on
Github
An explorable exploration looking at a famous piece of experimental music, "In C".
Including a collaborative, networked, educational concert performance.
Hebrides Overture
November 2016
Tools used: Web Audio API, Youtube API, Firebase Realtime Database, Device motion detection,
PDF.js
Source: Mind-size-bites
on Github
An aural and visual exploration of Mendelssohn's famous overture. Make sure to try
out conducting the piece (as it plays on your laptop) by waving around your phone to the beat.
Timbre - the color of sound
October 2016
Tools used: D3.js, Web Audio API
Source: Mind-size-bites
on Github
Timbre can perhaps best be described as the color of sound. Check out a
visualization of a trumpet or flute, then sing into your microphone to see your own voice in action.
Link-a-Day
June 2016
Tools used: Node / Express, Mailgun API, Heroku
Source: Link-a-Day on
Github
1) Send submit@mg.uptownnickbrown.com a 💯 link (with the URL in the subject line).
2) Get an anonymous 🔥 link back via email. 3) Reply to 💬 directly with whoever sent it in. I took this
offline a while ago, sorry!
EPUB2Vec
March 2016
Tools used: Python, word2vec, scikit-learn, EPUB 3
Source: EPUB2Vec on Github
Using Word2Vec, analyze which paragraphs of a set of ebooks are most similar to
each other. Useful for cross-linking, topic relevance and exploration. An example of an NLP project I
would approach very differently in 2023 compared to 2016.
Night Falls. A Storm Rolls In...
January 2016
Tools used: Hand-crafted, boutique, framework-free HTML, CSS, SVG & JS
Source: Riddler solutions on
Github
Diving deep into an interesting puzzle from
FiveThirtyEight
with an explorable explanation. I wish more educational content worked like this.
Asciify
January 2016
Tools used: Node / Express, Twitter API, ImageMagick, JP2A, AWS
Source: Asciify on Github
