MVDmakes things

I take things apart to see how they work.Then I make new ones.

Michael VanDyke. Engineering leader, artist, and lifelong maker in Louisville, Kentucky.

See what I've madeWork with me

Exploded view of a TV remote: top shell, rubber keypad, circuit board with an IR LED, two AA batteries, bottom shell, and battery door. BatterydoorBottomshellTwo AAbatteriesIR LEDCircuitboardRubberkeypadMVDTop shell
Fig. 1. Exploded view, TV remote. Move across the drawing to take it apart. Scroll to take it apart. The power button works.

Things I've made

  • Groundwerk

    AI strategy tools for founders. Each one interviews you, pushes back on thin answers, and writes a document that has passed its own quality gates.

    Python, FastAPI, LangGraph, React, Postgres, VercelActive

    Spec sheet

    Two tools so far, brand strategy and business model, running on one engine. Each is an agent that asks its questions, follows up when an answer is weak, and writes a document that has to pass its own quality gates before you see it. A FastAPI backend serves the agent graphs; the front end is React.

  • Plane Poultry Panic

    A 16-bit top-down action game. Get through a chicken-overrun airport and catch the last flight out.

    Godot 4, GDScriptIn playtest

  • Ephemeris

    A Swift framework for satellite tracking. It parses Two-Line Element data and works out where Earth-orbiting satellites are.

    SwiftActive

    Spec sheet

    Built to do two jobs: a practical library for iOS and macOS apps that track satellites, and a teaching tool for learning orbital mechanics by reading the code.

  • Mercator

    A Tree-sitter toolkit that turns source repositories into code quality metrics and maps of their structure.

    Python, Tree-sitter, PydanticActive

    Spec sheet

    Parses C#, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and Ruby into syntax trees, then measures them: more than 80 metrics, from cyclomatic complexity to coupling, plus dependency graphs, documentation coverage, and code smells. Runs as a CLI or a Python module, in parallel, and skips files it has already analyzed.

  • Compass

    A strategic rhythm tool for engineering leaders who have to set their own priorities. Monday triage, daily check-ins, and a Friday retro.

    TypeScriptActive

  • CoopCam

    A two-device bird camera. It photographs birds at the feeder, identifies them on the device, and sends the result to a touchscreen over ESP-NOW, no router needed.

    ESP32-S3, PlatformIO, TFLite Micro, LVGLActive

    Spec sheet

    "I wanna identify birds at the bird feeder, remotely." The camera unit is a XIAO ESP32S3 Sense running a TensorFlow Lite Micro classifier; the display is a SenseCAP Indicator with a 4-inch touchscreen. Both firmwares build from one PlatformIO config.

  • Moler Mosaic

    Print large artwork on a standard office printer. It slices an image into letter-size pages with registration marks, right in the browser.

    JavaScript, HTML, CSSActive

  • Skills

    A curated set of Claude Code plugins that add structured workflows to AI sessions, from planning and QA to time tracking and prose rewriting.

    Claude Code, Python, ShellActive

All projectsMore on GitHub

Writing

  • How this site is built

    A remote control you can take apart, one CSS variable, and a handful of files I can edit without touching a component.

All writing

Art

Painting, sculpture, woodwork, and pieces you can play with.

  • Placeholder graphic standing in for a painting.
  • Placeholder graphic standing in for a sculpture.
  • Placeholder graphic standing in for an interactive piece.

The gallery

Michael VanDyke laughing at a restaurant table at night, in a tan cap, round glasses, a light gray blazer, and a black shirt with a copper floral print.

Hi, I'm Michael

I'm a software engineering leader, a visual artist, and a lifelong maker. I lead distributed engineering teams through modernization work: moving old systems into the cloud, building observability, and making decisions with data. I stay close to the code, mostly Swift and iOS, Python, TypeScript, traditional AI and ML, and AWS.

As a kid, I used to take apart remote controls just to see the circuits, and pull pans out of the cabinets to play them like an instrument; not much has changed. These days that means woodworking, electronics on the bench, painting, sculpture, and interactive pieces. The overlap between engineering and the creative arts is where I'm most at home.

I live in Louisville, Kentucky.