Sidequests

Games, paint, solder, and a lot of Monster.

Everything I get up to off the clock: hackathons, the things I’ve built, what I’ve been modelling in CAD, what I’m playing, and what I’m painting.

Hackathons GovHack, the Terrible Ideas Hackathon, Kiwi Jam, and more. Fusion Where I modelled the axe from Resident Evil Requiem. 7 games In heavy rotation right now, from Battlefield 6 and MW2 to three Resident Evils.

The desk

What I keep on my desk

  • Ara's desk setup after dark: dual monitors glowing, pink light under the desk, and the easel beside the chair

    The setup

    Where the gaming, modelling, and late-night builds happen.

  • Ara holding a can of Monster Zero Ultra in front of the paint shelf

    Monster Zero Ultra

    The white can. Fuel for long sessions and late-night builds.

  • Ara's soldering station at home, with tools and reels of LEDs

    Soldering kit

    Iron, tweezers, and whatever board I’m working on at the time.

  • A paint brush and a pink Monster can in one hand, over the floral desk mat

    Oil paints

    Brushes and paints for when I need a break from screens.

Hackathons & competitions

Team builds against the clock.

I’ve taken part in many hackathons and university engineering competitions. I love team projects where you design and present a technical solution against the clock, because communication, problem solving, and time management all matter at once.

Ara's team at GovHack

Hackathon

GovHack

The open government data hackathon.

Terrible Ideas Hackathon: a flight case packed with batteries and red wiring, powering the team's build

Hackathon

Terrible Ideas Hackathon

Where the goal is to build a gloriously terrible idea, properly.

Kiwi Jam: the Signal Quo dashboard Ara designed in Figma, showing nodes online and EVA status

Competition

Kiwi Jam

A team build against the clock. I designed our Signal Quo dashboard in Figma, tracking which nodes were online.

Builds

Solder, servers, and code.

Placing a surface-mount LED on the arcade chess PCB with tweezers

Soldering · PCB

Arcade chess LED board

A big green PCB for an LED arcade chess board. I hand-placed the surface-mount LEDs with tweezers and soldered every joint, working at a hackathon soldering station, on an SMD bench with a hot plate and microscope, and back at my own desk.

Small parts, a lot of joints, and a steady hand, plus a Monster within reach.

PCB assembly SMD soldering Hot plate Team build
The PCB on a silicone mat at a hackathon soldering station, with fume extractors
An SMD soldering bench with a hot plate, microscope, and the bare PCB
Soldering at home, with the wooden chess grid frame beside the board
The half-populated board next to a pink Monster can
On Ara's modded Minecraft server at night: a player with a glowing bow in a torch-lit village

Server

Minecraft server hosting

Hosting my own Minecraft server, which means handling networking and port forwarding, keeping it up, and keeping it easy to run.

Hosting Port forwarding
Ara's rose and gear logo

Web

This website

My personal site, built with plain HTML, CSS, and a little JavaScript, using the web and UI/UX basics from my IT certificate.

HTML CSS JavaScript

Server · World generation

Pre-rendering the world

Before friends join, I pre-generate the server’s world so new terrain doesn’t have to be built on the fly while people are exploring. That means less lag and fewer stutters once everyone’s playing.

  • Generating terrain chunk by chunk ahead of time, so the world is ready before anyone explores it
  • Watching CPU load and temperatures in the fan control software while it runs flat out
  • Letting the case fans ramp up to keep everything cool through the long render

The clip shows all three: the world generating on screen, the monitoring software, and the fans inside the case.

World pre-generation Performance Cooling

Fixes

When something breaks, I open it up.

Software · Minecraft server

Keeping a modded server running

Minecraft Forge 1.20.1 warning: FerriteCore is not installed, memory usage will be very high (flagged by ModernFix)
The server's mods folder: dozens of Forge 1.20.1 mods, with a couple switched off as .disabled files

My Minecraft server runs a big Forge 1.20.1 modpack, and every new mod can break something. Keeping it running is its own ongoing troubleshooting job.

  • Reading load warnings, like ModernFix flagging that FerriteCore is missing and memory use will be very high
  • Tracking down conflicting mods and switching them off by renaming them to .disabled
  • Keeping dozens of mods on matching Forge 1.20.1 versions so the server and every player’s game line up
Troubleshooting Forge modpacks Memory tuning

Hardware

Laptops and PCs

HP POST error screen: the system time is invalid, Real-Time Clock Power Loss (005), you may need to replace the onboard battery
The laptop with its bottom cover off, showing the battery, twin fans, heat pipe, and motherboard

Hardware · Laptop

The laptop that wouldn’t boot

My HP laptop started stopping at a POST error before it would boot: Real-Time Clock Power Loss (005). That points to the small onboard battery that keeps the clock running while the laptop is off. So I took the bottom cover off and went in past the main battery, fans, and heat pipe to get at it.

Diagnosis Disassembly RTC / CMOS battery
A PC build in progress: an AMD motherboard with RAM fitted beside an open case with three fans and a mess of cables

Hardware · PC build

Building a PC for a friend

Helping a friend build their PC from a pile of boxes: motherboard, CPU and RAM first, then into a three-fan case and on to the cable management.

PC assembly Cable management
Windows crash screen: your device ran into a problem, stop code KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR (0x7A)

Hardware · Desktop

The PC that kept crashing

My PC started blue-screening with KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR (0x7A), a stop code that means Windows can’t read data back from storage. That pointed straight at the drives, so I opened it up:

  1. Took the PC apart and pulled the GPU to get at the M.2 SSD slots
  2. Checked both drives were seated and connected properly
  3. Removed the 4 TB drive and ran on just the 1 TB to see if the crashes stopped
  4. Moved the 4 TB into the 1 TB’s slot to rule out the slot itself

The problem followed the drive: my 4 TB SSD was on its way out. It was still under warranty, so PB Tech swapped it for a new one.

Diagnosis Stop codes Storage

CAD · Fusion

Modelling the Resident Evil Requiem axe.

The game
The Resident Evil Requiem axe modelled in Fusion, shown at an angle on the grid

3D model · Work in progress

From game to CAD

I’ve been modelling the axe from Resident Evil Requiem in Fusion. It’s two things I love in one project: Resident Evil, and turning something into a proper 3D model. The head has its bevelled edge, cut-out, and serrated spine, and the handle is shaped with bolt holes along its length.

Still a work in progress. Once the model’s finished, I’m going to 3D print it.

Fusion 3D modelling 3D printing next
In-game reference: Leon walking down a rain-soaked street in Resident Evil Requiem, the red axe in his hand
Close-up of the axe head: the bevelled blade edge, cut-out, and serrated spine

Games

What I’m playing, clipping, and screenshotting.

Now playing

In heavy rotation

Battlefield 6 cover art

Battlefield 6

Large-scale, all-out-war shooter.

FPS Multiplayer
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II cover art

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022)

Fast, close-quarters multiplayer.

FPS Multiplayer
Grand Theft Auto V cover art

Grand Theft Auto V

Open-world chaos around Los Santos.

Open world Online
Meccha Chameleon cover art

Meccha Chameleon

One of my current favourites.

Now playing
Resident Evil 2 remake cover art

Resident Evil 2 (remake)

Raccoon City, Leon, Claire, and Mr. X.

Survival horror
Resident Evil 4 remake cover art

Resident Evil 4 (remake)

Leon’s rescue mission, rebuilt from the ground up.

Survival horror Action
Resident Evil Requiem cover art

Resident Evil Requiem

The newest Resident Evil, and the inspiration for my axe model.

Survival horror See the axe →

Highlights

Recent clips

Battlefield 6: a 213 m marksman headshot, lined up between the power pylons. Recent kills, clutch rounds, and whatever else I manage to clip go here, swapped out as new ones come in.

Last year on Steam · Replay 2025

  • THE FINALS31% of playtime
  • Factorio19%
  • Battlefield 615%
  • HELLDIVERS 213%
  • Phasmophobia5%

28 games · 492 sessions · 128 achievements

Screenshots

From recent sessions

GTA V: a fire truck and a dump truck locked together on the freeway under a Bull cologne billboard, a police car in the foreground
Resident Evil Requiem on the monitor at Ara's desk, with an Xbox controller
Meccha Chameleon: a painted-yellow chameleon hiding in plain sight on a seat, with the search timer running
GTA V Online: two characters riding a black scooter down the road
Fortnite: running a kebab shop with the squad, a customer waiting at the window
Meccha Chameleon: a camouflaged chameleon blending into mossy stone walls

Painting

Oil paintings.

What I make when I want to create something that isn’t on a circuit board.

Oil painting of pale wildflowers glowing against a deep blue-green background, on the easel

Oil on canvas

Wildflowers in blue

Pale flower heads glowing out of a deep blue-green background.

The timelapse beside it runs from the first loose strokes on bare canvas, through blending the dark background and blocking in the leaves, to the flower heads going in last.

Oil paint Timelapse

More paintings

From the easel

Purple flowers: loose, round blooms in violet and dusty pink, with green leaves dripping down the page
Moody field: long windswept grass in front of dark tree lines and rolling green hills, under heavy white clouds
Bright sky: rolling green fields under a big blue sky and thick white clouds, on the easel beside the palette
Hills, in progress: layered green hills fading to blue and a leafy tree on the right, with a well-used palette propped in front