Jeff Chabotte — projects, repairs & experiments
There is no problem too trivial to solve with an unreasonable amount of engineering.
This is where I keep the things I build, restore, fix, experiment with, and eventually figure out—usually after taking the long way around.
A project journal, more or less.
I bounce between old cars, software, fabrication, strange tools, half-finished prototypes, food experiments, and questions that refuse to leave me alone. Some projects turn out beautifully. Some become cautionary tales. Both belong here.
Pick a rabbit hole
Cars, code, fabrication, food, and whatever else seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to spend far too much time figuring out.
Cars & Machines
Rescues, restorations, movie cars, mechanical puzzles, and machines that are too interesting to leave alone.
AI & Experiments
Agents, learning systems, strange prototypes, and small ideas pushed considerably farther than necessary.
Making Things
3D printing, fabrication, shop projects, custom parts, props, and things I made because the part I wanted didn’t exist.
Cooking
Big flavors, low-carb experiments, homemade seasonings, questionable amounts of sauce, and meals worth remembering.
Stuff I Figured Out
Build notes, fixes, useful mistakes, stubborn problems, and the answer I wish I’d found before I started.
Featured projects
Two rabbit holes worth the trip
Griff’s BMW
I bought a battered movie car from Back to the Future Part II, hauled it home through a blizzard with my dad, and helped turn it from a pile of weathered fiberglass back into Griff Tannen’s flying BMW.
Teaching an agent to survive the maze
A reinforcement-learning experiment wrapped in its own command center: training runs, reward curves, live decisions, and the recurring discovery that PAC-MAN is much harder when nobody is holding the joystick.
Latest notes from the shop
Finished projects are useful. The false starts, improvised fixes, and “well, that didn’t work” moments are usually more interesting.
- Introducing Guitar Super App: Tune, Explore, Practice, Compose
A guitar, a browser, and one more rabbit hole. Guitar Super App is now live on this site: a collection of connected guitar tools for tuning, exploring the fretboard, practicing patterns, and working out musical ideas. Open Guitar Super App → Inside, you’ll see the Guitar Lab workspace, with its dark background, gold highlights, and… - Creamy Mediterranean Swordfish w/ Asparagus
This one started with a couple of swordfish steaks, some asparagus, and a desire to put the Mediterranean seasoning blend I’d just made to work. The idea was to heavily season and sear the swordfish, use everything left behind in the pan to cook the asparagus, and turn those browned spices and pan drippings into… - That BMW…
Do You Remember… The Future? We’ve been promised flying cars forever. Movies, television, magazines — for decades, the future was always right around the corner, and apparently the first thing we were all going to do when we got there was stop driving on the ground. So where are they? Well, for a while, I…