Home on randomodbuild

Stainless Steel Charcoal Starter

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

One of my favorite classes that I’ve taken so far at Stanford has been ME 103: Product Realization: Design and Making. In this class, you are tasked with developing a product involving three fabrication processes. The processes you could choose from included welding, forming, turning, machining, and casting. In order to be successful, you had to choose a product that was well scoped and could be finished within the 10-week duration of the class (really <4 weeks once you start on the product). The product that I chose to build was a charcoal starter.

Cutting Boards

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I decided to make a couple of end grain cutting boards as Christmas presents for my relatives.

I had some leftover cherry from my bed project which I used for one of the boards.

I was in a bit of a time crunch for the other one, and purchased a plank of walnut from the Makerspace I was working in. The price wasn’t bad, but the board had several defects and resulted in a much smaller cutting board than I had planned for.

Snowmaking

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 19:29:25 -0500

Introduction

I love snow. I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, which typically gets snow once a year. When it snowed, it usually meant a day (or multiple) off of school and lots of fun outside. My dad would even cross country ski around the neighborhood, getting some weird looks in the process. We are supposed to get snow every year, but it doesn’t seem to happen that often anymore. Last year, I was fed up with our lack of snow and decided to take matters into my own hands.

Repairing an automatic watch winder

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:57:51 -0500

Background

If you happen to have a generic watch winder such as the one below, you might eventually run into the issue where it stops spinning.

The Problem

More often than not, these cheap winders will use a belt driven system such as the one below, and over time, these belts will crack and lose tension.

The Repair

Disassembly

To fix this, first, disassemble the winder. There are several good videos online explaining this, here is the one I used.

ME 102

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Here are a few of the projects I worked on during ME 102, (Introduction to Product Realization).

Laser Cut Box

Pretty self explanatory. The assignment was to create a non-rectangular laser cut box, without using adhesives or fasteners. I knew I wanted to incorporate kerf cuts into my design, and settled on this. I initially wanted to create a cylindrical shaped box, but decided that would make the friction fits too difficult, so settled on this design.

How I extended our home network to a detached garage for free

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR

DSL

A bit more context

No, not really. Rather, the abandoned DSL infrastructure left on our property from ages ago. Before you rush to conclusions on the legality of this, let me explain:

Even more context

Background

In our neighborhood, power and telecom come in from the back of each property on a series of utility poles between the backyards. This has led to our neighborhood being one of the most prone to power outages in the area, but that’s a rant for another time. Back on topic, this means that our internet service travels from the telco patch panel on the utility pole out back, all the way to the center of our property, where it enters the house. Along the way, it passes by the detached garage. Now, I believe you can see where this is going.

Subdomain Request Website

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Background

After founding the Maker Club at my high school, I wanted to establish a strong web presence. The default Google Sites subdomain (sites.google.com/site/sitename) simply wasn’t doing it for me. But I also didn’t think it was worth it to by a domain just for the Maker Club. So I bought the “mphs.club” domain, which are the initials to my high school. My hope was that any club that wanted a cool looking custom domain, such as maker.mphs.club, could get it, and everything would be under the “mphs.club” umbrella. For only $9 a year (or something like that, ICANN keeps raising prices) every club at my school could have a nice looking domain, and Google Sites would work with it for free. The problem was that I couldn’t manually enter a DNS record for every club who wanted it at the school. It’s not that I don’t want to, but rather this would make it too hard. It should be easily doable by anyone who wants it, and “knowing Brooks” shouldn’t be a prerequesite. So I set out to make a website that could automatically add those records for me.

Cornhole

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 12:00:00 +0000

I made two sets of cornhole boards, one for my family and another for some friends.

I decided on using 2x3s from Home Depot and 1/2in Birch Plywood for the top.

Pocketholes and woodglue was used throughout.

I designed mine with two cross braces to eliminate any possibility of bounce/sag in the top.

The holes were cut using a router and a homemade jig, and I think it turned out pretty well. I clamped a piece of scrap wood to the back of the plywood and drilled the center of the jig into that, so when I finished cutting out the center piece the router wouldn’t go anywhere.

Little Free Library Update!

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Note: I started writing this post in 2021, left it for 2 years, now just finished it in November 2023. Hope that clears some confusion!

I’m happy to say that the little free library has finally been installed in a public place, and there have been some changes!

While I’m not pleased with the timeline (it’s been nearly 2 years!!), I am glad that the library is now being used by the community.

Bed

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Inspiration

I wanted to replace my childhood bunk bed because it was a little embarrassing to be using one as a 17 year old. I really liked the look of the Thuma Beds. If you haven’t heard of them, they are a platform bed using Japanese castle joints and the whole thing assembles in a couple minutes. The Thuma Beds were pretty expensive and I wanted a summer project, so I decided to build my own.

New Website 2023

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Hey everyone! I’m working on a new website, powered by Hugo. This new website will first run under the url hugo.randomodbuild.com and eventually I’ll change the www.randomodbuild.com domain to the new hugo site.

A Timeline

The Beginning

Over the years, I’ve had several websites, in various states of progress. I created a blogger website at randomodbuild.blogspot.com, and even a weebly website at randomodbuild.weebly.com, which are now both abandoned, and never really had any content in the first place. Finally, in 2019 I got started on my selfhosting journey.

Fixing my school's CNC router and saving $700

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Background

My school had a broken Carvey. The Carvey is a (now discontinued) desktop CNC router made by Inventables. I convinced my school to not surplus it (effectively throwing it out) and let me try and fix it, and they agreed! I brought it home where it stayed for several months, until I finally had the time to fix it.

Diagnosis

Looking through the Inventables Community forum, I figured out what gcode to use to home individual axis and determined several problems. Someone at the school had attempted to replace the Y-axis stepper motor with a broken one, but thankfully they left the original stepper, which I reinstalled. This was really weird, I don’t know what that person was thinking. The other problem, much more serious, was that the Z-axis stepper was fried. When I tried to move the z-axis, the motor would budge slightly and let out a high pitched whine, but never rotate.

Foundry

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Note

This project was crude, quick, and dirty. It doesn’t feel right putting it next to my post about my bed or even the subdomain request website, but I thought it was funny enough to include. Enjoy.

Foundry

I had an itch to melt metal, and an old party balloon tank left in my neighbors’ recycling bin gave me the excuse to try it. I used an angle grinder to cut the top off, and a hole saw for the air inlet at the bottom. The basic foundry was completed. No, I didn’t add insulation. This was a very quick and dirty project, with several shortcuts. But it worked how I wanted it to.

New Domain Name! randomodbuild.com

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you are reading this, you have probably noticed that this website is now located at www.randomodbuild.com instead of the older www.randomodbuild.com. The reason for this is because my .tk domain lapsed.

Yes, I even made a point about this; how you must cancel a month in advance and then re-register your .tk domain if you want it to remain free. But, I forgot to remind myself, and the domain expired. Sure enough, when I went to renew it, there was a $9 fee.

Traefik + Docker-Compose Stack

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been messing around with traefik and docker (using docker compose) for a while now, and I think it’s finally time for me to write out some steps on how to get it installed and working. In the past, I followed SmartHomeBeginner’s excellent guides, but the previous few times I’ve made some of my own changes, and it often helps to have a cumulative guide for others to follow. This will be frequently updated (probably) as I add more steps that I originally forgot, so feel free to leave a comment below.

P1 | Trying to create an open community mesh network on a shoestring budget

Fri, 21 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Hey! In this series of blog posts, I am going to try and document my journey of attempting to setup an open community mesh network. What does this mean? It means that anybody can join and add to the mesh, (hence the “open”), and can expand the network for others, or just connect to it. This is not intending to be “free WiFi”, although in the future with internet gateways it very well could become that, but almost like a decentralized internet alternative. Read on to find out more about the network architecture.

Internet Connected Little Free Libraries™

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

At the school I used to attend, a community service project was required to graduate. You could do it as a group or alone, so of course I was in a group with 2 of my friends. I originally wanted to do something related to 3D printing. I had purchased a budget 3D printer in 2017, the Tronxy X1. My idea was to go to my elementary school, get a 3D printer, and have a little class teaching kids how to use and maintain a 3D printer. It probably would have benefited the community (a requirement for the project), but there were too many variables. It would be hard to do as a group, because my friends lived 30 minutes away, and having classes about 3D printers would be a pain to coordinate. Plus, we needed money. And while 3D printers have gone down significantly in price and we could’ve just bought a few Ender 3’s, it would’ve been a hassle to rally parents into funding 3D printers that their student may not even use. So it could’ve worked, but would have been a huge pain to coordinate. Plus, Jake (one of the 2 friends) came up with a much better idea; to make a little free library. So we quickly decided to do away with the original plan.

New Website!

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! I am in the process of setting up a new website. I have been planning on making a website for a long time now, and I finally have gotten around to it.

Once fully up and running, this website will document many of my projects that I have been wanting to share but haven’t gotten around to editing and posting to YouTube. I hope that eventually this website can be a tool for me and anyone else interested in my projects.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey! I’m Brooks Modesitt, and this is my site, randomodbuild. Here, I share some of the projects I have worked on, as well as other random stuff.

I’m currently a sophomore at Stanford University studying Mechanical Engineering. I love to tinker with, build, and modify things. My interests vary considerably with time, but include computers and technology (especially decentralized tech such as crypto, nostr, and p2p networks), RC, woodworking, 3D printing/laser cutting, and just making things in general. I enjoy learning new things and sharing what I’ve learned with others, which is the primary function of this website.

Randomodbuild?? wtf

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The “random” part in the name explains how the topic of each project can vary from the next. The “mod” part in the name explains that I like to modify things. And the “build” part in the name explains that I like to build things. I came up with this name when I was 11 years old and wanted to be YouTube famous, and decided to keep it because, why not?