Hi, I'm Billfred Leverette.

I'm in Columbia, South Carolina seeking remote or local opportunities to tackle interesting problems as the person who makes things happen--some people call that a project manager, some people call that a technical or marketing role, some people call that a wildcard. I'm far more interested in the work than the title.

I've been working on a few things. This GitHub Pages site is one of them, since it's good practice for using GitHub in general. I'm learning the intricacies by starting this site off like it's 1998 all over again.

I've pulled off some other interesting tasks too. Ask me about the time I got an entire NFL stadium looking for one student to reunite them with their goat. You can reach me on LinkedIn. Or if you'd like something easily printed, here's my resume as a PDF.

Robots!

I'm entering my 20th season of involvement with the FIRST Robotics Competition, a program that seeks to engage students in science and technology careers by making it a varsity sport with 120-pound robots. It's a lot of long nights during the two-month build season, but it's also quite the project management exercise.

SCRIW is the oldest off-season FIRST Robotics Competition off-season tournament in the Carolinas. Depending on how you want to count things (and with a hall pass for 2020), it may be the older than the oldest in-season event too. I have served on the event planning committee since its inception in 2011, and I am the voice of the event.
Pandamaniacs is the FRC team that I have mentored since late 2017 (and previously, from 2004-2006). When I rejoined the team, they had only reached playoffs three out of fourteen seasons and were taking hours to get set up at events. I've guided the team's transformation from competitive afterthought to regular contender in the state. We haven't missed playoffs at anything below the world championship since 2019, and at our most recent event we rolled everything into our pit and were operational in about fifteen minutes. Five of that was because we set the caster brakes before plugging in power.
Cult of the Minimum Competitive Concept - A presentation I made demonstrating options for building simple and effective competition robots. This was last updated for the start of the 2022 season.
Sample FIRST Robotics Competition Scouting Workbook - I developed this spreadsheet over several years to make it dirt simple to collect information on robots competing in matches every few minutes and translate it to actionable information. By abstracting data display from data entry, we make the former better and the latter faster. It also scrapes publicly-posted API information on request, allowing the team members collecting data to skip information that the referees are already entering. (Note: All API keys have been deactivated.)

Assistive Technology!

Adapted Toy Training Videos I recorded to demonstrate how to modify off-the-shelf toys so they can be controlled by an accessibility switch. Toys that are sold pre-adapted tend to carry a premium of at least $50, and some companies are better than others at build quality. By learning how to DIY it, you not only save the cash but know how to do the repairs. I also performed this training live at the 2022 Assistive Technology Industry Association Expo as an invited speaker. (Free registration required to get the videos.)
In 2021, I set to work on a CircuitPython project to make a Serpente board interface nicely with an iPad as an HID device. (The Serpente is out of production; if I was replicating this now, I'd use the similar QT Py board as it's cheaper but still retains USB-C.) I wired the board to accept headphone jacks, allowing users to connect accessibility switches and perform most operations available on an iPad.
BlinkyATProject is where I'm working on creating a custom light show device from scratch to accommodate a kid who can't process noises well--and adapted toys, like most toys, love to throw off a bunch of noise. Unlike the project with the Serpente board above, this required actually learning a bit more Python (well, the CircuitPython dialect) to group LED animations, update brightnesses, and modify the intensity of the animations. The entire project will be housed in a custom-designed, 3D-printed enclosure once complete.

Other Things!

Billfred's Guide to Small-Time Package Mailing - During the early COVID lockdowns in 2020, many of my friends started producing personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and others in their communities. And they were grossly overpaying on shipping because they didn't know the tricks you learn as a longtime seller of things on the internet. By compiling my wisdom into one widely-shared document, I saved people hundreds of dollars they could plow back into making more items to give away.