iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 19/09/2026

May you have a third space as cool as Maryland Meadworks! ❤️

Me in the foreground at Maryland Meadworks during local band night with Willow Avenue String band performing.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 25/07/2026

A bit more pedestrian, this fella, the size of a small bird, graced our front bush a few years ago.

A very large brown moth with small white eyespots.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 05/07/2026

You play as detective Eagle Quark, a not-particularly-bright agent who got mis-assigned to NASA Goddard and upon reading about supernovas assumes there's a criminal mastermind out there blowing up stars... and the sun is a star, oh no!

Screen shot of the Space Forensics game. Detective Eagle Quark stands at the end of an isometric hallway covered in bulletin boards and white boards.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 19/05/2026

That was the funniest episode of Game Changer, I was equal parts laughing and cringing SO HARD!

Middle aged man sitting on a couch death gripping a pillow as he cringes and laughs at the season premiere of Dropout’s Game Changer.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 10/05/2026

We’re in Oklahoma City for USA Gymnastics Men’s Developmental Nationals and I’ve honestly the city is far more charming and pedestrian friendly than I was expecting. We’re near the Bricktown area and haven’t needed a car the whole time. Walking to a minor league game is pretty sweet!

View from the seats of a minor league baseball game between OKC Comets and SLC Bees.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 01/05/2026

Last night my friends and I had the pleasure of learning about ocean life and playing the new @elizhargrave.bsky.social game about collecting seashells, Sanibel, after-hours at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. What an awesome night!

Research Zoologist Chris Meyer and Board game designer Elizabeth Hargrave being interviewed by Paleobiologist Stewart Edie at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Four people playing a board game under a massive model of a Blue Whale in the Ocean Hall of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 08/02/2026

Our younger son continues to excel and astound us as he rounds out his senior year of high school and level 10 gymnastics. His older brother is also going strong and made deans list at his university last semester. Super proud papa here!

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 05/02/2026

Everything involving money is a form of make believe, but with crypto doubly so. I think enough people are realizing bitcoin won’t actually save them if the economy crashes so there’s an exodus (to what… I have no idea)

Meme with Drew Carey on his show “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” with text that reads “Everything’s made up and the points don’t matter”

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 02/01/2026

That seems a bit early for Deltron…

Cover of the classic 2000 sci-fi hip hop concept album, Deltron 3030

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 12/12/2025

Oh no… I did a new thing, and it worked, and now I have IDEAS! 😂 I made my first antenna today, a simple vertical dipole for the 2m band. It’s literally a cheap broom handle, PVC, wire, and zip ties, but it works great!

A vertical dipole antenna for the 2m amateur radio band

A NanoVNA H4 device showing the analysis of an antenna over the 2m band. It’s very resonant and has a low SWR.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 11/12/2025

@toomanyzooz.bsky.social were such a class act at The Atlantis tonight! They played a super energetic set, including both new stuff and old favorites. I even spotted them in the crowd supporting the opening act, Clejan (who was also awesome too!)

The band Too Many Zooz playing at The Atlantis in Washington, D.C.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 22/10/2025

We were prank gifted four pink flamingo lawn ornaments over the summer. Yesterday I decided to give them a 🎃seasonal upgrade🎃.

Skeleton figurines riding pink flamingo lawn ornaments

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 23/04/2025

A few weeks ago I randomly won a prize in #PolyPalooza from @polymaker.bsky.social and all my filament arrived today! 🤩 Looking forward to putting this to some good use!

A stack of 7 boxes of 3D printer filament

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 10/04/2025

My son has loved gymnastics since his preschool classes. He’s good too - his shelves are full of trophies and medals. But the last few years have been rough. Harder skills, puberty, and coaching changes lead to far fewer trips to the podium. But he’s got grit and earned his first trip to Nationals!

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 05/04/2025

Since it looks like I’ll be protesting all this idiocy for a WHILE I grabbed a cheap, lightweight LED sign to hack on. Last night I came up with what I wanted on the backside and just finished gluing it up before I head downtown. #teslatakedown #handsoff

A small LED sign being turned into a dynamic protest sign

The back of the LED protest sign with text that reads AT LEAST NERO COULD FIDDLE.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 22/03/2025

It’s a lovely spring day here in DC. Perfect weather to get outside and save our democracy at the #TeslaTakedown protest! See you there!

Protest sign that reads - Tesla’s “new car smell” is the Musk-y scent of Nazis!

Protest sign that reads - Tesla will not recover! Get out now!

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 19/03/2025

Tonight we’re playing our inaugural game of Arcs. We’re just wading into its web of interconnected game mechanics and it’s a real brain burner… I can see why it’s won so much praise! (The Pikmin vases are our addition, to hold the board flat and observe like some particularly cute elder gods)

The board game Arcs, mid-game. Three Pikmin vases observe like elder gods, holding the board flat with their omnipotence.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 01/03/2025

My current project is developing a set of instructions/kit to turn Baofeng UV-5R into a radio emergency call box for outdoor events. If all goes well I’ll be releasing plans, a BOM, STLs, etc. in a few months!

A customer circuit board connected to a 3D printed sled connected to a Baofeng UV-5R handheld radio. Behind it is a 3D printed battery adapter for the same radio.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 26/02/2025

Getting our old 3D printer a bed leveling probe has proven to be a real game changer. My most recent project has been dialing things in to be able to make lithophanes!

A 3D printed lithophane of a woman holding a hand fan, shown without back lighting.

A 3D printed lithophane of a woman holding a hand fan, shown with back lighting to show the photo-like effect.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 25/02/2025

I finally sat down tonight to learn more about my radio (ICom-705) and see if I could figure out how to get FT-8 to work with the SDR-Mobile app. Turns out, it’s real easy and my little 10 watts can make it all the way to Italy! My first 9 QSOs covered 5 countries! #ham #ft8

Screenshot of the SDR-Mobile app of FT8 based QSOs made by W3XON

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 15/01/2025

Learning that Morse code can be thought of as a tree and that letter frequency in English (counted via movable type!) was used to determine the codes was a delightful thing to learn - it felt so arbitrary when I tried learning it as a kid!

Morse code represented as a tree structure - dit going left, and dah going right. Via wikipedia.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 30/12/2024

There’s a real version of it - Neverwas Haul! I’ve seen it in person and it’s INCREDIBLE.

Neverwas Haul, a Victorian-era steampunk inspired mutant vehicle driving around Burning Man.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 27/12/2024

My secret Santa opened his gift from me yesterday, so I can now share! It’s a fully custom 3D printed clock that uses side-glow fiber optic filament and RGB LEDs to show the current time. The ESP32 microcontroller hops on WiFi daily and syncs itself using NTP. Red=hour, green=minute, blue=second.

Custom built clock that uses fiber optics and LEDs to show the time.

The 3D printed parts of a custom clock being fit together.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 19/12/2024

Among my FILs stuff we found this oddball analog electronic (no film, but also not digital!) camera from 1988. It records up to 50 images as still analog video frames(!) on proprietary 2” magnetic diskettes. You connect it to your TV via RF adapter or RCA cable to view the photos!

Sony Mavica MVC-C1 still video camera from 1988 along with the MAP-T1 playback adapter.

Front of the Sony Mavica MVC-C1 still video camera.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 16/12/2024

Last years gift was the gift of a Lifetime. It was literally called Lifetime. It was an LED panel + ESP-32 + 3D printed mount that combined was a desk clock that also continuously played Conway’s Game of Life (and sync’d time via WiFi and NTP)

A portrait oriented LED panel displaying the time of 7:01 in blocky white numbers while other teal and magenta pixels display Conway’s Game of Life.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 11/12/2024

Saturday night might be alright for fighting, but Tuesday night is GREAT for A BLOOD RAVE! (This is way too much fun!) #synth #tb-303 #blade

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 08/12/2024

I have NO IDEA what I’m doing, but it’s beepin’ and boopin’!

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 08/12/2024

My x0xb0x TB-303 clone is alive! Assembling it was a real challenge with ~1000 soldered joints. Now for the challenge of learning how to play it!

Backside of the fully populated x0xb0x printed circuit board.

Front of the fully populated x0xb0x printed circuit board.

Fully assembled x0xb0x TB-303 synth clone.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 06/12/2024

While it's fallen out of style, I still have a love for electroluminescent (EL) wire. My first light-up costume pieces used it and and I always include it in the light-up costuming workshops I teach once or twice a year. You can grab the handouts from that workshop here - waxpraxis.org/knowledge/

A black woman looking over her shoulder wearing glowing teal luna moth wings made of electroluminescent wire.

A canary yellow suit jacket from the 1970s with a large collar. The collar, cuffs, and four front pockets are all lined with yellow glowing electroluminescent wire.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 04/12/2024

This is my x0xb0x Roland TB-303 synth clone kit I’m finally getting around to building. I’m now down to just the sequencer and jumper connections to the back panel! Hopefully tomorrow the LEDs I’ve picked out will arrive so I can finalize their colors and the needed resistors. #synth #electronics

A partially populated printed circuit board in a vise on a workbench.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 04/12/2024

Another early Arduino-based project of mine involved helping a friend by building the electronics to control his “poofer”-style flame effect with an electronic dartboard. A bullseye has never felt so good!

Outdoor scene of man with his arms raised in joy in front of a carnival-style wooden wall hosting a dartboard. Shooting above the wall is a large rising ball of flame.

Electronic dartboard on a workbench connected via a ribbon cable to a custom electronics box.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 03/12/2024

Now that I know just enough CAD to be dangerous, I’m loving being able to break out the digital micrometer, measure some broken plastic doohicky, and fix my stuff. This trash picking tool I use when walking the dog has been broken for months with a snapped trigger. $0.20 of PETG and it’s back!

Dimensional sketch in multiple views of a broken plastic trigger for a trash picker tool and the 3D printed part it was used to create in place in the tool.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 02/12/2024

Two years ago I made interactive holiday lights for my house. Ingredients were a pair of @adafruit.com Feather boards (one with TFT screen), an MQTT broker, and a simple web app. Scan a dynamic QR code (URL+OTP) on the screen to pick a color palette and pattern! Code here: github.com/brandenhall/...

A string of oversized RGB LEDs hang on the roof of the front porch of a bungalow style house. A glowing panel on the front stair rail invites visitors to scan a QR code on a screen to control the lights.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 27/11/2024

For this project, Created Equal, I used a Python script to parametrically design and scale the support structure for a triple pendulum made of 2x4s. The bottom 2x4 was hollowed out and contained RGB LEDs + @adafruit.com Trinket + battery. The result? A chaotic persistence-of-vision spirograph!

A long exposure photograph of the Created Equal Art piece showing its triangular frame and spirals of glowing colored light from chaotic swinging of the strip of RGB LEDs on its bottom pendulum.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 26/11/2024

Another Python driven-art installation of mine was the Large Hue Collider. Three visitors used knobs to steer whizzing LED dots around a 15m ring trying to get them to collide. If they succeeded there’d be a burst of light on the ring followed by a slit-scan of a random image from the Hubble.

The Large Hue Collider art installation consisting of a 15m in circumference plastic ring filled with LEDs on the ground and three posts surrounding the ring with a knob on each. The ring is glowing an orange and red colors as visitors play with it.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 25/11/2024

To make the designer's job easier in creating the different eyes, I created a web app that would let her visual create both designs and animations for the eyes - appropriately named iEye. Later I put 2 of The Eyes on my lawn and let neighbors design their own creatures during Covid.

The user interface for a web application to let users design patterns for The Eyes.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 25/11/2024

Another Python-powered art installation of mine, dating back to 2016, was The Eyes. The original installation had 8x 2' and 8x 3' low-res LED eyes hung in a frame just inside a tree's canopy. Different creatures would wake up and look around, simulating eye movement pretty nicely for just 63 pixels!

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 24/11/2024

Besides using Django for work, I also use Python heavily in my interactive artwork. This animatronic lotus I built in 2013 had over 3000 RGB LEDs in its petals and would blossom if someone solved the puzzle of the 6 glowing hex tiles surrounding it.

Silhouettes of people standing in front of a large slowing lotus sculpture

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 22/11/2024

Hugging non-family can be challenging for me, but I flipped that discomfort into art! The Hug Jacket turns hugs into an “underwater” level. Pressure sensors on my back read hugs & “charge” the LED gauges in the sleeves… which then slowly (~20m) discharge and finally blink red (I need a hug!)

A lab coat with RGB LEDs sewn into the sleeves and pressure sensors sewn into the back

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 21/11/2024

My hobby is turning the strange ideas from my imagination into wonder-inspiring interactive art. My first project was the Blitterbike in 2012. In motion, at night, you saw video game sprites running around in the real world. Parked, it was a GIF VJ setup via a custom wireless joystick.

The artist and his young family in front of his Blitterbike interactive art piece.

The Blitterbike on a lawn showing a large green eyeball GIF

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 18/11/2024

The art I create revolves around electronics and while in the groove of creating my “clean as you go” ethos quickly devolve into “clean barely enough for the next step”. It was nice to spend a bunch of time last week and this weekend FINALLY getting my electronics bench into a usable state.

An electronics workbench with related tools and lots of tiny, labeled drawers

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 16/11/2024

One more just cause it was fun yelling for him as he finished his routine cleanly. (I swear they grease the pommel horse at the start of the season…)

Male gymnast spinning around while performing a handstand on the pommel horse

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 16/11/2024

Like at most start-of-the-season meets, my guy is playing it a bit conservative with his skills, but even “simple” skills like this pike on the parallel bars STILL fill me with awe!

Male gymnast performing a pike skill on the parallel bars

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 16/11/2024

Watching my kiddo defy gravity will never get old… #gymnastics

Male gymnast performing a planche skill on the still rings

Male gymnast performing an L-sit skill on the still rings

Male gymnast performing a handstand on the still rings

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 16/11/2024

Trying to find something in my basement I came across the 5-point harness my sons and I installed in the soapbox derby car we made years ago. The panels were old yard signs painted white and held together with duct tape. My kids were horrified by the dad joke name and “goose egg” number!

A black and white homemade soapbox derby car named “Duct Duck Goose” with a cartoon duck hood ornament and feathers on the back.

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 15/11/2024

New flow state unlocked! Listening to weird Balatro-style music while sorting electronic components and going absolutely HAM on our trusty old label printer.

A cabinet of small plastic drawers with printed labels on each

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 17/08/2023

Building a mystery (that will also sound really cool!)…

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Branden “Wax” Hall / W3XON @waxpraxis.org · 16/08/2023

When we adopted our dog Ranger we were told he was 5. He was actually more like 8, has bad hips, and for some awful reason, a bullet living in his abdomen. So, I give him some grace when he attempts to speed run (e.g. mostly skip) his morning walk to more quickly get to breakfast.

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