My practical-ish project: an advanced egg-timer. I looked for some time trying to find a good egg timer, but there are really just two options, and neither are

My practical-ish project: an advanced egg-timer. I looked for some time trying to find a good egg timer, but there are really just two options, and neither are that great. You can have a nice, intuitive analog interface (the classic dial timer), but you lack precision and many are very poorly constructed and unreliable (seriously, look at Amazon reviews for this type). There's also no way to fine-tune the alarm; some are horrendous, while other are inaudible. The digital ones solve some of this issue, but have terrible UI requiring many button clicks. I used a digispark ($1 for ebay clones), two rotary switches set up as voltage dividers, an arcade button, and an addressable LED strip to make a better timer. You input minutes with one knob, and seconds with the other. This has wonderful tactile feedback, is completely precise, and entirely intuitive. The LED strip counts up (and shifts red to green) as the timer passes, does a rainbow swipe/strobe for a few seconds to alert, and then 'cools down' so you can get a sense of how badly you overshot. There's also a buzzer. It's good for the kitchen, but I actually find it best as a rest-period timer for weightlifting. The visual display is great for loud gyms. It's 100% a better timer than anything else on the market, and I absolutely love it.