In this article you will find more about me and interesting stuff I’ve been working on over the past few years.
Who am I?
My name is Karlo Kajba Šimanić and I am an 18 year old programmer. I was born in city of Rijeka, Croatia. I started programming when I was 10 years old. I discovered a website called Scratch which allowes users to program their own games using code blocks. This was a very fun and interactive way for me to learn and develop small games. I enjoyed playing around in Scratch. A few years later, around the time I was 13, I tried Unity. I was playing around with Unity for some time and eventually I went through Brackeys tutorial on creating a 3D game in Unity. After that I wanted to start my own project so I decided to create a 2D top-down shooter. Soon after finishing the game I wanted to try something new. I decided to learn Python. As soon as I started programming in Python I fell in love with software development. Python became my main programming language, later followed by Dart (flutter). Through my highschool years I was actively competing against other students like me, and had won 4th place on national competition in software engineering, as well as many other awards. I continued learning software development.
In my highschool years I competed in FIRST Robotics Competition in Istanbul with my team Crobotics. I’ve learnt much about robotics and even lead our team to win the best placement the team had ever recieved. I’ve also started developing mobile apps using Flutter, while in highschool. I competed on many competitions such as National Software Development Competition in Croatia, securing 4th place with my two friends Karlo Smirčić and Toni Kukec, hackathons, etc. At the end, I enrolled in Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing of University in Zagreb. I can’t wait to fulfill my knowledge on one of the best faculties in Croatia.
My development journey
Mechanical engineering
Robotic arm
At the end of 2019, Karlo Smirčić and I started working on a robotic arm. We designed the robotic arm in Fusion360 and 3D printed the parts. Later on, we started assemblying the arm. We figured that the arm was too weak. It barely held itself in air. The reason was that we used NEMA17 stepper motors which are relatively heavy but did not use and kind of gear reduction to get more power out of the motors. Later on, we decided to redesign the robotic arm and to use some kind of gear reduction to lower the RPM but to gain on strenght.
Crobotics #7201
Crobotics is my high school robotics team. We competed on FIRST Robotics Competition. So far, our team has been to New York in 2018, Istanbul in 2020, in an online competition in 2021 (because of COVID restrictions) and, again, in Istanbul in March 2023, when I was the team leader.
CNC router
My friend Karlo Smirčić and I wanted to have a CNC router machine. This would’ve allowed us to work on many projects that include mechanical engineering. So, we decided to DIY a CNC router machine. We started designing the CNC router in Fusion360. Eventually, we finished our designs and started building it. After we finished building it, we started testing it and noticed that something in our design wasn’t done properly so our CNC router malfunctioned. We thought about redsigning and rebuilding it from scratch but we ended up buying 3018 CNC which is performing great for its price.
Software development
EEPROM Programmer
Karlo Smirčić and I have been a programming duo for 4 years now. EEPROM Programmer was our first project that we worked on together. This application allowed users to connect to and program EEPROM chips.
EEPROM stands for ‘Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory’
The project is divided in two parst. First part is a physical part made using arduino board. A user can connect his/hers EEPROM chip onto a slot that is connected directly to the arduino. Arduino is then used to read the data from the chip and send it to the computer via serial communication. Second part is a software my colleague and I developed. It’s used to display all the bytes of an eeprom and make changes to them. The changes can then be uploaded via USB-B cable and arduino board.
Rasporedi
Rasporedi represented a website containing time tables for all classes in our school. This project allowed our school’s students easier way of keeping track of their classes and subjects. Find more about this project here.
Logicam
Logicam was a project my friend Karlo Smirčić and I started as a project for regional competition in software engineering in Croatia. This project represents a mobile app where a user would take a picture of a logical expression. This image would then be processed in the backend. After processing an image, the backend returns a minimized version of the logical expression. You can learn more about this project here.
After 2 years, we’ve finally decided to rework the project. From AI model optimization to UI/UX design. The project is in development.
Rent a boat app design
This was a design of a boat rental app I was supposed to work on with my colleague Karlo Smirčić. Unfortunately, this project was canceled due to financial issues so we stopped working on it. Even though the project was canceled, I found this project to be great for design practice.
Jobscape
Jobscape is one of the biggest projects I’ve worked on. This was a project for a national competition in software engineering that I worked on together with my collegues Karlo Smirčić and Toni Kukec. Jobscape is a mobile app for freelancing aiming to help Croatian freelancers in finding job oportunities in Croatia. We ended up with 4th place on the competition. Learn more about this project here.
Eko Rijeka
Eko Rijeka was a project for a hackathon organized by Faculty of Technical Studies and STEP RI science and technology park in Rijeka. Teams had to create their own digital solution to the waste problem in the city of Rijeka. I was mainly involved in the design of the application.
Our team was placed 4th as only high school team among college students. Find more about this project here.
Hacknite 3.0
Hacknite 3.0 was a national competition in cybersecurity held every October since 2020. First time, in 2021, my team and I were placed 9th. In 2022, there was 49 teams made of 5 members competing. My team, null, finished 1st in the country. We were sent to Vienna for few educational presentations that were held by real cybersecurity engineers. I met a lot of good people. Now, I am preparing for European Competition in Cybersecurity which will be he ld in Hamar, Norway. Find more about hacknite and its walkthrough here.
Plans for the future
This year, I enrolled into Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. I am looking to continue my studies here and get my bachelors in computing, as well as masters in software development.
You’ve read it all
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