Follow the development process of the creator building, testing, and improving upon the Mechanical Engineering Helper website day by day. Once you click one of the entrys go to the bottom of the page where the entry will have opened.
I started making this website first because I had the thought of “could I actually make a successful website about mechanical engineering” and I decided to go for it. I started finding where and how to start coding and teaching myself. Consequently, because I started teaching myself I made many mistakes. First off, I started with the design of it then went to making the Courses page.
The Courses page was a headache because I copied the code for Statics for each one then got confused by why the button for each took me to the Statics page. I eventually realized since I copied the code it also copied the link so it sent the user to the statics page.
Next I worked on the Statics page and each of the buttons and content. Mostly the hard part was making the 100 quiz. It was so difficult because originally it was to be 10 questions and each time you did it the system would randomly select a set of 10 questions from 10 sets equaling 100 questions total if you got them all. However, because of continued bugs I changed it to the full 100 questions but it does randomly select the order of the questions so you can not just memorize the order of questions.
Today I started the Creators Journey page. I designed the Creators Journey button on the main Index page which is the title page. I had to fix an issue where the Creators Journey button was too close to the Courses page button. I fixed this by adding the . in front of the code in css that was meant to be in front of the code journey-link which I added and fixed the issue. Next I made the page and the first entry named Start then finished the day with making this entry.
Today I continued working on the quiz section as I had another person look at it and it helped me see a few alterations which were needed. First I added a feature so that the highlighted wrong and right answers stayed lit up once someone came back to that question. Next I added a submission button on the 100th question to finalize the quiz. This also added the results of the quiz at the end with right, wrong, and the score at the end before you reset if wanted. Lastly I added a warning sign at the top of the quiz because I wanted to make sure no one's progress got erased if someone accidentally misclicked. Then I finished by writing today's entry.
For today I started working on the real world example tab. This tab had to have examples of everyday things a person might see in their day to day adventures which have a connection to statics. Some of the examples were brides, cranes, and ladders. The only problem I had was that I started going into rotational equilibrium instead of traditional equilibrium in examples like cranes and ladders. This was not a big deal but I wanted to keep the examples and information to match the lesson so I rephrased some of the wording so that I would not head in the direction of rotational equilibrium and instead to keep on track with traditional equilibrium.
I also started on my Kinematics course during this day finishing much of it from the lesson to the quiz. I was able to finish so much in one day despite the same task for statics taking multiple days because of my improved knowledge and base code. Since I already had the code for statics I copied it over to Kinematics simply changing the content. However, nothing is as simple as you may think as I had a few problems copying it over. First I copied it wrong to where the real world problems and video section got looped into another section and cut off in the code essentially making it hidden in the code and none accessible. After reworking it over a few hours I got it to work cleanly. Lastly, I wanted to add something new to the quiz. I added confetti to fall down after submitting as a way to make the user feel accomplished. The issue with that was the confetti was too little in amount. I first changed the time of it to see if that worked but all it did was make it slower and not even reach half the screen before it vanished. After a lot of trial and error over a small animation like confetti I eventually told it to only disappear once each piece hit the bottom. Unknowingly I accidentally made them start fading closer to the bottom but kept it as a happy accident. Lastly I started thinking of what experiment I wanted to do for my statistics course then finished with writing today's entry.
Today I finished the real world examples tab with little issue. Then I focused on making the backbone of the review, donating, and publishing tasks. I finished the review and donate page making them usable though I will later go back and alter them to make them better. I then published the page and even though there were a bunch of mix ups with the link and software I was using to publish it. After a while I finished and got it up and running. After I had gotten it up and running I got my first review from my physics teacher who left me advice about putting something around the wording to make it easier to read which I did. Then I finished the day by writing today's entry.
Today I went to my community college Wayne Community College to record the experiments. Luckily WCC let me use their science rooms and potentially in the future use more equipment from them. Until I can try and get some more physics and engineering tools and equipment from WCC My high school has supported me as well with some simple equipment. My high school Wayne School of Engineering contributed some weights, pulleys, fishing wire, meter sticks, etc. I started filming but had an issue with the camera angle because I had to use my phone for the best quality of video but could not get the right angle. Eventually I put my phone on a stand and higher up to be able to show everything. Finally I uploaded the videos to Youtube unlisted to be linked to the website when I can get them on there. Finally I wrote todays entry.
Today I linked the youtube videos to my website. I first started with the statics experiment on the website with some information. Then I also linked the Kinematics experiment video to the website with some more information as well. Lastly I finished with making sure the code was sound and I wrote this entry.
Today I started working on doing the code for Strength of Materials. I was successful in copying the code over but I did have one issue. The one issue I had was that it still said content coming soon instead of the lesson which is what I had at the time. The way I solved this was instead of finding the underlying issue I wrote code to force it to open as I knew it was just being blocked by something. Another problem I had was doing the quiz. I happened to notice a pattern in the questions. Almost all answers were not random. I had to replace the shufflechoices, loadquestion, and checkanswer functions in the JavaScript. This fixed the issue and luckily I did not need to do the same for Statics or Kinematics as they were still randomized. I then finished the real world examples. Lastly I started thinking of what experiment I was going to do for the Strength of Materials experiment video. After that I wrote todays entry.
Today I worked on the dynamics course. Specifically I worked on the lesson section of the dynamics page and I could only complete the lesson page for today as I wanted to make it more detailed. The reason I wanted to do so was in a way to honor my first review. He is a teacher of mine and he said he missed teaching dynamics and AP physics, so I decided to include a bit from AP physics and dynamics since they were my first review. I eventually finished the longer lesson page for dynamics than ended the day by writing todays entry.
Today I worked on trying to improve the formula sheets as it was reviewed and someone said it could be a bit confusing so I clarified some stuff with the units as well so no one gets confused about 98 N and N which are different. Lately after updating the Statics, Kinematics, and the Dynamics formula sheet I wrote todays entry.
Today I focused on the aesthetics of the website, improving a few things such as the title page. I first wanted there to be a waving banner behind the title but I ended up with something that looked lesser than what I was going for. For such a reason I made the banner rigged and metal looking. When I did this the animation was still in effect so it looked very weird. As I fixed the animation by taking it out I accidentally altered the appearance of the banner making it look more plain. Finally, I got it back to how it was supposed to be. However, I soon found that the orbit of symbols around the title were hidden behind the banner so I quickly fixed it so the banner is furthest in the background. Lastly, for today I added a new image to the statistics course to help visually teach during the lesson and in the future I will most likely continue adding these images in. Though I decided to AI generate them just in case of copyright laws for certain images.
I first started off today with writing the entry for May 29,2026 as that night I was too tired to write an entry and had other work to attend to. After I had gotten the other entry written I started doing todays core work. Today I wanted to implement an idea I had but first there were a few things I knew needed to be added first. The first one I added was the titles of the creators journey entries to t he tab buttons to not just the dates. I did this to give the person an idea of what it is about before they click on it as suggested by a reviewer. Next I added little summaries to each course page to give everyone an idea of that course and its relationship with mechanical engineering. Lastly, I followed through with my idea which was a menu dropdown to help navigate if clicking each button starts getting annoying for some. This is also helping future proof the website as I keep adding more it wont be too hard to go straight to the section you need. I ended today off with writing this entry and getting May 29th and todays work published since it is still not technically published but will now be.
Today I did not have much time to work on the website so I simply worked on the orbit of symbols on the Home page. The reason for this rework is because the orbit no longer fit with the Home page with the banner there as well as it clipped off the screen and into the website description. To fix these issues and to overhaul the design I made it seem as if it was a conveyor belt of symbols going around the banner. I also added a few more symbols. Then I ended the day off by writing todays entry.
Today I simply wanted to more closely track everyone using my website to better understand everything. I used analytics to see people using the website and where it is most popular. The code for it was not too complicated as google analytics gave it to me and I simply embedded it into every HTML file or also said as every page that could be visited on the website. Then I wrote todays entry.
Today I spent a few hours designing two posters for the website. I first designed one poster but quickly realized I would run out of space. So I made two posters, one with less information and more eye catching nature and one more informational. I will most likely put both posters near each other so they go hand in hand. While designing the poster the website I was using had an AI to help and when I tried it it quickly kept changing many things to the point it changed more of my design. After some tinkering I got it to where I needed and wanted it. I then wrote todays entry.
Today I worked on adding a logo to the top right of each page of the website. The reason I felt this necessary is because I designed the logo for the posters advertising the website and felt it a waste to no longer use them. I also did not want people to confuse my banner on the front page with the logo and have them clash for that title. So I added the official logo to each page in the top right. However, I did have to put a glowing effect on it so the darker text of the logo would be easier to read on the darker background. I finished off today by writing todays entry.
Today I finally started to focus on the courses and adding more to unfinished sections such as the Dynamics course. Specifically inside of the Dynamics section I worked for a few hours on the example problems and quiz sections. One thing I am glad I did back when I had just stopped the work on the courses to focus on other things like the analytics, the menu, and overall appearances was leaving code from a previous course in the Dynamics section. I did this to remind me what the format I was using so I did not get confused and have to retrace my steps for the unfinished sections. I used the Strength of Materials section as the place holder in the Dynamics section until today when I updated it. To make sure I did not post Strength of Materials information on the Dynamics course is to remove one letter from the button section so it will not open until I replace it with the correct information. I did have a problem in that I replaced some of the place holder stuff with the updated example problem section then got confused why the quiz and real world applications place holders disappeared. Then I edited the quiz questions for the Dynamics section to make sure they can be solved from the lesson information only. Finally I wrote todays lesson.
Today I wanted to get back into working on the website by completing the Dynamics course as well as possibly the Thermodynamics course too. However, I immediately ran into an issue. The website would not open. I eventually figured out the issue resulted in a domain issue. After a few hours of painstaking checking everything that could be the issue until I found the real issue. Afterwards I only had time to finish the Dynamics course. Then after I finished the Dynamics course I wrote todays entry.
Today I started by working on a suggestion I recently got revolving around my information. I started by adding sources for each lesson to show where I got my information from as well as sources that are other good places to learn about engineering. I added sources to Statics, Kinematics, Strength of Materials, and Dynamics. Not only did I add sources but I found some that are free and others that are not to hopefully help everyone interested. After adding this to every lesson I also had the idea of adding a page for the references and future reading to the home page having all the resources of the sources in one location. After some trial and error I finally got it working. However, it was not that simple because I shortly after found an issue. The issue was that the reference page was not in the menu. Though this was a quick fix as I simply had to copy it to each page's menu section including its own. After I found yet another problem in which the courses drop down in the menu for the reference page was all white instead of the word courses. After some painstaking searching I found the css issue I had made earlier when building the new page. After fixing that I was ready to publish everything or so I thought. The last issue arose and it was a simple appearance flaw that I felt I needed to fix. The reference and future reading button on the home page was slightly bigger than the rest of the buttons on the home screen. After a tedious half an hour or so I found the css I needed to replace and did so to make it better. Lastly, I updated and published everything along with writing todays entry.
Today I started by brainstorming what I wanted to do. I wanted to start and finish both the Thermodynamics and the basic math courses, yet I also had ideas to improve the other four courses. I finally settled on starting the thermodynamics course. As I started I found myself adding more to both the lesson and the worked out problems than the other courses. This is because thermodynamics is almost famous for its complexity even in the simplest levels so I wanted to go a bit more in depth than the others. Once I got to the quiz section I realized the improvement I wanted to make to all the courses was in the quiz so I should probably do that improvement first before continuing on the Thermodynamics course. After realizing what I would do the next day I ended off the day by writing this entry and preparing for the quiz improvements the next few days.
Today I started by thinking of the idea I thought of the last few days. That improvement was to add explanations to each of the questions for each quiz for every course. These explanations would serve to explain why the right answer is right instead of just telling you what the right answer is. This took the whole day as I had to edit an explanation into each of the 400 questions. I also had to design a system to randomize the answer choices as well as I noticed some of the quizzes kept having the answer as always the first or never the last answer choice. After spending many hours designing the randomizer as well as the explanations for each question I also made the quiz for the thermodynamics course. After that I then added the explanations for each of the thermodynamics courses as well. Then I continued by finishing the real world applications section for thermodynamics adding information like engines and airplanes. I also added the video section including the explanation of what the experiment will be once I record the video but I have not yet. Finally I wrote todays entry.