Oscar Lechner - Projects

Boulder Alleycat

boulderalleycat.com is the digital home for Boulder Alleycat, a racing event I co-organized with my roommate Doug in 2023 to revive the underground racing culture in the city.

The website's primary purpose is an archive of past races. Users can browse through each of the 10 (so far) races and look at the winners in both categories, their times, and what checkpoints the racers had to visit in order to finish. The newest and most exciting feature of the website is a 3D visualization of the route taken by the fastest racer. A hallmark characteristic of Boulder Alleycat races is that the checkpoints can be collected in any order, encouraging creative pathfinding. As a result, the 3D visualizations bring the race data to life and offer fresh perspectives on the routes taken by seasoned cyclists.

Additionally, the website's About section serves to educate those curious about the event. Lastly, the website links to the sign-up page, where anybody can put in their email and be logged into my system for a future race.

CU Boulder Ultimate Frisbee Website System

A three-team website system for CU Boulder's ultimate frisbee program: Mamabird (men's A-team), CKFT (men's B-team), and Quandary (women's A-team). All three sites share one JavaScript core with team-specific data files and stylesheets for unique branding.

Key Features: Dynamic year-based roster browser with historical lineups dating back to 2013, auto-filtering team leadership sections, descriptive tournament schedules, and video galleries with YouTube integration. Player cards link to ulti-verse.com profiles for career stats. Each site features clean animations and hash-based single-page navigation.

Built from scratch with vanilla JavaScript with zero dependencies beyond a library for 3D graphics. The shared codebase architecture demonstrates efficient code reuse while maintaining distinct team identities through modular data structures (ROSTER_DATA, TOURNAMENT_DATA, VIDEO_DATA). Sub-200KB payload, 60fps animations, and responsive design prove vanilla JavaScript can power sophisticated multi-site systems without framework overhead.

Sports Jersey & Apparel Design

I've designed custom jerseys and apparel for two athletic teams, combining technical and design expertise to enhance team identity.

Co-Motion Sports 25th Anniversary Mountain Biking Jersey: I designed a limited-edition anniversary jersey celebrating Co-Motion Sports' legacy in the mountain biking community. The design incorporates anniversary branding with modern aesthetics.

CKFT (University of Colorado Club Ultimate B Team) Logo & Reversible Pinnie: I designed a custom logo for the team, to be used on everything from merchandise to social media postings and beyond. Additionally, I designed and ordered a reversible pinnie with the logo and a few other small details, to be used by the players at practices. The design was universally accepted and loved by the team members, and now stands as CKFT's official logo.

These projects demonstrate my ability to translate team identity and community values into wearable design that athletes are proud to represent.

Glyphs & Gravity

Words are what give letters meaning. If the strict structure of written language is removed, do the remaining glyphs still carry meaning?

Glyphs & Gravity is an experimental typography tool that lets users bring letters to life with dynamic physics and creative animations. From structured layouts to freeform gravity, spinning, and bouncing effects, the tool combines playful interactions with typographic exploration.

Built from scratch in JavaScript (p5.js) for my Creative Technology coursework, it allows users to toggle features like gravity, rotation, and even font, creating a unique playground for symbols and motion.

Automatic Microgreen Greenhouse Filing Cabinet

A fully automated growing system built within a standard filing cabinet by my group for our "Hacking the Apocalypse" course.

This project combines electrical engineering, Arduino programming, and mechanical design to create an autonomous growing environment. The system monitors soil moisture, and uses a system of misters to water the soil when necessary. Additionally, a bank of fans is programmed to ventilate air after the watering is completed to mitigate mold and fungus growth. Additionally, grow lights allow the microgreens to grow even when the drawers are closed.

The system demonstrates practical engineering, proving that sustainable food production can happen anywhere with smart automation. Read more about the specifics of this project and other from the same class here.

IDC2 - Dystopian Mecha Carnage Ballet

Dystopian Mecha Carnage Ballet is the final project I designed and constructed for the "Object" class at CU Boulder, focusing on physical manufacturing, electrical engineering, and Arduino integration.

Built from scratch, the machine detects ambient air temperature and uses a lead screw as a linear actuator to automatically open and close a sliding window. Left running during the hot Front Range summers, it uses fans to effectively regulate bedroom temperature through responsive automation.

Read more about the specifics, building process, and code here.

Capstone - Data Forest

My capstone project combines computer vision, real-time data processing, and generative art to create an interactive installation that transforms crowd energy into a living forest simulation.

The system uses custom camera vision modules deployed throughout the ATLAS building to collect crowd movement and density data. This data is fed real-time into a parameterized generative forest simulation running in TouchDesigner, where the forest grows, evolves, and responds dynamically to human presence and movement.

This project demonstrates the intersection of technology, data visualization, and interactive art, creating an immersive experience that visualizes the invisible energy of people within a shared space.

Parametric Race Trophy with Grasshopper

For my Advanced Computational Fabrication class, I designed custom parametric trophies for the Boulder Alleycat race series using Grasshopper. Each trophy is tailored to physically show the route taken by the racer by mapping race data onto a 3D topological model of campus.

The system extracts checkpoint coordinates from Google Maps and checkpoint order from my live tracking tool, then generates a personalized 3D model. The Grasshopper logic places markers at exact locations, aligns them with terrain height, and connects them with pipes that follow the race route while maintaining prominence over the topographic base. Race metadata (racer number, race ID, and final time) is dynamically positioned on the trophy.

The parametric system is designed to be reusable—I can generate a new custom trophy for any race simply by updating the coordinates and checkpoint order. The final models were 3D printed on a Bambu Labs printer to capture the intricate topographical detail and celebrate individual race strategies with meaningful, personalized memorabilia. Read more about the specifics and building process here.

Infinite Automatic UNO

Infinite Automatic UNO is a visual spectacle created for continuous entertainment. The ever-evolving project features an automatic game of UNO played between four bots, complete with an interface tracking game statistics.

Built from scratch in JavaScript (p5.js), the project is designed to run endlessly, collecting statistics and providing an interesting viewing experience on a second monitor or TV. The system manages UNO's complex ruleset, card tracking, and strategic randomness all in real-time.

Solar System Visualizer

Solar System is a JavaScript visualizer that dynamically renders our star system with scale representations of planets and moons (within reason).

The visualization reacts to cursor movements, creating an interactive exploration experience. While distances aren't to scale for aesthetic purposes, important real-life metrics including orbit speed, direction, and rotation are accurately represented. A meditative window into the cosmos. Personally, I use this visualization as my desktop wallpaper through Lively.

Generative Dots

Generative Dots is an interactive p5.js application featuring 16 different procedural generation modes for creating stunning dot-based visualizations.

The tool offers real-time parameter control including number of dots, dot size, density, jitter, opacity, colors, and animation speed. Each mode demonstrates different mathematical approaches to generative visualization.

Users can tweak parameters with interactive sliders, randomize settings, reseed for reproducibility, and export final images as PNG. The sketch combines procedural generation, trigonometry, noise functions, and 3D projection techniques to create mesmerizing visual explorations.