Geeks out of the Box

This is a blog about Simon, a young mathematician and programmer, and his little sister Neva. We write this blog together, share their projects and thoughts on their journey towards self-dicovery. They’re growing up in a supportive non-coercive learning environment. We deeply believe in interest-based, self-paced education and have had to move countries to make this possible as a family. Visit Simon’s website at https://simontiger.com/ We are a family from Amsterdam who moved to Antwerp because homeschooling is illegal in The Netherlands. This blog started as https://antwerpenhomeschooling.wordpress.com in March 2016. Over the years, most of our entries have gravitated towards exploring together with Simon as he has developed an insatiable passion for programming, math and science. His sister Neva is treading on his heals. We changed or name to Geeks of the Box in May 2021.

By Geeks out of the Box December 14, 2017

The Snowball Throwing Game in Processing

Simon invented this fun game in Processing after he and his little sister had some proper winter fun outdoors in the fresh December snow (quite rare for the local climate … Continue reading The Snowball Throwing Game in Processing

By Geeks out of the Box December 14, 2017

Playing with light and mirrors

Its Highness Magformers S.T.E.A.M. Master Set, Simon’s long aspired gift for Sinterklaas (the biggest holiday of the year for the Dutch) and what he built with it. The set mainly … Continue reading Playing with light and mirrors

By Geeks out of the Box December 14, 2017

Cellular Automata

Simon’s new take on cellular automata: Some results would make fancy knitting patters! In case you wonder, what on earth are cellular automata: A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is studied in computer … Continue reading Cellular Automata

By Geeks out of the Box December 13, 2017

Simon explains K Means Clustering

Simon has prepared this implementation of “K-Means Clustering” in Processing as a gift for Daniel Shiffman, who is plainning to talk about this Machine Learning model in one of his … Continue reading Simon explains K Means Clustering

By Geeks out of the Box December 13, 2017

The Genetic Algorithm Game Bug Solved!

Simon’s version of the Citius Invaders game in Processing is finally working! The big bug that seemed so unsolvable (enemies endlessly crossing over) has been defeated! Siraj Raval presented this game in … Continue reading The Genetic Algorithm Game Bug Solved!

By Geeks out of the Box December 6, 2017December 13, 2017

Simon’s Music Random Walker

Link to Simon’s project in progress: https://codepen.io/simontiger/pen/LOg… The walk begins with a white grid. Every time the walker first visits a cell, it first turns purple and the green number inside … Continue reading Simon’s Music Random Walker

By Geeks out of the Box December 6, 2017

Shortest path finder in Processing

Simon created a wonderful project in Processing – a path finder that looks for the shortest path to reach the green cell, avoiding the obstacles. Every time the path finder … Continue reading Shortest path finder in Processing

By Geeks out of the Box December 6, 2017

Simon praying the God of Math

Activation functions used in machine learning:

By Geeks out of the Box December 1, 2017

Simon develops his own programming course ‘Living Code’

Simon has come with an idea of teaching a course as part of his live streams (every two weeks on Thursdays at 17 hrs CET) and developed a website with … Continue reading Simon develops his own programming course ‘Living Code’

By Geeks out of the Box December 1, 2017

Live Stream 30 November. Speechjs and Citius Invaders.

Below are the archived versions of Simon’s live streams today. The second part (starting with a genetic algorithm game in Processing/ p5.js) was an emotional roller-coaster, with the OBS software … Continue reading Live Stream 30 November. Speechjs and Citius Invaders.

By Geeks out of the Box December 1, 2017

Simon edits videos

Simon has done his first video editing work this week, changing his archived live streams from 16 November into two shorter tutorials. Since the YouTube video editor has been deprecated, … Continue reading Simon edits videos

By Geeks out of the Box November 23, 2017

DAE neural net and Keras

Simon told me today he was ready to start building his own DAE (Denoising Auto Encoder) neural network. He said he would be using a documentation page about a machine … Continue reading DAE neural net and Keras