T-minus 10
Mika
Moenchmeier
I like building things that have to work first time. Scroll, and my rocket will show you around.
Stop 01 · About
About
I’m at home in both New Zealand and Germany, and I’ve always liked working out how things work and then building my own. When I’m not building something I’m usually at the beach: I’ve been a volunteer surf lifeguard for years and I race IRBs.
Since finishing school in 2025 I’ve been travelling and working my way through Asia and Europe. At school I played 1st XI hockey, sat on the school board as student representative, and received a Young Achievers Award.
Stop 02 · Year 13 project, 2025
Self-landing model rocket
A model rocket that steers its own thrust to land upright. Designed, built and ground-tested; graded Excellence.
Point the motor’s thrust while it fires, and the rocket can keep itself upright and land instead of falling. I designed and built it as my final-year school project in 2025, tested it on the ground, and it was graded Excellence. Visiting Rocket Lab in Auckland along the way didn’t hurt.
How it works (project write-up, PDF)Stop 03 · Still running
Home server
A small server at home that runs my smart home and files my paperwork automatically.
It runs my smart home and my own cloud storage, so my files stay on hardware I control. The part I’m proudest of is the document pipeline: a letter gets scanned, read, tagged and filed into the right folder without me touching it.
Stop 04 · On the drawing board
CleanSwap
Scan the back of a shampoo bottle, find out what’s actually in it. Mobile first, still being designed.