Hi, I am Jakob Maier! on Jakob Maier

How to add LED strips to your Tiny Whoop

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:10:55 +0100

I’m definitely not an expert, so please take this with a grain of salt. This article is primarily a way to document my own FPV journey; consider it a personal roadmap first and a tutorial second.

Why should you install LEDs on your quad?

Let’s face it: LEDs just make your quadcopter look cooler. Some FPV drone races even require them, both to make it more interesting for viewers to follow along as well as to make your quad easier for other pilots to see in order to avoid crashing.

How I built a Raspberry Pi Birdhouse Camera

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:41:38 +0100

The Livestream

As a follow up project to the motion activated bird feeder camera that my dad and I built last year, we decided to build a birdhouse with a camera to observe birds nesting in our garden. Specifically, we would like to observe the common starling nesting.

As we did in our last project, my dad would build the birdhouse while I would provide the electronics as well as the software.

How to fix 'RX Loss' on the BetaFPV Air65

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 21:10:55 +0100

I’m definitely not an expert, so please take this with a grain of salt. This article is primarily a way to document my own FPV journey; consider it a personal roadmap first and a tutorial second.

The BetaFPV Air65 is a remarkable little FPV drone, agile and powerful all while being very affordable. It was my first FPV drone and it’s what got me into the hobby. Unfortunately, it also has some flaws: it’s quite well known that the Air 5in1 flight controller (FC) is quite fragile. Especially the VTX (Video Transmitter) and the ELRS (control signal receiver) chip are prone to breaking. And when after some crashes I started getting ‘Telemetry Lost’ and ‘RX Loss’ errors, I knew what was wrong - the ELRS receiver.

Radiomaster Pocket and BetaFPV Air65 - First Binding

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 11:35:19 +0100

There are many ways to setup & bind the Radiomaster Pocket and BetaFPV Air65 or Air75, but this method may be the simplest.

On your Radio, press, Sys, then scroll to ExpressLRS using the scroll whell on the left. Select ExpressLRS by pressing the scroll wheel. Scroll down until you find the Bind option.

On your drone, simply plug and unplug the battery three times. This puts the ELRS receiver in bind mode, wich is indicated by the LED on the chip blinking twice in a cycle. After that, press Bind on your radio. That’s it - your drone should now be connected.

What to Do in Vienna - My List

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:37:09 +0100

I have lived in Vienna for about seven years now, and so I regularly get asked about things to do in Vienna by friends and relatives. Whenever they do so I have trouble coming up with a list in the moment, so this article is an attempt to write some stuff down so I can link to if I get another such request.

This list is work-in-progress, so it does not claim completeness!

A Lisp Interpreter for Linux Shell Scripting

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 13:19:20 +0200

Content

Content
Motivation
What is Lisp?
Using Lisp
- Getting Started
- Shell Scripting
Try it yourself!

Motivation

A few weeks ago, I started learning about Lisp and decided to write my own Lisp interpreter, mostly to understand the language and it’s concepts better. Once I got the interpreter working, I natually wanted to do something useful with it. But writing a full-scale project entirely in my own Lisp sounds like a recipe for disaster!

403 Forbidden

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:13:21 +0200

401 Unauthorized

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:13:19 +0200

404 Not Found

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:13:16 +0200

The page you are looking for does not exist. If you think it should, consider writing me an email. Maybe I can fix it!

Contact

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:11:57 +0200

Feel free to reach out with any questions, ideas, or feedback on my projects. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

jakob.g.maier@gmail.com

Tiny Whoops - My First Steps into the World of Tiny FPV Drones

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Micro FPV (First Person View) drones, sometimes called Tiny Whoops, are one of the most exciting and affordable ways to experience the thrill of flying like a bird. Weighing just a few grams - mine comes in at only 25g including the battery - these tiny drones are incredibly agile and fast. Equipped with a built-in camera and paired with FPV goggles, they give you a breathtaking, immersive view from the sky, as if you were sitting in the cockpit yourself. And thanks to their compact size, you can even fly them indoors, weaving through tight spaces with ease.

Train and Weather Tracker with Raspberry Pi and E-Ink

Thu, 22 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I use the public transport in my city (Vienna) daily, and while the tram comes quite frequently, I still often see it drive away right in front of me. And so I thought it would be a good idea to build a tracker in my apartment that tells me when the next tram leaves.

Fortunately, Wiener Linien provides open access to its real-time information, so getting this information is very easy. I also want to display both the inside and outside temperature on the tracker. This was also quite easy, as I already have a Raspberry Pi in my apartment that measures the inside temperature. More on this project can be found here. For the outside temperature, I use an API provided by Geosphere Austria.

FreeFlight - An Interactive 3D Model of Austria

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

FreeFlight is a C++ project that uses OpenGL to create a dynamic and interactive 3D model of Austria. By utilizing web map tiles, FreeFlight integrates a dynamically loaded digital elevation model and aerial or statellite imagery, allowing users to explore a detailed and realistic landscape. Currently, FreeFlight is limited to Austria by the available high-resolution elevation data, however the scope of the renderer can easily be extended by configuring a different tile server.

How I Built a Motion-Activated Birdfeeder Camera

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In order to see what birds visit our garden, my dad and I built an bird feeding station with a motion activated camera. My dad, who is a much better at wood working than me, built the feeding station itself, while I handled the software and the Raspberry Pi. You can find the latest images captured by the camera here!

The feeder is of a relatively simple design, it consists of a box with a angled plexi glas window that contains the seeds, as well as a box at the top that houses the Raspberry Pi. Power is supplied with a cable that runs from the house, internet connectivity is avaiblable via WiFi. We actually had to upgrade our router and get a repeater to get it working outside.

Fun with Path Tracing

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Path tracing is a ray tracing based rendering method for 3D scenes that is frequently used for non-real-time applications due to it’s ability to accuratly simulate how light interacts with various materials. It is the technique used at companies like Disney, Pixar and Marvel to create their CGI.

The algorithm works by simulating a large number of rays from the viewpoint of the camera into the scene, scattering them at various surfaces according to mathematical models dependant on the material and thus estimating the light per pixel.

Set Values With Imgui::Slider Over Getter and Setter Functions

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

ImGui is a very popular immediate mode GUI library used by many game developers for rapid prototyping. For me, some of the most useful features are the ImGui::Slider* family of functions, that allow for setting of values via sliders, as the name implies.

These functions can be used like this:


float value = 5.0f;

ImGui::SliderFloat("Set value", &value, 0.0f, 10.0f);

In this case, we can use the slider to set value to between 0 and 10. But what if value is a private member of a class and can only be accessed via getters and setters? Well for this reason, I have created a simple helper function:

Terrain Rendering

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rendering Real-World Terrain in 3D With Data From Web Map Tile Service

As part of my quest to create a flight simulator I have implemented a basic terrain renderer that uses texture and heightmap data loaded from a Tile Map Service, the same technology that powers Google Maps.

Part of any terrain renderer is some technique of managing ’level of detail’ (LOD), a way of rendering terrain that is closer in more detail. In this implementation I use a Quadtree, which lines up perfectly with map tiles. The Quadtree is centered around the intersection of the camera ray with a plane, so the area we are looking at should be the most detailed.

Three Weeks in Nepal

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Annapurna Base Camp Trek (4130m)

If you visit Nepal it is basically mandatory to at least some trekking. After all, Nepal is home to 8 out of 14 of the worlds eight-thousanders. But even if you planning a more modest expedition, you have plenty of options. We chose the Annapurna Base Camp Trek (ABC), as it is not very hard, going up to ‘only’ 4130m, and can be completed in just 8 days. Annapurna itself is the worlds tenth heighest mountain at 8091m and is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous.

Simple Physics-based Flight Simulation with C++

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

In this blog post I aim to show you how to create a reasonably realistic flight simulator in C++ from scratch, so no physics engine needed.

A little disclaimer: I am by no means a physics expert, so take everything you read here with a grain of salt. What I show here is what I have learnt from reading various books on the subject, so please do not use this post to create a flight simulator to be used for pilot training. 😉

Tracking and Analyzing My Location Data

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I enjoy exploring the city I live in (vienna) by walking it’s streets. However, I have noticed a tendency to always walk the same routes. Especially when I am not actively going somewhere my mind seems to always choose the same old routes, which is of course not what I want. The solution that I have come up with is to record my location data and render something like a heatmap of my location history. This way I would have a clear visualisitaion of the routes I have traveled often and where I haven’t gone at all.

An Introduction to Ray Tracing In C

Sun, 25 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

To practice my C programming skills and to learn more about computer graphics I wrote a simple raytracer (you can find the sourcecode on github. My approach is based on Raytracing in one Weekend, scratchapixel.com and smallpt. All of these authors use C++ to implement the raytracing algorithm, but I decided to use C (C99 in particular) for the aforementioned reason.

There was actually another motivation behind my effort to write a raytracer: I wanted to generate cool wallpapers to use on the computers that I work with every day. In the past I used the Windows 95 default wallpaper, which is just the color #008080, so I wanted to have a similar color for my new background. I also like the bisexual lighting color palette for it’s cyberpunk feel, so that is something I also wanted to use

Reading Code - The Essential Skill Not Taught at University

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a student at TU Wien and have just started working as a Java Developer. This puts me in the position of having to see how well the theoretical training I have received stacks up in the real world.

So far, I have noticed one thing: At university we spent most of our time writing code, either from scratch or using a small templates provided by the professor. At my new job however, I have been mostly reading code, exploring a large codebase in order to understand what is going on and eventually make some changes. And while knowing how to write Java helps of course, I would consider reading code a skill quite different from writing. In fact, I think it can sometimes be much harder. I could probably hack something together that makes sense in my head, but making sense of someone elses thoughts and concepts can be much harder.

Should you visit Dubrovnik?

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dubrovnik is a beautiful town in Southern Croatia, famous for it’s historic walled old town. In paricular, it has become very well known for being used as the filming location for Kings Landing in the HBO series Game of Thrones. But is it worth a visit?

First of all, Dubrovnik is very expensive, by far the most expensive town I have been to in Croatia. A 0.5l beer can easily cost 35 to 45 kunar. If you want to go on the town walls, which is really a must see, you will have to pay 250 or 150 kunar if you have a student card.

Voice Messages Are Terrible

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Voice message are quite popular among users of apps like whatsapp and telegram. They are faster to send than text messages, especially if one wants to send a long message.

However, I don’t like voice messages, I don’t send them and I resent having to listen to them. The reason is simple: compared to traditional text messages they shift the effort to the recipient instead of the sender. With a text message, the sender has to spend time more or less carefully crafting a message, which can then be read by a glance by the recipient. A voice message is recorded in no time, often containing many uhms and ahs. On the other end the recipient now has to maybe put on headphones, maybe turn up the volume, to listen to a 1 minute message that could have been a two line message read in about 5 seconds.

A Precision Platformer Game Inspired by Celeste

Sat, 28 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I created this to test my entity-component-system in a small game. The inspiration came from Celeste, on of the best platformer games in recent years. The character design was made by me, the tiles were created by kill4spika.

The game works on desktop and mobile, so don’t hesitate to try it out!

The source code for this game is available on github.

These are some screenshots from the game which I took during various stages of the design process:

A Silly Usecase for Websockets

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I made this website on 04-07-2020, inspired by a friend who, for some reason, really wanted a website where you could flic a light on and off.

At first you could do just that, but then someone asked whether other people could see whether the light was turned on or off. I thought that would be cool, so I looked at how to do it. As it turns out, it is quite easy to do this with websockets. The result is a website where you can turn a lamp on or off for everybody else to see.

Attributhülle Rechner

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Berechne die Attributhülle eines bestimmten Attributs aus einer Menge von funktionalen Abhängigkeiten.

Eingabe:

eine Menge an eine Menge funktionaler Abhängigkeiten F
eine Menge von Attributen α

Ausgabe:

die Menge an Attributen, die sich aus α durch die Abhängigkeiten F ableiten lässt.

F = { }

AttrHülle(F, α = { })

Building a Flight Simulator with Javascript and THREE.js

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Update: I have been working on a significantly improved simulator, you can find the article here.

When I was working on my F-16 flightsim project back in the first lockdown I used raw OpenGL and C++ to build the game. After working on it for some time I realized that I was in a bit over my head. I was spending a lot of time just debugging OpenGL and fixing weird bugs in my arguably really bad C++ code. Never having worked with C++ before I was just figuring it out as I went along. The flight model was another thing, the physics and the flight control system proved to be orders of magnitude more complicated than I had imagined. At first I focused on building a sim for the MQ-9 Reaper combat drone, but I am now again working on the F-16 Viper, which is just a much more interesting aircraft in my opinion. The goal is to have a player controlled Viper and some type of opponent aircraft controlled by AI as well as some Surface-to-Air Missiles that can threaten the player. You can play a preliminary build here, without installing anything, in your web browser. The repository can be found on github.

First Person Shooter With THREE.js

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I discovered THREE.js and immediately thought about making a game. After reading a Wikipedia article about “Bisexual Lighting” I immediately knew what kind of aesthetic I wanted for my game. The game is optimized for mobile users. It still looks quite unpolished as I lost interest at some point. Anyway, you can find it here.

Simple Chess Engine

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

After watching The Queens Gambit on Netflix I became very interested in chess and did some reading on Wikipedia, where I stumbled on the article for Computer Chess. The wikipedia articles on this topic explain the algorithms used in chess engines very well and so I went about writing a chess engine for myself. I built this engine in about two days, it supports the basic chess rules but not promotion, en passant and castling. The engine implements the uci protocoll and is able to interface with Lichess, a popular online chess website. It consistently beats Stockfish at Level 2. The computer uses the Negamax algorithm with alpha beta pruning to search for the best possible moves to make.

Wiener Linien Monitor

Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The real-time departure API for the Wiener Linien, Vienna’s public transport company, is available for free. So I thought I could build a monitor just like the ones that you can find all over vienna. I used a Raspberry Pi to connect to the API and an Arduino to control the little LCD display. The two devices communicate over the I2C protocol. Of course it would be possible to control the LCD from the Raspberry Pi directly, but I thought this would also be a good opportunity to learn more about electronics. You can find more information here.

Receiving NOAA Weather Satellite Images

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I received and decoded this image on October 11 2018 at 14:49. The cross marks my location, Vienna. As you can see, it was a very sunny day in central europe.

Hi, I am Jakob Maier! on Jakob Maier

How to add LED strips to your Tiny Whoop

Why should you install LEDs on your quad?

How I built a Raspberry Pi Birdhouse Camera

How to fix 'RX Loss' on the BetaFPV Air65

Radiomaster Pocket and BetaFPV Air65 - First Binding

What to Do in Vienna - My List

A Lisp Interpreter for Linux Shell Scripting

Content

Motivation

403 Forbidden

401 Unauthorized

404 Not Found

Contact

More Links

Tiny Whoops - My First Steps into the World of Tiny FPV Drones

Train and Weather Tracker with Raspberry Pi and E-Ink

FreeFlight - An Interactive 3D Model of Austria

Introduction

How I Built a Motion-Activated Birdfeeder Camera

Fun with Path Tracing

Set Values With Imgui::Slider Over Getter and Setter Functions

Terrain Rendering

Rendering Real-World Terrain in 3D With Data From Web Map Tile Service

Three Weeks in Nepal

Annapurna Base Camp Trek (4130m)

Simple Physics-based Flight Simulation with C++

Content

Introduction

Tracking and Analyzing My Location Data

Introduction

An Introduction to Ray Tracing In C

Reading Code - The Essential Skill Not Taught at University

Should you visit Dubrovnik?

Voice Messages Are Terrible

A Precision Platformer Game Inspired by Celeste

A Silly Usecase for Websockets

Attributhülle Rechner

Building a Flight Simulator with Javascript and THREE.js

First Person Shooter With THREE.js

Simple Chess Engine

Wiener Linien Monitor

Receiving NOAA Weather Satellite Images