Startup update 16

Originally posted 2025-08-23

Obligatory disclaimer: all opinions are mine and not of my employer

Progress update

The last two weeks, I built a test-taking interface, an automated grader, a hinting system, image support in questions/answers/solutions, and finally figured out my test-scraping workflow. The test-scraping workflow still requires me to manually screenshot/crop images from the source PDFs, as well as to Q/C the scraping to double-check that there are no transcription errors. Luckily, I’ve clocked that this should only take ~15 minutes per exam, so I just need to sit down for a day or two and transcribe + Q/C every single past USNCO exam.

I learned a lot from trying to automate the test-scraping workflow, even though I probably “wasted” two weeks on it, from the perspective of just accomplishing my goal. The lessons I learned are documented in Claude as Pipeline Orchestrator and Multimodal LLMs are Blind.

The site updates will probably go live mid next week, after I’ve gotten back from my vacation this week!

No miscellaneous thoughts this week! I tried to write a section and then realized I’d written a full length essay. After polishing “Claude as Pipeline Orchestrator”, I returned to this update post and tried to write a second supplemental section, and then realized I’d written another full length essay. Oops 😅 That’s partly why this update got so delayed, even while I was on vacation.