Side & Personal Projects Featured

CapyCast

A minimalistic pixel-art weather app with a capybara mascot that reacts to weather conditions.

Timeline January 2026 - Present

Tech Stack Swift, SwiftUI, WeatherKit, Jetpack Compose, Kotlin

Stakeholders People who appreciate calm, minimalist design

Brief Overview

CapyCast brings calm to weather checking through soft pastel color palettes, charming pixel-art capybara animations, and a privacy-first approach.

Problem Statement

Most weather apps are cluttered with ads, unnecessary features, and intrusive tracking. People who just want a quick, delightful weather check deserve better.

Challenge & Scope

iOS v1.0 (Feature Complete): Multi-city support (up to 5 cities), hourly forecast, UV index & AQI display, moon phase tracking, contextual capybara wisdom, full VoiceOver accessibility
Android v0.8 (In Progress): Basic weather display, GPS location, animated pixel capybara, 3-day forecast, TalkBack support
Cross-platform: Privacy-first (no tracking, local caching only), offline-capable with 3-hour cache, haptic feedback for key interactions

My Role & Process

Solo developer under BigRat Studios. Designed the pixel art system programmatically (2D arrays), built the pastel color theming system with 7 weather states, and implemented platform-specific APIs (WeatherKit for iOS, OpenWeatherMap for Android).

Key Technical Decisions

Pixel art defined programmatically — no image assets, pure code
WeatherKit (iOS) / OpenWeatherMap (Android) — best API quality per platform
Local caching with 3-hour TTL — balances freshness with API usage
5-city limit — prevents feature bloat, encourages curation

Outcome

Feature-complete on iOS with full accessibility support. Android feature parity in progress across 3 development waves. Positioned for App Store and Play Store launch.

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