Build It | MoreSalamander StudioLabs

What is Build It?

Build It is an educational series that teaches programming through complete, working projects. Each project is broken down into atomic steps — one concept per page — so you always know exactly what you're doing and why.

No hand-waving. No "the rest is left as an exercise." Every line of code is explained, every decision is justified, and every checkpoint confirms you're on track.

Getting Started

New to programming on Mac? Complete these setup guides first:

Project Setup

Terminal, Python, pip, and venv on Mac

📄 36 pages

VS Code on Mac

Install, navigate, extensions, shortcuts, settings

📄 39 pages

NumPy Fundamentals

Arrays, indexing, operations, and aggregation

📄 45 pages

Python Standard Library

Built-in modules: random, time, datetime, and more

📄 9 guides

The Three Stages

Every Build It project follows the same progression:

Stage	Name	What You Build
Foundation	See It Work	A complete, working application with hardcoded values
Configuration	Use It Today	User-adjustable settings with validation and UI
Persistence	Keep It Forever	Save and load settings between sessions

Each stage produces a standalone, runnable application. You can stop at any stage and have something useful.

Available Projects

Academic Series

Study Timer

Pomodoro-style countdown timer with alarm. Built with Python and Tkinter.

✅ Foundation ✅ Configuration ✅ Persistence

Web Performance Series

Particle Life

Artificial life simulation with emergent behaviors. Built with React and Canvas.

✅ Foundation 🚧 Configuration 🚧 Persistence

📋 Complete Code · 🚀 Setup Guide · 🎥 Video Demo

Philosophy

Traditional tutorials fail in predictable ways:

Too fast — Steps get skipped, leaving gaps in understanding
Too abstract — Theory without practice doesn't stick
Too fragile — One mistake and you're lost with no way to recover

Build It solves these problems with atomic steps, working checkpoints, recovery paths, and progressive enhancement.

Quick Links

Fundamentals

Study Timer

Particle Life

The Build It Constitution

Every guide follows the Build It Constitution

How These Guides Are Made

Build It guides are created using a structured production workflow — not just AI-generated code presented as-is.

Each guide transforms a working application into a step-structured learning system where every step:

Introduces exactly one concept
Explains intent and constraints
Includes a checkpoint and failure recovery path
Preserves architectural boundaries

The Pipeline

Stage freeze & constraints — Define what's in scope and explicitly out of scope
Atomic decomposition — Break the system into "one step = one unit of change"
Instruction-as-verification — Embed checkpoints so the guide doubles as a QA harness
End-to-end validation — Confirm runtime behavior matches the guide's claims
Feature verification suite — Add checklists to guard against regression

Quality Controls

Contracted step schema: purpose, fit, code, explanation, why-it-matters, checkpoint, recovery
Dependency tracking: each step declares prerequisites
Run-based validation: final code is executed to confirm key behaviors
Scope enforcement: "does not include" constraints are asserted and re-verified

AI Collaboration

These guides are co-authored with AI systems (ChatGPT and Claude) under human-owned standards:

0ne29 (author/producer): system design, constraints, stage boundaries, QA expectations, acceptance criteria
AI systems: structured synthesis under constraints, consistent formatting, alignment of prose to code

For the full authoring methodology, see Authoring Methodology.