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harness labsThe AI Buff

HARNESS LABS / BY MUKUNTH RAJENDRAN

A personal
technology lab.

Harness Labs is my personal technology lab, where I share my experiments and build an open-source community to learn, explore, and create together.

Coming soonBeta version in development for testing

About Mukunth & thought leadership Explore an experiment

EXPERIMENT 001 / AN EXAMPLE FROM THE LAB

AI × HARDWARE / A CONCEPT STUDY

Make the
future
physical.

One experiment in making ideas tangible.
From a sketch to an imagined interface.

Follow the idea
STUDY 001 / A TANGIBLE INTERFACE01 / SKETCH
From sketch to components to assemblyAn imagined tactile interface with touch surface, feedback ring, interpretation board, and physical enclosure. Conceptual animation, no connected hardware.01 / TOUCH02 / FEEDBACK03 / INTERPRET04 / FORM
CONCEPT STUDY · AUTOMATIC SEQUENCE

An imagined interface, taken apart. Explore how the layers fit.

01 / Touch surface

A deliberate input.

A touch or turn should communicate intent clearly. This surface is an imagined input, with no sensor or microphone connected.

ORIGINAL CONCEPT VISUAL · NOT A COMPLETED PRODUCTTHINK → MAKE → UNDERSTAND

01 / FROM SIGNAL TO SOMETHING

Give an idea
a way into the world.

Choose an input. Follow its path.
A small interactive sketch of a larger question.

INPUT

A deliberate touch.

A physical action begins the interaction.

INTERPRET

Make intent legible.

Separate a request from permission to act.

RESPOND

A light, with meaning.

An imagined light indicates that the input was received.

Touch sketch selected. The light represents acknowledgment only.

ILLUSTRATIVE · RUNS LOCALLY · NO AI OR HARDWARE CONNECTED

02 / TOOLS FROM THE WORKBENCH

Design the behavior.
Then build the thing.

Small tools for turning an idea into a physical product.

APP DIRECTION · LAB FIRST, PUBLIC LATER

From a product idea
to something physical.

An AI-assisted product-development app. Built for my lab first, then other builders.

ONE PROPOSED STARTING MODULE

Device Interaction Workbench

A proposed tool for sketching device behavior before writing firmware. Try its local, scripted example below.

Inspect the state sketch

LOCAL INTERACTION EXPLORER / DEMONSTRATION

What does the person see?

Choose a scenario. See what changes.

ILLUSTRATIVE FEEDBACK LAYER

Idle

Steady dim ring

STEP 1 / 5

Ready for an input.

The device is waiting. A steady, dim ring makes its idle state visible.

State details
Transition
Start of scenario → Idle
What this means
No request is queued. No action has been authorized.
Next event
A person presses the surface.

Local, scripted example. No AI or hardware connected.

From a useful sketch to a usable product
  1. 01 / HERE

    Inspect the idea

    A visual concept and a bounded state explorer. No product account or access request.

  2. 02 / PROPOSED NEXT

    Build privately

    A complete local workflow, validated imports and exports, and documented limits.

  3. 03 / AFTER VALIDATION

    Learn with builders

    A small, explicitly invited test group using real tasks. Record confusion and recovery.

  4. 04 / RELEASE GATE

    Make it dependable

    Versioned docs, test evidence, a license decision, and realistic support expectations.

03 / THE LAB

Follow the question.
Keep the evidence.

Ideas, designs, and experiments. Shared as they take shape.

STUDY 001

CONCEPT · ACTIVE

A visual study.
No physical prototype.

Explore the object

A tangible interface

What should an AI interface make visible?

Touch, light, interpretation, form. Four layers for exploring understandable device behavior.

Design notes & limits
Idea
Use a physical gesture and clear feedback to make a bounded interaction legible.
Design / 3D concept
The dimensional illustration explores form and layers. It is not measured CAD; materials, tolerances, electronics, and manufacturability remain open.
Browser experiment
The input sketch and state explorer demonstrate authored feedback states. They establish no hardware performance or usability result.

Next: test whether people can distinguish received, awaiting permission, and working.

Try the input sketch

BUILD NOTE / THIS WEBSITE STUDY

A record of the current design.

20 October 2026 · Browser study

Separate a signal from permission

The touch sketch labels its light as acknowledgment. The state explorer gives confirmation its own step, so “input received” does not silently become “permission granted.”

Implemented here: distinct text labels and manually stepped states. Still to learn: whether the distinction is clear to someone encountering the interface for the first time.

Give uncertainty and failure a visible place

The unclear-request scenario pauses for clarification. The connection-loss scenario stops at an offline state and asks for a fresh confirmation before retrying.

Implemented here: deterministic local examples. Still to learn: which feedback works in a real device and how it behaves when interruptions happen at different points.

FROM THOUGHT TO THING / CONCEPT RECORD

One question, two ways to explore it.

A question at The AI Buff. A tangible exploration here.

  1. 01 / QUESTION

    Make system boundaries understandable.

    The AI Buff perspective
  2. 02 / DESIGN

    Give the question a physical form.

    Study 001
  3. 03 / EXPERIMENT

    Explore input, permission, and recovery.

    State explorer
  4. 04 / LEARNING

    Test with people and hardware next.

    Evidence to gather

Concept study · user testing and physical validation still to come.

LEARN & BUILD

Start curious.
Make something.

A beginner-friendly path through code, circuits, CAD, and AI. One lesson. One small build. Then the next.

Browser first. Hardware optional.

Open the learning path

04 / OPEN SOURCE & EARLIER WORK

Open the workbench.
Inspect what exists.

Earlier code to inspect. New lab releases will appear here.

Explore my earlier personal work. A Harness Labs repository and CAD releases are still to come.

Mukunth’s personal GitHub

Explore earlier personal work on GitHub ↗

How it works & what is still untested

The object is an SVG illustration. The hero progresses from sketch to components to assembly; Pause and direct phase selection keep that progression under your control. Reduced-motion visitors get a static starting view. The input sketch swaps authored text and icons; the state explorer steps through predefined examples.

Choose a scenario, reset it, then step through each state. Download the sequence to inspect its transitions and feedback. No account or device is needed. The download is an authored example, not firmware. Electronics, real-time response, usability, and safety remain untested.

05 / THE PERSON BEHIND THE QUESTIONS

Mukunth
Rajendran.

This is where I share technology experiments and work toward an open-source community.

My professional work, writing, and research live at The AI Buff.

Meet The AI Buff ↗LinkedIn ↗Let’s compare notes ↓

01Make behavior legible.

02Record the limits.

03Share what can be inspected.

06 / CONNECT

Let’s compare
notes.

Have a question or something to build together?

You can also connect through Topmate ↗.

Start a conversation

Have a question or something to build together?

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