# Broken Branch Studios

> Ben Schippers' dev studio and playground — interactive physics sims, AI tools, production apps, and weird little explorables. Building in public with Claude.

## About

Broken Branch is the practice of Ben Schippers. The site is a showcase for the work he cares about most: interactive physics explorables, AI tools, production apps, and ongoing experiments. Microsoft is the day job; this is where the curiosity goes. Everything here is built in collaboration with Claude.

Location: Atlanta, GA.

## Flagship Projects

### Microtubule Resonance Simulator (Live)
Interactive quantum-biology explorable. Ten physics engines — RK4, Monte Carlo, Berry phase, stochastic resonance, energy budget — test seven hypotheses from Bandyopadhyay et al. (2020, 2022) directly in the browser. 86.3% meta-robustness; H2 falsified; H7 unvalidated at p=0.179. Pure HTML/CSS/JS, zero dependencies, MIT-licensed. Not peer-reviewed research — a tool for sharpening questions.
Tech: HTML/JS, Quantum Biology, Simulation
URL: https://benskamps.github.io/microtubule-resonance-sim/
Source: https://github.com/benskamps/microtubule-resonance-sim

### Exp-lore (Live)
AI-powered gameplay narrative engine. Desktop app (Tauri + FastAPI) captures screenshots during play, classifies with Claude Vision, and generates chronicles in preset or custom storyteller voices — survivor journals, war dispatches, colony epics, built from actual runs. Four-phase witnessing system. Nine game presets, seven narrators, three visual themes. Stripe billing live; local-first with optional cloud hosting.
Tech: Tauri v2, FastAPI, Claude Vision, Stripe
URL: https://exp-lore.ai

### The Long Way (Pre-launch)
A road trip companion with three AI-narrated raccoon characters — Scout, Skates, and Macey — who react to your drive in real time. GPS-triggered storytelling, automatic day-to-spooky mode shift at sunset, Spotify integration, character-voiced error states. Companionship on the road, not audio-Wikipedia. Expo + Supabase mobile app; web demo live.
Tech: Expo, Supabase, Next.js 16, OpenAI TTS
URL: https://roadtripper.ai

### Visual Inventory System (Live)
AI-powered household inventory. Snap a photo, speak, scan a receipt, scan a barcode, or point a live camera — Claude Vision identifies items, tracks expiration dates with FIFO rotation, suggests recipes from what's in the fridge, and lets families collaborate on shared shelves. Android app plus web dashboard on Supabase.
Tech: Next.js, Supabase, Claude Vision, Android
URL: https://visualinventory.ai

### Career Compass MCP (Active, Open Source)
Open-source MCP server that turns Claude into a full job-search partner. Knows your career history, tailors every resume and cover letter, tracks applications end-to-end, and preps you for every interview. Ships with a local web dashboard: pipeline kanban, KB overview, funnel analytics. The tool Ben built for himself during a 10-month job search — now public.
Tech: MCP, TypeScript, Next.js, Open Source
Source: https://github.com/benskamps/career-compass-mcp

### Fathom (Live)
A web-based workshop for dimensions. Hub plus five rooms — Unit Space, Spatial, Fractal, Infinite, Negative — each a different flavor of what "dimension" can mean. Rooms 1 and 2 live: hypercubes from 3D to 6D, projections, slicing, live face-count panels. Every configuration is a URL-hash-shareable link.
Tech: React 19, R3F (react-three-fiber), TypeScript, KaTeX
URL: https://fathom-livid.vercel.app

## Additional Projects

### Vibecrafting (Live)
AI-powered physical product design from idea to shop-ready plans. Claude generates full specs with cut lists, shopping lists, exploded views, and 3D-printable connectors. Parametric geometry engine with OpenSCAD exports.
Tech: Claude API, Next.js 15, FastAPI, Supabase, OpenSCAD
URL: https://vibecrafting.ai

### ScoutsPlus.org (Live)
Gamified achievement platform for adults. Badge progression, troop management, photo-verified requirements, Stripe-powered subscriptions. 19-table production app.
Tech: TypeScript, Supabase, Stripe
URL: https://scoutsplus.org

### Canary (Prototype)
Mutual benefit platform concept for tech workers. Pooled fund model with simulated risk modeling, employer-cap diversification. Pricing engine + claims workflow. Not a licensed financial product.
Tech: TypeScript, Fintech, Risk Modeling
URL: https://canary-omega.vercel.app/

### Bi-directional RAG (Demo)
Collaborative knowledge system where AI maintains, labels, and improves the knowledge base instead of just reading it. Natural language intent detection, auto-tagging, confidence scoring, real-time orchestration view.
Tech: Python, ChromaDB, Claude API

### Workstation Zero (In Dev)
Distraction-resistant desktop environment. Full-screen CRT terminal aesthetic with Pomodoro integration, focus-gated media, and embedded productivity tools.
Tech: PyQt6, Python

## Built with Claude

Every project on this site is built in collaboration with Claude — thought partner, execution layer, quality and lifecycle support. The methodology is discussed in the Writing section.

## Writing

- "Growth Rings — 10 Months of Job Searching, Building, and Shipping with AI" (Mar 2026) — A data-driven cross-section of 10 months in the 2025-2026 tech market: 203 applications, 76 rejections, 34 ghosts, 2,710 GitHub contributions, 6 live products.
- "The Productive Compute Framework" (Feb 2026) — Self-sustaining AI infrastructure for global public good. Whitepaper, DRAFT v2.0.
- "If You Can Read a Recipe, You Can Now Be a Developer" (Jan 2026) — The $1K Experiment Part 2.
- "The $1K Claude Code Credit: What Happens When a PM Learns to Ship" (Dec 2025) — 31 days, 215 commits, 38K lines of TypeScript.
- "The 90-Day Death Spiral: Why 95% of AI Projects Fail" (Oct 2025) — Early warning systems in support tickets.

## Labs

Experimental projects: ∞-ball (mindfulness + mechanics), C-Monkies (multi-platform simulation), Dead Radius (location-based ASCII survival), Quantum Oracle (quantum entropy exploration).

## Backstory (career arc)

Ben spent 5 years at Microsoft (2020–2025) as a Senior Program Manager in AI Platforms & Enterprise Operations. Before that, Experis/ManpowerGroup (2016–2020) where he built Premier Engineering from a 3-person pilot to 150 agents, and Mural Consulting (2014–2016). Microsoft is the day job again as of March 2026. Former dendrochronologist (University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research) — which is where the domain name comes from. The "Growth Rings" data story covers the 10-month 2025–2026 interim.

## By the Numbers (Microsoft era)

- 3 → 150 agents: Co-founded the program, hired the team, built the playbook
- 700+ blockers surfaced from support signal
- 95+ features shipped (64% acceptance rate)
- 220K users unblocked
- 94K seats added
- $355M+ aggregate value across retained ARR, cost avoidance, and growth enablement

## Links

- [Main site](https://brokenbranch.dev/)
- [Growth Rings — 10 Months of Job Searching (Data Story)](https://brokenbranch.dev/growth-rings/)
- [PCF Whitepaper (HTML)](https://brokenbranch.dev/pcf/)
- [PCF Whitepaper (Markdown)](https://brokenbranch.dev/pcf.md)
- [PCF Whitepaper (PDF)](https://brokenbranch.dev/assets/productive-compute-framework.pdf)
- [Git Width Visualization](https://brokenbranch.dev/gitwidth/)
- [RSS Feed](https://brokenbranch.dev/feed.xml)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/Benjamin-Schippers)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/benskamps)

## Optional

- [Privacy Policy](https://brokenbranch.dev/privacy/)
- [humans.txt](https://brokenbranch.dev/humans.txt)