project 1: plate calculator

i made a barbell plate calculator.

prelude

in the time between starting this project and writing this post, i discovered Ben Stokes' website, tiny projects. i enjoyed reading about each project – i’ve also wanted to make a “micro mmo” for a long time! – and i appreciated the structure of each post. i’m going to use a very similar format here.

idea

depending on which strength program i’m running, i’ll track my workouts with a spreadsheet or an app. the apps tend to be pretty good, and they have features like progression tracking and timers.

however, seemingly none of the apps i’ve used tell you what to actually put on the bar. sure, they tell you the number, but not the individual plates.

the math to figure this out isn’t hard, but it is tedious and repetitive. for me, it’s always the same process: take the desired weight, subtract 45 for the bar, divide by 2 for each side, and then run through a couple options to figure out what plates i need, hopefully not forgetting the “half value” each time.

turning this “formula” into a calculator seemed easy enough and small in scope, so i decided to do it.

build

i built the calculator using in typescript using react. tailwind css was used for styling. parcel was used to build the app. the app is hosted on netlify.

i spent $15 to buy the platecalculator.app domain.

i didn’t spend any time on seo or “marketing”, but i plan to as a separate project. i don’t know how that works at all, so i’ll have to learn.

monetization

currently, the app has no monetization. i’m considering adding a small ad, or at least using this app to drive traffic to another fitness app idea i have.

conclusion

overall, i’m pretty happy with this calculator being the first release. first and foremost, i actually built it and deployed it on time. second, i was still able to learn something new along the way (tailwind). finally, it’s also just something i personally plan to use almost every day.

not to mention that finishing this on thursday means i have a little extra time to pick my next idea from the list :).