Do you have any just-for-fun projects that you’re excited to learn and tinker with in your spare time?
A while back, someone in my neighbourhood threw out a box of tubes of various IC chips. A really large variety of interesting ones, some that I've never heard of before. I spent some time researching what each of them do, and downloaded the spec sheets for each of them.
So now I'm writing code that demonstrates what they all do. Some are nearly identical, except for example, leading versus tailing edge triggers, and that sort of thing. It's really teaching me a lot about something I used to think I knew fairly well.
The LCD-styled number boards, and Explorer Base's built in screen, buttons, LED, and piezo buzzer make for some interesting ways to explore the chips. Once I get a certain pattern going with the experiments, I'll be uploading videos and code to demonstrate them.
As a result of this project, I've been deeply learning Python and a few of the libraries. Every step of the way is exploratory, so it is super educational, and keeps me busy on something that has absolutely nothing to do with my day job.