Personal

Personal projects & hobbies

I'm Jason Wolin—pastor, builder, and maker. This page is a grab bag of side projects and life away from the desk: electric cars, flying, house work, LEDs, family, and whatever problem seemed interesting that month. Backstory and church context are on About.

Jason and his wife outdoors in the woods, camping chairs and pine trees behind them — Weekend in the pines—folding chairs, cool air, no agenda except a slow fire.

1977 Super Beetle, electrified

I converted a classic Super Beetle to electric power—hand-assembled battery pack included. The pack uses 1,008 Boston-Power-style 5300 mAh cells (spot-welded and balanced into modules the old-fashioned way: patience, solder fumes, and a lot of testing). It's slow science and the joy of something ancient-meets-future actually moving under its own quiet torque.

Classic VW Beetle with front compartment open and battery assembly being lowered on straps — Hoisting the front-drive assembly into the Beetle—garage physics and orange lift straps.

Wooden-framed Boston Power lithium cell pack with colored balance wiring — 1,008 cells, hand-built modules, Sharpie polarity marks—the long way to torque.

Laptop screen showing TeslaDash battery cell voltage bars — TeslaDash on the bench—because ‘trust but verify’ applies to every brick in the pack.

Private pilot

I fly: preflight, pattern work, cross-countries when I can get them. Nothing fancy about it—the airplane does the magic; you just study, plan, and keep the blue side up.

Pilot in the cockpit wearing a headset, fields visible below the wing — Headset on, harness tight, checklist done—then the view pays you back.

Weather balloon

High-altitude balloon project: payload, radio/tracking, launch, and chase/recovery. Documentation is on YouTube.

Watch on YouTube →

Home remodeling & the one-ton beam

I love serious DIY on the house—structural work, not just paint samples. Here is a clip of inching a roughly thousand-pound beam into place with jacks and stubborn optimism—sawdust, engineer's tape, and a very patient family.

Raising the beam—cinder-block wall, autumn light, and everyone pretending the jacks are decorative.

Roof solar

I wired and mounted a residential array—rails on the shingles, microinverters tucked under where the panels would land, and a lot of ladder time before the panels went up.

Mounting rails and wiring on the roof before the panels go down.

Person on a residential roof ridge at dusk with solar panels and neighborhood lights — Solar project complete—panels up, ridge line at dusk, neighborhood going quiet.

Relaxing on the lake

A short clip from the lake—glass water, pine trees mirrored on the surface, and the kind of afternoon where the only agenda is staying upright on the board.

Wake and mirror-calm water—three seconds of not thinking about the to-do list.

Family first

My wife and I have five kids. Loud dinners, school projects, and the kind of schedule that only makes sense on a paper calendar.

Family of seven posed in front of a tall evergreen indoors — The whole crew—dress-up smiles, one tree, zero calm weeknights.

Three family members at a rustic restaurant table with mason jar drinks — The smaller table version of the same noise level.

A high-tech pulpit

I built a pulpit with an embedded confidence monitor and a Stream Deck for scene changes—because the production stack shouldn't be more complicated than the message. Church tech should feel invisible to the congregation.

Plywood pulpit pedestal with CNC cutouts in a workshop — Shop phase—plywood, dust, and cutouts for everything that has to disappear on Sunday.

Instructables & maker contests

I've published projects and collected contest wins on Instructables—maps with LEDs, clocks, maps again (I like maps), and other late-night solder adventures.

Large wooden LED clock with rainbow-lit numerals on a floor stand — Neopixel math and a router—clocks that belong in a maker contest.

CNC mill cutting a circular aluminum part on a taped fixture — Chips flying—fixturing, feeds and speeds, and sweeping aluminum out of the T-track afterward.

Ironman finisher

Full-distance Ironman finish—one long swim, a windy bike, and a marathon tacked on the end because someone thought that was a reasonable third leg. Good kind of tired.

Crowd of triathletes in wetsuits and bright green swim caps on a shoreline before an open-water swim start — The roar before the cannon—green caps, grey sky, and a thousand small battles about to roll into one.