I Spent My Sabbatical Building a Power Meter for Sledgehammers

I spent the last month building a power meter for sledgehammer strikes: a pad you hit so you can see how hard you hit it throughout a workout, and track that over time. I call it the Intensity Pad. Dear reader I'd eventually like to turn this into a product that people can purchase. Because of that, this post intentionally focuses on how I got to the final proof-of-concept, and skips the technical aspects. For now, the public home for the project is the very unfinished https://intensity.systems/. Sign up there to follow along. If you're interested and a hardware person though, please reach out directly! Why I used my sabbatical on this After five years at Shopify, employees get a paid month off to do whatever the hell they want. I took mine in April 2026. Thanks Tobi! I've been telling myself, and anyone who'd listen, for about six years that I'd eventually do something entrepreneurial. I've made small runs at independent things before: I co-founded and toured with a band for a couple…