Episode 32 - Year-End Recap, Roblox Adventures, and the Future of Event Modeling

Episode Summary

In the final episode of 2025, Martin and Adam reflect on an incredible year for event modeling while sharing their holiday projects. Martin teaches his son Roblox game development using Claude Code, while Adam dives deep into maker culture with 3D printing, FreeCAD, and sensor projects. They discuss why AI is bringing back the joy of programming for kids, how FreeCAD’s non-destructive workflow mirrors event sourcing principles, and their ambitious plans to make event modeling the standard approach in 2026.

Important: This episode includes a special GoFundMe link to help children in a difficult situation. Please check the show notes to support if you can.

Main Discussion Points

• Teaching Kids with AI - How Claude Code makes Roblox game development accessible and teaches proper AI usage
• Maker Projects - 3D printing with Bamboo printers, FreeCAD for design, Raspberry Pi automation, and sensor circuits
• FreeCAD and Event Sourcing - Why FreeCAD’s non-destructive workflow perfectly demonstrates event sourcing principles
• 2026 Vision - New tooling to replace Miro, growing event modeling adoption, and book progress
• Community Support - GoFundMe for children in need
• Event Modeling Simplicity - Why simplicity is the core strength that makes event modeling powerful

Teaching Kids Programming: The Roblox Adventure

Martin started a Roblox game development project with his son during the holidays, using it as an opportunity to teach both programming and proper AI usage.

Building Consistently

“We use the holidays to build this game and consistency is key. We are on it every day and right right now we have a pretty cool game. So it’s really progressing and my son is really getting fast at building Roblox. It’s crazy to watch this really amazing.” - Martin

Teaching AI Interaction

“I really use this to teach my son how to use AI. We are using heavily Claude Code and we regularly run into token limits but that’s perfectly fine. But it’s really a good way to teach the kids how to use this. My son for example always tries to be kind, always tries to put smileys into the chat. And I’m really teaching you don’t have to do this. This is a machine. It’s not a human. So really it’s a machine. It’s a stupid machine. It does exactly what you tell it to do.” - Martin

Critical Thinking with AI

“For me it’s really important that he understands okay this is not a human thing. This thing is just a machine. Whatever it tells you it’s not granted to be true.” - Martin

Adam’s perspective on abstraction levels:

“Even back then we always jumped in at the abstraction layer that was the most accessible understandable or relatable level. Some people that decided to tinker with electronics might start programming from a different perspective than someone that just went in looking at software only.” - Adam

Adam’s Maker Journey: Accessible Technology

Adam shares his exploration of maker culture during the holidays, discovering how accessible hardware projects have become.

The Bamboo 3D Printer Discovery

“The bamboo printer I got, which is the smallest one, is incredibly fast. It can work online or offline. It’s $300. It’s nothing. And you can design and make whatever you like. I was so surprised because I got my son a 3D printer years ago and was extremely expensive, much slower. Now the bamboo printer was a huge success.” - Adam

Why it matters:

“It just works. It’s not like setting up a Raspberry Pi. When you get a Steam Deck to play video games, you plug it in and it’s ready to go. If you have a Steam account, you start playing games, there’s nothing to do. But it’s running Arch. It’s running one of the most customizable rolling distributions that you can have. So it’s all about the packaging.” - Adam

FreeCAD: The Event Sourcing of Design Tools

Adam discovered FreeCAD and immediately recognized its connection to event sourcing principles.

“I’ve discovered FreeCAD which is open-source drafting software. Their latest version 1.0 that’s stable but there’s a 1.2 that’s being worked on replaces the commercial products. It’s much like Blender and like Open Office and LibreOffice are replacing Microsoft Office.” - Adam

The event sourcing connection:

“It’s very related to event sourcing because it is your set of events that you can play around with such as extruding a wall, attaching the other walls to it, drilling holes. They’re all sequential things. And if you make a change in something that’s first in line, it’ll have effects on the other pieces. So it’s quite fully fledged.” - Adam

Non-destructive workflow:

“It is non-destructive stepwise. You can look at all of these pieces that I’m creating and I see that they relate in time in history what happened before. And so that’s why I really fell in love with it. It’s like oh this is so close to event sourcing. I’m really enjoying this for some reason.” - Adam

Practical Projects

Adam’s plant pot project:

“I really want to understand I have a couple of hobbies so the plant stuff is one so I’m doing some water sensor level stuff there. I’ve been playing with capacitor circuits. The oscilloscope’s great if you’re doing any frequency stuff and it’s so accessible these days.” - Adam

The solution:

“I basically used FreeCAD to design some schematics. They will have a little reservoir around the bottom, but then the regular soil and everything immediately pops out and goes back out. So you can have the most soil and surface area at the top while still preserving a little pool of water underneath.” - Adam

Accessibility of Modern Tools

“You go to Amazon, there’s some really good deals but even AliExpress, it’s incredibly inexpensive to get into this stuff. Getting breadboards, getting the chips with the different logic gates on them and just put them in the breadboard and it’s really fun actually to have AI help you along with that.” - Adam

The oscilloscope surprise:

“I was just really surprised as to the affordability of an oscilloscope and how small they are because the one that I got doubles as a multimeter. It has an oscilloscope built in. So when I saw I remember oscilloscopes from when I was going to school. You need a desk space for that thing. This thing fits in your hand. It’s like this big.” - Adam

Martin’s Raspberry Pi Projects

Martin set up a Raspberry Pi cluster during the holidays.

N8N Automation Cluster

“I have a few Raspberry Pis here to work on and what I want to do with them is just I set up an N8N cluster, which is automation. It just allows you to automate things. And I’m just playing around what is possible with this. You can run this on the Raspberry Pi. It’s completely free.” - Martin

The reality:

“I basically set up the cluster. It’s running but I didn’t do anything with it. So the game in Roblox takes up all my time right now.” - Martin

Linux Setup Challenges

“Just setting up those Raspberry Pis. I had a few Raspberry Pis a few years ago, but these were Raspberry Pis too. So that you cannot do a lot with them nowadays. So I bought a few Raspberry Pi fives and you need to set them up. Just all these Linux commands you need to set up a Raspberry Pi correctly. I couldn’t remember that. AI helps you. All the firewall stuff, SSH, making sure you have the SSH daemon running.” - Martin

Looking Forward to 2026

Both hosts share their ambitious plans for the new year.

Martin’s All-In Commitment

“A lot will change for my company in 2026. I’m looking to grow it. I’m looking to drive event modeling in Germany and over Germany. A lot of things are planned, a lot of things are coming and I’m really looking forward. I am all in. I am really all in. There is absolutely either this works or nothing works. So there is no plan B. This is what I’m doing and I will stick to it.” - Martin

The Tooling Game-Changer

Martin on the biggest blocker:

“That’s the one thing I’m looking forward to most in 2026 getting the proper tooling ready. That will enable much more companies to adopt event modeling. Miro is currently the biggest blocker. I see many companies would love to try it but they can’t use Miro for one reason or the other or simply they don’t trust Miro because it’s just a foreign company. There are many reasons.” - Martin

The problems with Miro:

“There is no versioning. You can’t have everything in Miro. It’s just a whiteboard and stuff like that. I get that. I fully get that. That’s why I’m so passionate about this new tooling if it’s ready. So much potential. That’s the one thing I’m really looking forward to most in 2026.” - Martin

Adam’s focus:

“For me the focus is event modeling first. I think there’s a lot of projects out there that either I mean you have event catalog, you have all these other things. They’re very niche or technical. I don’t think there’s something really out there that’s built for event modeling first. There’s a sweet spot in the middle where event modeling needs to be and I think this is the place to actually do it.” - Adam

Lowering the Entry Barrier

“Currently the entry barrier is still far too high. If you start with event modeling with your team you have this empty Miro board and you have no idea where to start. There are all these elements. I mean event modeling is simple but if you have no idea what to do it’s still too hard to get started and this is what we exactly tackle when we bring the tooling.” - Martin

Adam’s Book Progress

“The book is on its way. Taking a break because I have the ghost writer helping me finish the book. There’s a small break of course, but that’s still in plans to have the handbook out as soon as possible because we want the answers kind of there for someone to get.” - Adam

Why now is the right time:

“I’m really happy that this is the time for the book and the booklet to be coming out is that it’s based on taking in what the community really needed from the practice.” - Adam

Event Modeling.org Updates

“We need to have that modern version of event modeling to be on the front page, keep the original article as an archive. So that’s something that will be worked on. So I’m really excited.” - Adam

Investment and Incubation

“I’m always interested in helping projects that are event modeling, event sourcing. Eventually the goal is to make Adapted Group a VC company or an incubator company that has its own funds and then can create an investment fund that people can participate in of a mix of projects that are working with an advantage because they are event modeling and event sourcing.” - Adam

The Power of Simplicity

Why Event Modeling Works

Martin on alternatives:

“I saw a lot of these event modeling clones coming up all a little bit different with different names. Whenever I ask almost always it’s like okay they didn’t really understand event modeling or they did not even try. Changing it always comes with a cost. Almost always it gets much more complicated.” - Martin

The core insight:

“Event modeling works because it’s so simple. That’s the only reason why it’s so powerful. That’s the reason why I’m using it. I like simple stuff. I like things that are simple. Whenever you introduce new concepts, it gets more complicated.” - Martin

Proven Over Time

“There is a reason why event modeling is like event modeling. You work with it for what 10 years until you made it a thing. It didn’t come from nowhere. It came out of practice.” - Martin

Event Modeling as a Constant

Adam reflects on a decade of consistency:

“I was afraid of another methodology coming out or something technically better for event sourcing or something else. Maybe something could disrupt it. Maybe not enough people would like event modeling. And every year the answer was no, there isn’t anything. And it was more important the last two years as all of the advancements happen in AI that that hasn’t changed event modeling either.” - Adam

The stability advantage:

“That change and the flux within the industry is something that strengthens event modeling because it becomes something you can actually depend on being there for you. I can’t depend on the React framework because I know that it’s potentially going to be changed by Vue.js or something else. There’s very few things like that in the industry that you can hold on to.” - Adam

The FreeCAD Analogy

Adam’s powerful comparison:

“Event modeling is FreeCAD for your business. If your business was you know an engineering firm producing something to produce, you could do it with CRUD or draw.io or draw those things manually, but I think you would quickly come to a conclusion that you need a tool. Event modeling is the FreeCAD equivalent. It’s really something that gives you the structure and the constraints.” - Adam

Constraints as Features

“Constraints are number one thing you’ll do in FreeCAD if you’re using it because you cannot use your sketch until it’s fully constrained. That’s an engineering thing. You have to make sure all of there’s no freedom of movement to any of the edges. You have to have the measurements, you have the equals, you have the angles specified. So now it’s a solid drawing and then you can move to the next part.” - Adam

The event modeling parallel:

“It’s very similar to the mindset that you have in event modeling with the information completeness. You don’t have you’re not fully constrained like you have this screen that’s showing this information, but you don’t have a source for the information. It’s not fully constrained.” - Adam

Supporting the Community

Important Call to Action

Adam’s message:

“If you are looking at the listing of the podcast, there’s a link for a GoFundMe page to help out one couple of kids that are in a real bad situation that Martin directly knows. So we never ask for anything from you. If you’re enjoying Martin’s book, if you’re enjoying these podcasts, if you’re getting help from us in any way or the event sourcing, event modeling community, this is the one time that it would be a good idea to donate some money for a really good cause.” - Adam

Martin adds:

“Small amounts are very appreciated. Any amount of money or share of the link would always be appreciated.” - Martin

The Year Ahead

Martin’s Experience

On returning to help people:

“Even though I might have taken a break over the holidays and I have people I haven’t talked to about their projects for maybe a year, I know I have one question, one person that said, ‘Hey, can we have another conversation about event modeling and event sourcing?’ And I know I helped them with a problem last year. I’m not afraid of what changes happen to that project because I know they’re using event modeling and event sourcing.” - Adam

The confidence it brings:

“I feel like I’m not walking into a minefield of unexpected stuff. When I know that person is working on event modeling and event sourcing, I’m like, ‘Yeah, give me whatever problem you have. I’ll help you because I know what to expect. I expect to see slices. I expect to see this propagation of information left to right.’” - Adam

Fast solutions:

“I know I can very quickly with them zoom into that problem area and get going on understanding the problem and creating a solution like within that hour. I’m not going to need to take stuff home and study it and come back to them. We could right there navigate the solution.” - Adam

Martin’s Common Experience

“I had this so often this year. People come to me with problems. Oh, we need your help. Okay, let’s have a quick call. Let’s take an hour. It’s for free. Let’s take an hour. I just help you. Okay, we sit down. We model this. And after this hour, the problem is gone. We solved it. Okay, there’s okay, you don’t have to pay me. There is no contract. Your problem is solved. Have fun. If you have a bigger contract, come back to me. I’m happy to help.” - Martin

The Decade of Event Modeling

Adam reflects:

“I think it’s a really nice base to start the next chapters to get even more refinement in the approach like the build the tooling that’s needed and all these other things. There may be like BPMN and value stream analysis, these may just be little filters on top included as add-ons to event modeling.” - Adam

Looking at FreeCAD’s ecosystem:

“I look at FreeCAD and I see all the add-ons that are there. And you can use FreeCAD with no add-ons and it’s great. I could I made my designs for the things I mentioned. But the fasteners I can just add the regular screws and nuts and bolts. I don’t have to make those from scratch. There’s an add-on that gives you those.” - Adam

The vision for event modeling:

“I see BPMN as one of those things. Okay, you’re not going to make your own. You’re going to need something that you don’t have or you don’t want to make. Sure, there’s a BPMN analysis. Here’s given this event model. Here’s your BPMN diagrams for better or worse. Look at those if you want, but you’re not going to hand the BPMN diagrams to your developers.” - Adam

Key Takeaways

1. AI Empowers Kid Programmers - Tools like Claude Code make game development accessible while teaching critical thinking about AI

2. Maker Culture is Accessible - 3D printers, FreeCAD, and electronic components are now affordable and easy to learn with AI assistance

3. FreeCAD Demonstrates Event Sourcing - Non-destructive, sequential operations that build on each other perfectly mirror event sourcing principles

4. Constraints Enable Freedom - Both FreeCAD and event modeling use constraints (full constraint, information completeness) to ensure quality

5. 2026: The Tooling Year - New event modeling tools will remove the Miro barrier and dramatically lower the entry point

6. Simplicity is the Strength - Event modeling works because it’s simple; resist adding complexity

7. Event Modeling Remains Constant - While frameworks and technologies change rapidly, event modeling provides stability you can depend on

8. One-Hour Solutions - With event modeling, complex problems often have simple solutions visible in under an hour

9. Teaching Moments - Both programming and AI usage require teaching critical thinking and understanding limitations

10. Community Support Matters - Supporting each other extends beyond technical help to real-world assistance