The CAD file is open. Welcome to Datum Foundry.

Timothy here.

A few months ago, I was deep in the weeds of a home office addition project here in State College. As a Mechanical Engineer, I’m used to precision—tolerances, CAD assemblies, and clear constraints.

But then I hit Local Zoning.

I spent hours digging through messy PDFs, squinting at scanned maps, and trying to figure out if a 20-foot shed was going to trigger a legal battle with the township. The "legwork" wasn't engineering; it was data archaeology.

That frustration was the spark.

I realized that with the new "superpowers" of AI-assisted development, the barrier between a frustrated person with an idea and a functioning piece of software has evaporated. I’m enacting ideas today that would have stayed stuck in a sketchbook two years ago.

The realization is simple: With the right idea and the discipline to execute, anyone can build anything now.

The Mission of Datum Foundry

I’m not interested in chasing "the next big thing" or vague "AI disruptors."

I’m here to find actual, defined needs—the unsexy, high-friction problems in the physical world—and research them until they are solved.

Every week, I’m going to share:

• Deep Research: Moving past the surface level to the actual pain points.
• The Path Forward: The exact tech stack and logic needed to build a solution.
• The Sources: Where to get the data, how to clean it, and how to deploy it.

I’m building Datum Foundry as a laboratory for these ideas. Sometimes I'll share a full architectural teardown; other times, I’ll drop a verified "Logic Block" (like a spatial math engine) that you can plug directly into your own projects.

The shop lights are on. Let’s build something that actually works.

— Timothy Higgins

*Founder, Datum Foundry*

P.S. Curious to see what a "Logic Block" looks like? Check out the LOGICMILL terminal I’m currently building to solve that State College zoning mess: View the Zoning Engine

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