INTRODUCTION // Canada

Spencer Brake_

Builder of practical apps for real, often overlooked places.

SYSTEMS BUILDER / PRODUCT ARCHITECT
PRESIDIA CORP // THE PROBLEM-SOLVING CORPORATION

I’m Spencer. I work in retail management in Canada’s remote North, engineer sound, and prospect for minerals. I build software around the practical problems that catch my attention—through Presidia Corp, the problem-solving corporation.

[ scroll down to explore the work ↓ ]

> LIVE SYSTEMS (2)

PROJECT 01 / 2026

Chewdash Taxi

Live

Local rides, food pickup & snack delivery

Chewdash serves Kuujjuarapik with taxi rides, food pickup from local spots, and snack delivery. The challenge was fitting those services into the local taxi workflow while making booking simple enough for a teenager or an elder to use without instruction.

THE APPROACH

I focused on the steps between choosing a service and requesting it. Satellite internet and an existing Square terminal already cover connectivity and card payments, so the design work centers on understandable booking and dispatch across rides and deliveries.

Vite / Supabase / PWA

[ visit site ↗ ]

PROJECT 02 / 2026

Ponte

Live

Live-translation video calls

Ponte grew out of a straightforward need: helping people maintain a close connection across distance when they speak different languages. A conversation should have room for spontaneity, even when the words do not come easily. The video-call app is live and used daily.

THE APPROACH

Translated captions appear during the call, keeping translation alongside the person speaking. The interface supports a continuing conversation rather than making translation a separate task. A static frontend and a separate Express API provide the application’s two main pieces.

JavaScript / Express / Vercel / Railway

> IN THE LAB (5)

PROJECT 03 / 2026

KnowYourLocal

Alpha

Nationwide local-services marketplace

KnowYourLocal started with the idea of a peer-to-peer handyman marketplace. People need someone nearby they can trust with a job; local workers need a way to get discovered and find work. Payment confidence matters to both sides.

THE APPROACH

Work photos provide something concrete to judge, and availability is included in paid listings so discovery reflects who can take the job. The proposed payment flow uses Stripe Connect to hold payment until the work is done, connecting discovery, scheduling, and completion.

Next.js / Supabase / Stripe Connect / PWA

[ visit site ↗ ]

PROJECT 04 / 2026

Northern Utility Dispatch

Alpha

Oil, water & sewage dispatch for the North

Oil, water, and sewage services involve three people with different questions: a resident wants to know where a request stands, a dispatcher needs to assign the work, and a driver needs usable delivery details. This project brings those needs together for northern Quebec and Nunavut.

THE APPROACH

The workflow follows a request from resident to dispatcher to driver, with status and assignments carried through the handoff. Civic-number addresses shape the delivery information. The alpha demonstrates how the same job can be represented clearly for each role.

Supabase / PWA

[ visit site ↗ ]

PROJECT 05 / 2026

Q

In progress

Geo-fenced queueing for nightlife

Q began with a familiar frustration: standing outside a bar or club for thirty minutes in rain or snow. I wanted to improve the experience equally for the person waiting and the staff admitting them, with less outdoor waiting and faster entry.

THE APPROACH

The system under development uses geolocation and geo-fencing to manage a virtual queue. That separates holding a place from physically standing at the door. Live occupancy information supports the venue’s side of admission, while guests can wait somewhere more comfortable.

Geo-fencing / Mobile

PROJECT 06 / 2026

eProspector

Alpha

Discover and track mineral deposits

As a certified minerals prospector, I wanted a useful place for anyone interested in prospecting to record and share discoveries. A find might be something to discuss with a team or something worth showing publicly; the person recording it should have that choice.

THE APPROACH

The workflow starts with a location pin, then adds a claim check and photographs. Sharing is part of recording the find: send it to a team or make it public. The map gives the observation geographic context, while the photos preserve what was actually found.

Next.js / React / Leaflet / Supabase

PROJECT 07 / 2026

COMMAND NODE

In progress

Real-time global warfare, Cold War console

COMMAND NODE brings together my interest in strategy games, Cold War interfaces, and the challenge of a world that keeps changing. I want the player to feel immediate pressure from a live front while still thinking about a longer campaign.

THE APPROACH

The game is being built around real-time fronts and persistent world state, so decisions sit within an ongoing conflict. The command-console interface gives those systems a coherent atmosphere. The intended experience combines reacting, planning, and anticipating what happens while the player is away.

JavaScript / Web

> ARCHIVE (3)

PROJECT 08 / 2026

SpennyBurger

Archived

Smash-burger pickup & payment portal

When I was cooking burgers in the North, I did not have a local phone number. I had Facebook, but I could not keep answering order messages while making the burgers myself. SpennyBurger grew out of that immediate conflict between taking orders and fulfilling them.

THE APPROACH

Customers place an order and pay through the portal without waiting for me to reply. A kitchen view lets me handle the order during service, then trigger a pickup text when it is ready. Each step removes a message I would otherwise have to stop cooking to answer.

Node.js / Stripe / Web

PROJECT 09 / 2026

Invstar

Archived

Stock tracking & reorder planning for the North

I built Invstar for my own work as a department manager in northern Canada. I was tracking inventory with paper and memory, with stock scattered between a warehouse, sea cans, freezers, coolers, dry storage, and backrooms. Difficult logistics made mistakes expensive: ordering too much tied up stock and space; ordering too late meant running out before replenishment arrived.

THE APPROACH

Recording usage had to take less effort than remembering it. A single tap deducts a bag or unit from the running count. The system accounts for how much each unit holds, where it is stored, daily consumption, and supplier lead time to recommend when to reorder and how much. The count becomes an ordering decision.

Web

PROJECT 10 / 2026

MetalPRO Terminal

Archived

Bloomberg-style metals & minerals terminal

I built MetalPRO for my dad and me. We wanted to follow commodity prices, explore interesting metals and mining companies, and inform our investment research. Our interests stretch from precious metals to energy, rare earths, and strategic minerals.

THE APPROACH

The terminal groups those markets into keyboard-driven views. Live prices show current conditions, candlestick charts expose price history, and futures curves offer another view of the market. Bringing these perspectives into one console supports moving between a broad scan and a closer look.

Vanilla JS / HTML/CSS / Netlify Functions / Yahoo Finance

> ABOUT THE BUILDER

I build systems around the work people actually do: ordering stock, dispatching a delivery, booking a ride, or recording a discovery. My work as a department manager in Canada’s remote North shapes that perspective. I care about the small actions that make a system usable, and the information that makes a decision easier. I am also a sound engineer and a certified minerals prospector; outside software, I enjoy panning for gold and looking at rocks. Presidia Corp is my company—the problem-solving corporation.

Have a system worth building?

contact@spencerbrake.dev

Available for interesting problems, unusual contexts, and products that have to work outside the happy path.