A Minneapolis stationery shop sold a 10×10 grid notepad that sparked a DIY experiment in hand‑drawn QR codes. Writer Seth Mlarson aimed to fit a version 1 QR code—21 × 21 modules—onto the paper, which normally stores up to 17 bytes. By trimming the URL to “sethmlarson.dev” and exploiting the alphanumeric character set, he managed to encode a functional code and proved readable with a smartphone scanner today.

Generating the pattern relied on the Python qrcode package with the –n flag to suppress newlines. Echoing the uppercase URL into the tool produced the corner position markers, then manual drawing added timing lines and data modules. Even a small mistake in the matrix didn’t break scanning because the code used the lowest error‑correction level.

Scanning proved finicky; the paper curled, requiring the sheet to be held flat or hung from a monitor for a reliable read. Once positioned, even distant scans succeeded, demonstrating that low‑resolution, hand‑crafted codes can still serve as functional links. The exercise showcases how basic command‑line tools and a bit of geometry let developers prototype visual data encodings without specialized software.