Ted Thoughts

Hey there! I'm super excited to share one of my recent side projects: TT4D, short for Toto & 4D. It’s a fullstack web application that lets you:

View historical Toto and 4D results
Analyze trends
Generate your own lucky numbers

This one’s especially close to home — Toto and 4D are a true Singaporean favourite. If you've ever waited for the 6:30pm draw results to drop or picked numbers based on car plates and birthdays, you’ll know what I mean. 😉

For now, the app focuses on Toto first — I wanted to build a solid proof of concept before expanding into 4D. Don’t worry, 4D support is coming soon. 🚧

👉 Live here: tt4d.vercel.app
👨‍💻 Source code: Backend | Frontend

🧪 Why TT4D?

This is a proof of concept to explore how well this idea resonates with others. I wanted to see if combining historical lottery data with a slick, responsive UI could be both useful and fun. This project is part experiment, part playground — and 100% a learning opportunity.

And just to be clear — I’m not a gambling addict 😅
This is purely for fun and personal development. I love building things that make data accessible, fast, and maybe even a bit playful.

🛠️ The Tech Stack

This was a fullstack build, powered by:

Python + FastAPI for the backend
PostgreSQL for storing 50+ years of draw results
Docker + Fly.io for deployment
Next.js 15 for the frontend, statically rendered for max speed
TailwindCSS + shadcn/ui for clean, modern styling
BS4 (BeautifulSoup4) for scraping historical data

🧩 Challenges & Highlights

🕵️‍♂️ Dealing with Messy Historical Data

Everything started with the data. I scraped thousands of results, and here’s the kicker — over the years, the format kept changing. Some results had missing sections, and I had to write custom logic to make sure everything got parsed correctly and stored cleanly.

⚙️ Deploying Multiple Services

One of the most frustrating — but also super rewarding — parts of this project was figuring out how to deploy multiple services smoothly. I had to coordinate:

The frontend (Next.js on Vercel)
The backend API (FastAPI on Fly.io)
The PostgreSQL database
A scheduled Python job that scrapes and updates results twice a week

Each service needed its own setup, networking, and environment configuration — and of course, things broke in weird ways until they didn’t. 😅 But seeing everything sync up and run reliably in production? Chef’s kiss. 👨‍🍳

⚡ Making Data Feel Instant

Once the backend was ready, I used Next.js 15 with static rendering to make the experience feel buttery smooth. The app supports instant search, pagination, and optimized fetching, so you can sift through decades of data without lag.

Yes, that's over 50 years of draw results served instantly. This is honestly the part I’m most proud of. 🥹

🔮 A Little Fun with RNG

I added a random number generator for fun — just in case you're feeling lucky. 😏
If you actually strike Toto using it, do come back and say hi. (Or buy me kopi? 👀)

🚀 What’s Next?

This is just the start. Some features I’d love to experiment with:

✨ Deeper statistical analysis (like hot/cold numbers and frequency trends)
📊 Cleaner, more visual data presentation
🎰 A smarter, more robust number generator
🧠 Maybe even a quirky twist with blockchain or NFTs just for fun?

Also on the roadmap: 4D integration — stay tuned for that!

🔗 Links

Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think! Whether you’re into data, clean UIs, or just like a good side project story — I hope TT4D gave you a spark of inspiration.

— Ted