DZ60

For my foray into the rabbit hole of mechanical keyboards, I wanted to strike a balance between price, functionality and extensibility. This specific PCB lived on in 5 of my other builds, so I'd say it was a pretty good choice for a first build.
I hadn't touched a soldering iron since 2016, so things were a little sloppy at first.

It also gave me my first taste of QMK and keyboard programming, where I spent a few too many hours coding a responsive lighting mode. (Only to keep it disabled most of the time)

I powered through college application season with this board, and like most people new to the hobby I assumed I'd be done after one board. Since you're reading this right now in it's own dedicated section of my website, I'm sure you can guess how well that ended.