406: R2D2 Is a Trash Can

Jorvon Moss (Odd Jayy) joined us to talk about making robots, steampunk aesthetics, uploading consciousness to AIs, and the importance of drawing.

You can find Jay on Twitter (@Odd_Jayy) and Instagram (@odd_jayy). He’s been moving his Hackster projects over to Digikey’s Maker.io space: www.digikey.com/en/maker. Jay’s projects are collected here.

Elecia brought up the science fiction book Machinehood by S. B. Divya. Jay returned with Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries.  

Jay mentioned Mycroft.ai, open source voice assistant. Jay was interviewed by Make Magazine (article). He was on the cover of the magazine; the YouTube video where he was informed was heartwarming.

Transcript

382: Playing In the Desert

Leah Buechley (@leahbuechley) spoke with us about the intersection of computer science and art. She is an associate professor in the computer science department of the University of New Mexico where she directs the Hand and Machine research group.

Her website is leahbuechley.com, her research group website is handandmachine.cs.unm.edu.

She wrote the book Textile Messages: Dispatches From the World of E-Textiles and Education and developed the LilyPad Arduino for wearable electronics.

We talked about Chibitronics, paper circuits, developed by Jie Qi  (who was on Embedded 277: The Sport of Kings talking about patents as well as Chibitronics)

We talked about Nettrice Gaskins’ Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation: Culturally Relevant Making Inside and Outside of the Classroom

An example of a tiny stepper motor on eBay

Introduction to VQGAN + CLIP to generate art

380: Trending Toward Telepathy

Adelle Lin (@Adellelin) spoke with us about wearables, art, playfulness, and getting together in virtual reality. Adelle’s website is touchtech.io.

For some VR get togethers, Adelle recommends AltSpace (altvr.com) and Mozilla Hubs (hubs.mozilla.com). Some other remote get togethers:

We mentioned the Nautilus jigsaw puzzle from Nervous Systems but actually have the smaller Ammonite one.

168: Put Your Gear on the Ping Pong Table

Briana Morey from MC10 (@mc10inc) spoke with us about stretchable electronics, Tesla coils and lasers. She works at MC10, creators of the L'Oreal My UV Patch as well as the BioStampRC. 

MC10 is hiring! They are in Lexington, MA, US. The embedded software position is filled already but the EE position is still open.

Briana mentioned an excellent science fiction book she'd read recently: Too Like Lightning by Ada Palmer.