This post has been long overdue but it’s finally here; here’s a reflection on my experience attending the Open Hardware Summit this year. My first time ever and hopefully won’t be my last! I had a great time, met really cool people who make really cool things.

I was fortunate enough to attend thanks to a new friend (now mentor!) who’s also a e-textiles maker and software developer ♡. I met and was inspired by so many wonderful people and their creative innovations! I love software but I’m looking forward to exploring and getting some hands on learning with hardware ~ creating my own personal computer, designing PCBs, tinkering with e-textiles, soldering and learning so much more. So this was a great opportunity for some exposure into this wondrous world of open source technologies. Open source hardware designs and source code makes technology more accessible to the general public and easier to use for one and for all. I learned so much about what was being achieved in this community that I’m slowly making myself be apart of.

The Open Hardware Summit is organized by the Open Source Hardware Association. This is the first time since the pandemic that OHS has been able to make this event happen in person and how convenient for me that it was hosted in NYC @ NYU. Virtual is fine for those who can’t attend in person but honestly… as an introvert surprisingly, I must say you just had to kind of be there!

Presentations, demos, workshops ..

Speaker Highlights

Robotics for the Streets: Open-source robotics for academics and the community by Dr. Carlotta Berry

♡ Dr. Carlotta Berry is known as the NoireSTEMinist. She has developed a line of low-cost build-your-own robot kits to educate and diversify the fields of electrical engineering and robotics. Her “Flower-bots” come in three different varieties: Lily-bot, Daisy-bot, and Rosie-bot for different experience and/or interest levels. She offers tutorials in robotics concepts geared towards high schoolers, undergrads, and graduate students as a tool aimed to get people interested and excited about STEM! Also check out her Robot Slam Poetry series on YouTube! She’s awesome!

Making Pretty PCBs for STEAM Outreach By Ayesha Iftiqhar

♡ Ayesha Iftiqhar is an electrical engineer and skater. She designs the most beautiful PCBs with her unique process of choosing colorful solder masks, inks and custom graphics. She emphasizes on bringing equal representation of gender, age, and race amongst PCB designers making PCB design more playful but still functional. One interesting perspective she mentioned is that knowing how to design PCBs promotes self reliance, repair, and reduces E-waste. This is so important! Making PCB less intimidating and approachable for all (note to self!).

Kinetic Wearables Toolkit By Kate Hartman and Chris Luginbuhl

♡ Kate Hartman and Chris Luginbuhl are researchers at the Social Body Lab at OCADU where they explore body-centric technologies. Mounting servo motors on the body is hard so that’s why they developed the Kinetic Wearable Toolkit. A kit that consists of modular and customizable mounts for different types of actuators. Wearable electronics are becoming a more common part of everyday life and they’re definitely on a mission! They also have detailed models on their github repository. Pretty cool stuff!

Demos, show & tell!

Oh! here are some images of my experience at the Kolam Antenna Workshop!

Workshop: A collaboration between Heritage Crafts and Open Hardware by Anuradha Reddy & Christin Lundgren

Kolam is a folk heritage craft from South India for drawing beautiful geometric patterns. This session entails building Kolam antennas using copper wire through the wire-wrapping technique. We drew our kolam, wire-wrapped it, soldered, then tested! We tested our Kolam wire-wrapped antenna using Bluefruit Connect which can be used for WiFi/Bluetooth applications.

Not my best work lol but it worked and I had so much fun!

There was so many wonderful speakers, demos, workshops and I met so many cool people (I think I’ve said that 100x lol but is true)! You can check out all the talks uploaded to YouTube! Also be sure to check out OSHWA’s site and consider getting your own projects Open Source Hardware Certified. If you can attend this event next year, you will not regret it! I’m definitely hoping to attend again. ☺