Embedded - 389: Blobs Are Not Stressful

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Alpenglow’s Carrie Sundra spoke with us about frivolous circuits, solder live streaming, and yarn. Alpenglow Industries sells frivolous circuits, some pre-built (like FUnicorn) and some are buildables such as the cute but evil heart soldering kits called PS-I Hate You. Carrie’s YouTube channel is alpenglowindustries where she livecasts Wednesday afternoon Pacific Time. You can still watch the Blob Solder sesh with Debra of GeekMomProjects. Please send pictures of your blobs. One of the recent videos talked about Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators. Our favorite is Arcade. Alpenglow Yarn sells electronic-based tools for dyers and yarn creators.  On Twitter:@alpenglowind @alpenglowyarn @frivolous_circs On Instagram:@alpenglowind @alpenglowyarn Alpenglow also has a Tindie store: alpenglow/ 

Welcome to Embedded. I'm Elysia White, here with Christopher White. Our guest this week is Keri Sundra of Alpenglow Industries. Hi, Keri. Welcome back. It's been quite a while. Hello. Yeah. It's good to be back on the show. Could you tell us about yourself as if we'd never met before? Well, I am Keri Sentra of Alpenglow Industries. That's a small business that I started. And I am an engineer. I have done a lot of things throughout my life so far, I've done electronics for unmanned aircraft. I've dyed yarn. I've made yarn tools.

And yeah, now I'm making some, oh, I call them frivolous circuits and irreverent electronics. So as well as some handy tools for makers and for engineers. We want to do lightning round, which you have heard the show. So I'm just going to say, are you ready? I am ready. What is Alpenglow? The thing that not your company? What did you name your company after? I named my company after an effect of light. So it's when the light hits the mountains, either at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day, when you have those like nice long reddish tones to the light.

And something very special, especially in the Sierras, happens where you have that really white gray granite, and it just like lights up this fiery, like yellowy red and um and that's called alpenglow and so i yeah i i named i named it originally when i was dyeing yarn um because i was dying yarn with natural dyes and so it had like a tie-in there um to like this glowing natural color and then um i kept it when i when I started doing more and more electronics, I kept it because kind of I just, I want people to be inspired by electronics

and see electronics in a different light. And a lot of the things that we do are also kind of LED-based and light-based. So it just kind of, it still fit. Have you ever seen the green flash? I have not, even though I grew up in the Caribbean and apparently had ample opportunity to see the green flash. I don't know. I'm a little skeptical about whether or not it really exists, I have to say. I've seen it. It's cool. Sorry. I have pictures I've taken with a camera, too.

Well, he had to see it because I was on a mission for like a whole year. It's easier to see with a camera. Have you seen the zodiacal light? Zodiacal. No. Is that different from the northern lights? Yes. It is the dust that is in line with the disk of the solar system. And if you're in a very, very dark place, I think you can kind of see it or may require photography.

I don't remember. But it's a kind of a glow from all the dust that's in the solar system. Oh, interesting. No, I don't believe I have seen that. That's cool though. Can you see it from anywhere or do you have to be in certain geographical locations? I think you can see it from anywhere. But it has to be really, really dark. Yeah, I think it's like a,

it's a weird triangular kind of thing. Hmm, cool. Have you seen the Northern Lights or Southern? No, I have not seen the Northern or Southern Lights. We came close. There was supposed to be a little bit of activity a few years ago when I was in Shetland, and I was really hoping to see them, but sadly, they did not come out. So still have to see that one. Oh, sorry, my turn again. If you could teach a college course, what would you want to teach? I, you know, it's a toss up between something that I would probably call how to build. And we would just we would just build stuff out of electronics and out of parts and materials.

And it would be sort of more of a freshman level class just to get people familiar with the process of building things and incorporating electronics into things. It would either be that or it would be something probably called like from prototype to production. And it would go over like, okay, you have this idea. Now let's make a proof of concept. Now let's make a legit prototype that you can give to somebody else. And now let's get, you know, a few more of these made and a beta group going and all of those steps in, in iterative things that you have to do in order to actually, you know, make your idea real and able to be sold and able to leave the nest. Have you read Alan Cohen's Prototype to Product book? I have not, no.

It's really good. He was on the show recently, but not talking about that, talking about other things. It goes through a lot of what you say, but it also touches a little bit on trying to figure out what your product really is. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So if you were teaching a post-college professional development type course about embedded systems, what three topics should you definitely cover? Strange question. Very detailed question. That is a detailed question. I think I would definitely cover commenting your code for yourself and other people in the future.

That would definitely be one thing. Let's see. Another thing that I would... I don't know. I might have to think about this a little bit more. Well, maybe I'll ask you at the end again, because I really need answers for these. Okay, so let's be done with lightning round, unless you have one more you want? No, that was not very lightning either. We were all over the place. It can be like the slow roll thunder round. You were fine, but we weren't really doing it very well. Okay. So you've mentioned yarn. And when we talked to you, it seems like eons ago, you were finishing a Kickstarter about yarn winding.

Skainminder? Skainminder. People pronounce skain different ways. See, it's hard to say. Yeah. Some people say like Skeen. Some people say Skane. Some people say Skine. But I try not to be too picky about it. But I say Skane Minder. Okay. So that got kickstarted and it involved winding the yarn. Yeah, I basically made a controller for desktop winders.

Other people make the winders themselves, but none of them had any, they had very rudimentary speed control, like just, you know, triac dimmer switch based basically. And there was no way to automate them so if you were if you were constantly winding your own skeins from cones which which some dyers do uh you want all of your skeins to be the same length uh so that you know you can have consistency in your product so people know what to expect know know how many skeins they'll need in order to knit a project that kind of thing and uh there was just there automation. Like you couldn't tell the winder how many rotations you wanted to wind to and, you know, get it to stop at that. And so that is basically the device that I built. And it could be used with any tabletop winder and it's really easy to install

because I didn't want people to have to solder or strip wires or do anything like that. How was fulfilling the Kickstarter? It was good. I mean, it went off pretty much without a hitch. I was like, I had one part that was a little late coming in because it was a complete snafu with the, with the company who made it. It was the, the overlays for, for it, which are kind of integrated with the buttons. And, and yeah, the, the first, the first batch I got had the holes cut in completely the wrong spot. And, you know, it was one of those things that was like a four week, four week lead part. So they, they made them again and, you know, it was, it was totally lead part. So they made them again. And, you know, it was totally their fault.

So they made them super quick. But I was like, maybe a week late delivering with a start of the deliveries because of that. But, yeah, it went off without a hitch. I had already built 10 of them, and there were really almost no changes from the prototypes so i had a really good idea of what it was going to take to build them and uh i hired a couple people part time to help me and that was awesome so yeah the the kickstarter went great you're not going to complain about shipping because i've heard complaints about shipping. No, I mean, I priced it all out ahead of time. Like this was not my first rodeo at selling things.

And I think with a lot of people it is. And so they get surprised by things. And so I had done, you know, I did a massive spreadsheet beforehand with all of my costs, including shipping, including Kickstarter's percentage, like everything, including an estimation of the sales tax I would have to pay based upon the number of people from California that I guessed were going to buy them,

which like that was awful. I don't, I don't know if Kickstarter now charges sales tax. It would be really nice if they did. Um, but yeah, I did, did all that stuff. Don't tell Christopher that. I did look it up, i know i'm in compliance so it's fine yeah well it like if you're yeah doing really small numbers of stuff sure but like this was this was definitely well well above that yeah and then you did a second project screen twister yeah um and i, I did crowdfund that as well. But I just did it. Well, I did it mostly on my own. Well, yeah, I did it all on my own website. I did use a different payment processing service that at that time was, was set up for crowdfunding and kind of for exactly the type of thing that I wanted to do, which was crowdfund on my own website.

It was called Celery, but they're no longer in business. So that was, and that actually worked great too. It was very helpful to already have a customer base from the Skane Minder. And then the Skane Twister, it turns out, had a lot more market appeal and just a bigger market because every dyer who's dying yarn has to twist their own skeins at the end of the process. It's just something you have to do. And while, whereas not every dyer is necessarily winding their own skeins. So, yeah, it was a much bigger market and it was a much bigger

pain in the butt for people. And a literal pain point, like people were getting elbow tendonitis and all sorts of repetitive injuries from, you know, doing this twisting process on hundreds or thousands of skeins of yarn every week. What made you decide to try to not try to, to crowdfund yourself, do the whole process yourself? Um, I felt like I could handle it. Yeah. And, and I mean, you know, I'm not doing, I am not managing giant campaigns, right? Like I'm, you know, it's, it's not a cooler or whatever the latest hot Kickstarter is, right? It's not something that has super wide commercial appeal or consumer appeal. It is, you know, my tools are very specific.

You're really, they're really business to business tools. They are only useful for you if you dye yarn. They're not even useful for you if you just knit or work with yarn in any way. Um, so I knew that I wasn't going to be handling, you know, tens of thousands of people. Uh, I, I thought like, uh, you know, a couple hundred maybe. So that was, that was one thing. And, you know, just having gone through the process with Kickstarter, like myself and with Kickstarter, because my tools are so specific, Kickstarter didn't really bring any more, any more people to me, you know. So when I was doing the Skane Twister, at that point, I was just looking at it and being like, okay, well, I'm going to pay this, you know, large extra fee for, and I'm not going to really get much from it. So that's what mainly made me decide to do it myself from my own website. The payment processing was a little bit tricky because a lot of payment processors, you know, have crowdfunding, like specifically,

it's against their terms of service. And somehow, like Celery was sort of getting around that. But I'm not sure if they really were because I did get called by PayPal after a few months, like a phone call, like, hey, how's it going? So what are you doing here? And like, when are you going to deliver? And that was kind of weird to me because I was like, well, I'm using you as a payment processor through celery. And I assumed that you guys had something figured out that like, that this was okay. But it, I mean, it turned out that it was fine. Because basically I had, I had made, again, I had made, you know, like 20 beta units for the skein twister. And my lead time was only about three months. So,

you know, that actually does fall within their terms of service and in for, you know, kind of custom orders or for ordering things that are out of stock. So do you still dye yarn yourself? I don't really. I will occasionally do it just for myself, but definitely not for sale anymore. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and it's like a completely different process and you need like kind of a different space

and it's different equipment. So it just wasn't something that I could do and also do electronics at the same time. That makes sense. But you just made tools to make it easier. I know I did. But if I want to focus on those tools and, you know, building good ones and also, you know, having good customer service and things like that, then I just can't, I can't be dying yarn at the same time. But I can build more electronics at the same time because that's, you know, it takes the same equipment, same tools, you know, same kind of skill set for people. So, yeah. You mentioned irreverent electronics and frivolous circuitry. Yes. What does that mean? I'd like to do things that are kind of funny and, you know, maybe involving swear words or

are maybe a little bit persnickety and like specifically designed to be a pain in the ass. So that's where that comes from. And I don't know if anybody else also finds them funny. I hope so. But I like making them. So yeah, I made one thing that I call the F-Unicorn. The F-Unicorn basically is the most majestic way of telling a person off that you could possibly come up with. I think, in my opinion, maybe. And it involves basically an Arduino clone, a majestic gold rearing unicorn, and, you know, F you, but completely spelled out in beautiful cursive letters in LEDs. And you do sell some of these, so other people must find them funny. Yeah, I sell a few of them. It's, it's that one in particular, it's, it's actually a large board and, um, you know, 122 LEDs are not cheap. And so, um, so unfortunately, like it's at a price point, that's a little bit above where

I wanted it to be. Um, but actually, you know, compared to other things that have that many LEDs on them and stuff like that, it's actually not that bad. Um, right now I'm selling it for $69 just because that's a funny number, but, um, but it is quite, you know, the assembly cost on that board was pretty expensive. Are you using addressed LEDs or are you doing like a Charlie Plex matrix sort of thing? Oh, neither. So I'm using just standard red 603 LEDs, just, you know, dumb red LEDs that were all, you know, placed. Well, you know, all of my boards, I pretty much do all the placement by hand, but they were, you know, hand-placed at varying angles in order to, you know, spell out F-U in script. And the way, and basically each word is individual.

So, you know, F is on its own line. U is on its own line. The exclamation point is on its own line. And then there's also like a really interesting colored like cyan LED at the tip of the horn. And that's on its own line as well. And the way that I did it was that I just, I put those three banks of LEDs basically on, each of them has their own LDO. So there's actually a switcher that makes 3.3 volts and runs the entire board. And then there's an LDO that steps down to like two and a half volts for each bank of LEDs. And then, you know, it goes through the resistor and the LED. Cause like, I think they're like 1.8 volt,

uh, VF LEDs. So I wanted to, uh, I wanted to get a little bit, you know, a little bit more of, uh, of the power kind of spread out amongst the different components there. But yeah, and I just put each, basically the line from the ATmega328P just goes to an enable line on each of those power converters. And so when you're like PWMing them and stuff like that, you're actually PWMing the enable on the power converter. And because it's, you know, an LDO, it's very, very quick to start up and shut down. And it's, you know, it's just like you're commanding all of those LEDs at once. Okay. I, for some reason, thought you could spell out other things.

But now that I look at it, yes, you can only spell that out. That's it. It's a one-trick pony. It has one purpose in life. And that's to show people how you really feel. But it also comes with the big red button kit too. Yes. So the fun thing for me is like seeing how many different ways you can actuate it, right?

And so, of course, hitting a big red button is super satisfying. And that's one of my favorite ways. I also have the Unicorn hooked up as a capacitive touch sensor, so you can touch the Unicorn and it'll go off. We've also hooked up an ultrasonic distance sensor, so we had the social distancing six-foot version of the F Unicorn. And then we've also used the AIY voice kit with the Raspberry Pi. And so you can say like, hey, Google, F you, and it'll actually light up. And that might be my favorite version because it's kind of multi-purpose all right you mentioned that it is for sale it's for sale on tindy and on your own site yeah we just got we just started listing stuff on our own website like just last week so uh so that is very very new and um and yes and

we've been selling on tindy for a while for a few years now. I like both, honestly, like I like Tindy a lot as a marketplace. You know, they charge a very reasonable fee. You know, they're always retweeting everything that their that their people sell. You know, they, they interact with you a lot on Twitter, which is really cool. And people who are going there are going there specifically to find unique, fun things. So it's a great market fit for a lot of what we do. But yeah, it's also nice, though, to have your own website. And I want to expand offerings and I want to curate cool things from other people as well. And I can't really do that. I can't really sell other people's stuff if I'm on like from the Tindy

platform. Some of your other things are learn to solder kits. Yeah. Yeah. How do you decide which ones to do for that? That's been pretty easy so far. So, so far, actually, my employee Robin has been designing them. And it's been an awesome, it's been an awesome learning experience for her because, you know, these are, these are the first circuit boards she's ever designed. So it's, it's really nice when you can, you know, when you can enable somebody like that and have it be both a teaching and a skill building thing, as well as then something that, you know, we can sell in the store that is really nice for beginners. Because frankly, like I am, I might not be as good about designing things for beginners, right? Because it's been so long since, since that, that realm for me, I tend to more easily design things that are like

kind of intermediate level. And you've mentioned employees. Are you, is this your full-time job? Yes, it is my full-time job. Um, I'm still doing like, I, I'm still doing like a tiny, tiny bit of consulting work, just really like follow on stuff from previous clients. But skein twisters are about half of what we do. Skein twisters, a little bit of skein minders. And then the other half is where, you know, we're working on building up all of the fun kind of maker electronics, things that are a little bit more educational in nature and creative in nature. How do you decide what sort of frivolous circuitry you want to build for yourselves versus what you want to sell to other people?

Is sales always in your mind or do you sometimes say, I just want this for me? No, it's, it's a little bit of both. I mean, we, we kind of have things divided up into products and projects. So products are things that we're selling. Projects are things that we're just doing for ourselves, but like, we're still talking about them and we're still tweeting about them and we'll still like try to document them and things like that so that other people if they're interested can reproduce them um it's like deciding like what what to do it's uh you know a bit of a lot of things like you know it's yes a bit of a lot of things, like, you know, it's, yes, a bit of planning and things that speak to us from a either utility perspective or, you know, just a fun perspective. And then sometimes, you know, sometimes there will be something that will, there will be like some small little problem or little thing that we'll encounter while we're doing something else and it's like oh you know what would be really useful is would be to have

this thing why don't we just quick make that and you know there now now we have it yay that was and like that was kind of how the switch trick um came about which is a breadboard power a breadboard power supply that's um a switching, switching module that has a bunch of different like jumper selectable outputs. That was like, we, I needed to, I needed to breadboard up that chip. And I was like, well, I could just make like a quick dev board, or I could put a little bit more time into it and make it into something useful that other people could also, you know, find useful. And that would plug straight into a breadboard and all that kind of stuff. So there's a bit of that. And then sometimes it's a little bit of,

you know, a holiday kind of thing, like, and holiday stuff and inspiration. So like I made this surface mount soldering kit called PSI Hate You, and it was in a heart shape. That's the one I'm looking at. It's red. It's in a heart shape. It's adorable. It says, you're number one, and then it has little arrows on it. It's very cute. But there's a problem with it. There is. There are a few problems with it. It basically doesn't have any components at any normal angles, and all the traces are routed in a really kind of haphazard way. So if you're really OCD and you want your board layouts to be perfect and neat, it is exactly the perfect thing that you need to have in your life.

To be fair, things are neat. They just aren't straight. They're just not straight. No, there's not a straight line. There are traces that make acute angles, you know? I do appreciate for the pads for the battery or even at an angle. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Unnecessarily. pads for the battery or even at an angle thank you thank you yes unnecessarily unnecessarily yeah there's one led that's like in the opposite direction from the other three that's a great idea i really wanted to use anode marked leds for that and that was my original plan um to be really really a pain in the ass about it. But unfortunately, there weren't, I needed a high, I needed a high efficiency, like high brightness,

low current LED, because I didn't know ahead of time that 555 timers have drastically different output current specs at three volts than they do at five volts. And so I had done a whole bunch of testing at five volts and was thinking, okay, well, you know, no problem. These ones operate down to three volts, no big deal. But it's not until you get into the weeds of all the graphs in the 555 timer data sheet that you realize that the output current capacity is tiny. I don't know, it might even be a tenth to a hundredth of what it is at five volts. So yeah, when I got the first boards, I was like, these LEDs are awfully dim. So yeah, I had to, had to quick, quick switch to some higher brightness ones and that, that was fine. But yeah, always learning,

always something, always something that's, you know, that you, that is unexpected. Do you have anything in mind that you're going to go forward with? I mean, I would have like a dozen ideas and then I would, you are so many that I want to do. Like, I really want to do a feminist meeting button series. So again, on the big red button kind of theme. But I want a set of like four. And you would hit one and it would say, interrupting. And you would like hit another one and it would say, didn't I just say that? And like things like that but i think that one would actually be like uh one would actually be a like a positive reinforcement one it would be like thanks for backing me up

but that could be sarcastic too no i don't just say here have a cookie i think if it just rotates through randomly it it's got to be right 99% of the time anyway. Yeah, but I'm not sure if that one's going to be a project or a product. We'll see. I can think of so many things. You know I wrote that code, right? Whenever somebody explains it to me. Yeah.

Yeah. And you've been doing this podcast, but on YouTube, but live? Livestream. Livestream. Yeah. That's like Twitch, but on YouTube? Kind of, I guess. You have to put these things in where they fit. There was live things before Twitch, right?

There were, yes. No. Yes. There were. But were there on YouTube? I think so, yeah. So you're going to tell me it's like live TV, but on YouTube. Yeah, basically. I'm just saying, I'm not going to allow Twitch to replace live as an adjective. It's like TikTok, but live?

All right. Yes, exactly. Okay, you've been doing live streams from YouTube, which, I mean, live stuff scares me because I say such stupid stuff and occasionally Chris will agree to cut it. Oh, this is live. You knew that, right? Sure, it's live. No, it's not. That's actually, it's one of the reasons I'm doing it. Oh, this is live. You knew that, right? Sure, it's live. No, it's not. That's actually, it's one of the reasons I'm doing it. Why? Because it's like, it's scary.

Okay. I wanted to do it for a few reasons. You know, one is just representation. Um, you know, one of the things that, one of the reasons that I want to, you know, go through the craziness of an uncertainty of having my own company is, um, I, I have, I have yet to work in a company that has like a good culture, especially regarding women and people who are underrepresented, you know, and, and I, you know, I got to the point where I'm just kind of like, screw it. I would rather build my own and, you know, and work for myself and, and build a place

that build the place and the culture that I always wanted to work at. And, you know, there are only two of us right now. So we're, we're, we're very, very small, just beginning. But, but part of what you can do is you can just, you know, I figured, well, I can just be myself and I can, you know, do my thing on the internet and, you know, be out there soldering, making my stupid comments, whatever, putting together projects, learning new things, and like featuring other people who are, you know, who are different, who are out there doing things, the more likely it is that somebody else will see that and that something about it will resonate with them. And, you know, I'm just trying to make things a little less of a dude fest. Do you read the comments on Slaughter Sesh? I don't, you know, honestly, it's not super well viewed at this point, so I don't get a ton of comments. But I do, I mean, I do read the comments, absolutely, and I will moderate the crap out of them. And, you know, yeah, if somebody isn't being very nice, I haven't really had to deal with that yet.

But, you know, we'll see what happens when the time comes. I'll either clap back or delete. That's always the scary thing about living your life more online. It's great to represent, but it's hard to not be scared. Yeah. You know, I'm a little less scared about that. Just, I don't know. I guess I'm more scared of unknowns and I know that that's out there. So therefore I'm just like, yeah, yeah, I'll have to deal with it at some point in time, whatever. But no, I like the thing that's, that's scariest to me about going live and stuff is just I've never been that comfortable in front

of a camera. And I've never really enjoyed seeing pictures of myself and stuff like that. And so it's the actual like physical part of being seen that is actually the scariest, as well as just, you know, being afraid of like saying something stupid or sounding dumb. And I've definitely like made mistakes and said things backwards and things like that. But I don't know. I just, I just kind of am like whatever about it because I am human. I'm not perfect. You know, just because I make a mistake doesn't mean, you know, that I'm bad or am, you know, not good at what I do. Right. Everybody makes mistakes, especially in front of cameras. It's good to have that and to be practicing it. I recently, like right before we started recording, got back a video interview I did. And I watched all of three seconds of it before I was like, why didn't somebody tell me to put on ChapStick?

I mean, seriously. And then I couldn't watch anymore because I was just like, I wouldn't have been able to podcast, but I have that to look forward to. Yeah. And that's another thing too, is that I'm not anti-chapstick, not at all. Chapstick is very useful and good, but I am a bit anti-makeup. I just don't enjoy wearing it. I don't enjoy wearing it. I don't enjoy the time it takes to put it on. I don't enjoy the money it takes to, you know, buy it. And so, you know, I know being in my mid-40s, right? I am, like, not a spring chicken. And, but I also feel like that is also kind of part of representation. You know, I want to see more normal people on YouTube and doing their thing. And, you know, it's also a thing about, like, the just big differences between expectations between genders, right?

Like, men are viewed and never expected to, like, look nice all the time on camera. And yet women are. So, you know, a bit of it is also me giving the middle finger to that expectation. How do you choose what you're going to talk about um well it started off it originally started off with me having way too many solder kits and never like making the time to put them together so i just started with what i had on the shelf at first and um and now it's like morphed a little bit and you know there are definitely some people who i've gotten to know through like meetups and twitter and stuff like that that are doing really

cool things that you know i want to showcase and feature and have them talk about making because i always think it's a it's really interesting to talk to the person that made something about you know their design decisions and why they made it and things like that. Um, so that's really fun. And, uh, part of it is also like, I, I want there to be some sewing and like knitting and sort of, sort of soft skills in there. Um, like circuits for people who, uh, who don't necessarily know how solder. Um, and, uh, yeah. And also, um, sometimes it's just stuff that like is interesting to me that I want to learn about too. Oh, and then some of it is, uh, is, is uh like behind the scenes designing like what designing products so i've just yeah we just did a whole series about the um the i'm gonna mess this up rpg rgb board

okay i kind of want to know what that is but i I have more questions, so I may come back to that or I may not. But you did one about pocket operators recently, which are these little synths slash video games. Do I get to pick one up and play with it, and then it will be really annoying to people as they listen? Yeah, well, I think the batteries may be dead on most one or two of them. I was so excited to see that. And then he didn't work there. I want somebody who works there to come talk to us. And I was like, oh, I can ask Carrie to introduce me and then I can, but it was not. That one was me and David, and he was basically kind of giving me the overview of them and how they work and stuff like that. anybody from teenage engineering or if anybody out there is listening, I would like to talk about those. If only, because I don't quite understand how to make them work the way I want, unless I'm playing a game. Well, I mean, that's part of the fun, but they are documented. You can read the

documentation. You never told me there was documentation. There's some documentation. I too, I understand this feeling because that's where I was too. And that's why, that's kind of why I wanted to do that and why I wanted to have somebody on who had more experience with them and could explain it to me, like, and could get, could explain to me like basically what the different buttons did and how, how to use it. because like there's there's instructions on like oh you change chord like this but there's not um there's not sort of like a basic overview and a how to on like how to make this tune your own um and and that's what um yeah that's what david was really great at because he was like okay so this is how change chord, but now do this and change the chord like once with every loop through.

And then you'll like get this like cool song out of it that, you know, sounds more like a, I don't know, like a loop a DJ would play, right? You're not just supposed to push buttons randomly? Well, you can, that's fine too. I know, I know. I tried that and I was never satisfied with the results. right you're not just push buttons randomly well you can that's fine too i know i know i tried that and i was never satisfied with the results part of the problem i have with them is they're all they all have a very similar interface in some ways but they're all different enough that they don't like each of them makes different sounds and has different applications for what kinds of sounds some of the drum machines and some are melody things and some are bass things. And a lot of them have the same kind of recording thing for making your patterns and whatnot. But then the buttons that deal with notes and stuff are all different and do different things. So it's very confusing to try to carry over how you use one to another one i found but yeah i feel like um i feel like kind of getting

used getting really familiar with one and then going to another one is is a better way because yeah i know i i kind of immediately got like three of them and and i tried going back and forth and i was just like i was just very very. But I'll say the arcade is a really good one because, you know, not necessarily, you're not necessarily going to make anything melodic out of it. Right. But that's not really the point of pocket operators anyway, I don't think. But what's good about it is that it has a little bit of everything. So it's not like just a percussion or just like a beat synth. It has a little bit of everything. So it's not like just a percussion or just like a beat synth. It has a little bit of all of those. So I feel like it is a good,

a good like round single one to have. Plus, I mean, 8-bit arcade noises. Who doesn't love those? And it's kind of like my Bandimals app that no matter what you do do it doesn't sound that bad yeah yeah you have arcade yes oh i turn this one on oh it's arcade hey it's too quiet i think i heard some pew pews exactly um okay. Okay, you mentioned the fabric, the conductive, the threads, and we talked about yarn earlier. Yes.

Is there conductive yarn, and what do you use it for? So there's definitely conductive thread. And I mean, you know, when does yarn become thread? When does thread become yarn? The answer will vary depending upon who you ask. Deep philosophical questions. Right? I would say that thread is a type of yarn, right?

So in that respect, yes, there's plenty of conductive yarn. But if you're thinking about something that's like thicker that is made for knitting, I mean, people do knit with thread that happens to be conductive and they'll carry it along with a bigger yarn. And there are a lot of patterns with like steel yarn, like steel spun yarn um metallic yarns and things like that um so so that does exist but um i'm not aware at least of anybody in the knitting community who is really like adding leds to scarves and shawls and things like that. And I think one of the big reasons is because it's actually quite an interesting and difficult little problem. A lot of what I see with LEDs and conductive thread are things like embroidery and cross stitch and things that lay flat and are rigid. And even, I mean, even, you know, cosplay stuff tends to be, you know cosplay stuff tends to be you know it tends to be like

sewn along the seams it's not uh it's not flopping all over itself right when you think about having a knit scarf and it having and it being all bunched around your neck and then you think about trying to do something with conductive thread with it um the problem is that the thread isn't insulated so you know you would just if you were trying to like run power and ground throughout your whole thing you'd just be shorting your leds out all the time and so you know half of them may not work or whatever um and so like then it's like okay well so how do you make something that's insulated but that also doesn't add a huge amount of stiffness to your scarf because you still want it to be like nice and drapey and flowy um and even if you're

like well okay i could use some really teeny tiny like 42 gauge enamel wire for this then you're like okay well like yeah sure i could do that in a project because I know how to work with enamel wire. I have a soldering iron to strip the enamel wire, right? I can solder it to LEDs in the chain. But if you're thinking about like, well, I want to encourage knitters who don't necessarily have soldering skills or like previous electronics experience, I want to encourage like your average knitter to play with LEDs. It just becomes more difficult because then you're like, okay, you're, you know, there's no, there's not a really good way of handling that particular type of wire without specific tools like that. So I

think it's a really interesting problem. And yeah, if anybody knows of some super duper small, flexible, insulated wire. Like I'm all ears because it would definitely be interesting. You said about encouraging people to put together circuits without the barrier of soldering. Yeah. I know about Chibitronics

and the sticker-based circuits. And I know the theory of conductive thread, but I've never used it for anything. I mean, I think if I was going to use it, it would be sewing on my sleeve to do something. You know, if I touch a spot, then something lights up. Yeah. Yep. And there's a lot of stuff out there for that right now. If I touch a spot, then something lights up. Yeah. Yep. And there's a lot of stuff out there for that right now.

I mean, cosplayers are doing amazing sewable circuits and making pockets that are switches, zippers that are switches, stuff like that. That's really really really cool um i actually don't have a big background in in sewing in um well i mean i i do like a tiny bit of hand stitching but um but i i'm not a big sewer in terms of like sewing machines and making your own clothes and things like that so um so that stuff is a little bit of a learning curve for me, just in the sewing aspect of it. I don't know how to knit. I used to be able to sew with a sewing machine, but that was long ago. It's just like riding a bike, they tell me.

Yeah. Let's see how well I do if I ever get the right sewing machine. Do you, have you thought about adding that to some of your frivolous circuits? Yeah, I definitely have. I would like to do a little bit more than that. Uh, we're actually doing, um, so Deborah Ansel and I are doing a live stream. The next, next Wednesday's live stream is going to be about making your own blobs and, um, where you basically either bend or hand knit while finger knit,

um, uh, addressable led wire into a shape. So, yeah, it's super, it's like, it's, it's kind of like hilarious, fun, ridiculous, and very satisfying and doesn't take all that long. So yeah, super, super fun. But, you know, you can just get these addressable LED strands off of Amazon for like, you know, nine to 15 bucks, depending upon how long they are. They have a USB connector with a microcontroller in it and a button on it that cycle through a whole bunch of different built-in

patterns. And so really all you have to do is like make a super cool shape out of this strand and you can totally do that without you know any soldering uh or you don't even have to have knitting experience because deborah's method she does this like cool like swirl and zip tie kind of um pattern um i i knit because that made sense to me right being a knitter um like, oh, I could totally knit a tube out of this. And yeah, and you don't even have to, you know, have any programming experience or anything because there are all of these built-in patterns. These are the fairy light size.

These are small. Yeah, they're kind of fairy light size. They're a little bit bigger because they are like the addressable LEDs and they have like a big blob of epoxy over each one. And there's usually like a strand of three wires basically going, you know, between each LED. So it's like it's a little bit more substantial than fairy lights. But yeah, very, very similar. Do you remember when those lights

were like 200 dollars i do and we're as big or bigger than the kind of big christmas lights i remember when leds were only red so yeah you know yeah it's not really impressive when you say do you remember when addressable leds were. I just had so many projects I wanted to do with the dressable LEDs. And now that they're here, it's like, yeah, I don't really have time. You're ahead of your time. I could just buy that. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Okay, so finger knitting? That's not a thing. That's not a thing. Totally a thing. It's totally a thing. And it's funny because I haven't really been interested at all in finger knitting. Basically because, you know, it's great for kids. It's great if you're just starting out and stuff like that.

But, like, it makes big, chunky garments, right, which are not the to knit with LEDs, it turns out it's just like, it's just really easy to use your fingers and to make loops and to push them through other loops. And that way you can also, you know, you can bend the wire exactly the way that you want to so the LED is nice and centered in the middle. I haven't actually tried to knit it with needles. And I do have some like, you know, big giant plastic ones that would probably work, but it would also twist the wire a lot. And I think it wouldn't actually help. I think it would actually make it a little bit harder. And this show that's coming out before this one does, the goal is to make a blob, which I think is a very nice low bar that maybe I could do.

Well, did you look at them? Because they're not just blobs. No, they're super cute. They're really well-structured for blobs. But you know what? Your blob can be whatever you want your blob to be. Blobs are not stressful. Blobs are willing to be whatever shape you feel like making in the moment. Yeah. Okay. Well, Build a Blob was October 13th at 5 p.m., but you can still watch the video, even though that's in the future now, but in the past for anybody listening to this.

Okay. Time is hard. Never work on time. And you're doing that with Debra, who is also known as Geek Mom Projects. Yes, yes. She's going to be on the show in a little while. I didn't realize you knew each other. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Yeah, like I've met Debra via meetups and Twitter like in the past year. And I was down in LA about a month ago now. And that's where she lives in the LA environs. And so, yeah, so I actually got to meet up with her in person. And that's when I saw the amazing blob that she had just like sitting on her desk. And I was like, what? That thing is so cool.

And she's like, want to make one? And I was like, yeah. And so, yeah. So that's how blob madness kind of ensued. The extra large googly eyes are just the best part. Yeah, you got to have the big googly eyes. I tried. I only had small googly eyes when I got home and they just didn't look right on the blob. You really have to have the big ones. What should I ask Debra when she's on the show? Oh my gosh. Everything.

You know, she comes up with like such creative and interesting things, both like wearables and, you know, just like the blob. You know, I would never have thought about just making a blob out of those lights and making like this sort of like cool little pet. I would just, I would love to like, I would love to know how she comes up with her ideas. Like, what does that crazy thought process look like? It's funny when I invited her, one of the things she said was she's not classically trained in electrical. And you are. And so it's pretty funny to have you be together and be able to do both. I like the collaboration.

I'm looking forward to more collaboration. Absolutely, absolutely. But she is a programmer, those two. So like, you know, I don't know when, I feel like programming and electronics are very there's a lot of crossover there especially in my job right reminds me getting back to if you were teaching a course about embedded systems which three topics should you definitely cover okay i have better answers now I would still go with the commenting. I would absolutely cover ESD protection. And I think I would cover testing and troubleshooting. I think that those are probably some of the most important things that will prevent you from having problems in the long run.

You should probably show how to use a logic analyzer. Oh, no, I didn't do that. And I'm doing testing pretty well, but there's a point where I just, like, lick my hands and then run them over the boards. Seems like it would hurt on a lot of boards. Well, no, I mean, actually, I just flipped chips out of their boards and I wasn't planning on making it super ESD.

You know how I feel about ESD. It's fake. Oh, it's fake until it's not. It's never a problem until it is. And then when it is, it's a freaking beast of a problem. But chips have gotten so much better about that. I think it's all a scam for big wristband.

Yes and yeah. Yes and no. I'm kidding. Totally kidding. No, no. I was talking about chips getting better about that because it is a bigger deal in lower voltage systems. They tend to be more susceptible to it. And there aren't as many good protections for low voltage components as there are for higher voltage. It's hard to get. There aren't many TVS diodes that are made for three-volt systems.

Cool. So not as many as are made for five volts at least i i think it actually does have to do with like the physics of it which i don't know because it's been a long ass time since college well it's better to go ahead and lick your hand and then touch the board than to like rub your hands together and then or feet. Yeah, no, I have ESD protection. No, it's the balloon. You're supposed to rub a balloon on a cat and then rub that on your board. Not the cat, the balloon. It's true because the cat can cause other damage.

Yeah, it can scratch your silkscreen and your solder mask. Well, Carrie, I know that this hasn't been quite long enough, but I want to catch up with just you and not all these other people. Heck yeah. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to leave us with? I guess my final thoughts are, and this is kind of, you know, I just, there have been so many people lately, so many stories about women being in these jobs that way. There are a lot of other cool people out there. And yeah, you know, sometimes taking a break from electronics is really good. I mean, you know, I dyed yarn for a few years. And then finally, I was like, okay, you know what? I do actually miss it and I want to get back into it.

And I was sort of ready to do that more on my own terms. So, yeah. Well, I'm glad you came back, although it's been a while that you've been back, so I don't feel like welcome back is the right term. Yeah, yeah. Maybe, like, congratulations for still being back. I don't know. There's some of that.

I mean, it's sometimes hard to just stay. The grass is always greener on the other side of the mountain. That's because the mountains in the Alpenglow I was trying to,

it was a callback. Gotcha. Although if I have to explain it, it's a bad one, so I'm getting that. Our guest has been Carrie Sundra, founder of Alpenglow Industries.

Thanks, Keri. Thank you so much. It's been super fun. Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. And thank you for listening. You can always contact us at show at embedded.fm or hit the contact link on embedded.fm. And now a quote to leave you with from Elizabeth Barrett. Alpen glow. Even the rainbow never dreamed of this. The touch of last light on snowy shoulders.

The kiss of dawn on crystal lips. A rush of rarest red welling up to fill the mighty sky with splendor.