All posts by Alex Bate

Meet Laura Kampf: Wood and metalworker

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/meet-laura-kampf-wood-and-metalworker/

Laura Kampf, the Köln-based wood and metalworker with a mild tiny house and Leatherman obsession sat down (virtually) with Alex Bate to talk about prison tattoo machines, avoiding your nightmares, and why aggressive hip-hop and horror movies inspire her weekly project builds.

Smudo the workshop dog was also there, which seems to be becoming a recurring and pleasant feature of HackSpace magazine interviews.

laura kampf
In five years, Laura has uploaded over 200 videos to YouTube

Alex: Your videos feel very unique in how they’re produced. It feels as though we’re in the workshop watching you get on with your day. That you’d be doing this regardless of whether the camera was there or not.

Laura: Yeah, that’s absolutely it. I mean, I document it for YouTube because I’m aware that this is the only place for me. And the documentation, that’s the work part, like setting up the camera, thinking about the story. But the physical work of building something, that’s a form of meditation. That’s just my happy place. And I know I have to document my work because I have to do something to make a living, right? I can’t just play. So YouTube is my work. But making is just, it’s just what I do, and I feel more and more that this is the only place for me.

And this is probably how musicians feel when they are performing on stage. You know, this – being in my shop, I feel so comfortable. And I feel so good. I don’t have that anywhere else. 

Subscribe to Laura Kampf on YouTube

I remember seeing that you went to design school. Is that where your journey as a maker started or does creativity run in your family? I know your brother is creative  (instagram.com/zooburger), but what about your parents?

My brother is super-creative, but my parents, not so much. My grandfather was an engineer. So I think 
it kind of skipped a generation.

In design school, there was a project where we had to build something out of everyday objects. And it was for us, the designers, to get away from the computers and just do something with our hands. I built a tattoo machine, like a prison-style tattoo machine. And I was hooked. I remember coming home and I was so moved by the whole thing. Even though the machine looks terrible, everything fell into place. 

Because all my life, people were telling me you need to find this one thing that you’re really good at and then just keep doing that. I think it’s also a German thing, you know, like, be perfect at one thing, and then you’ll be the best in your field. And I could never focus on one thing and building this tattoo machine; there were so many different things coming together. 

I had all this interest in so many different fields and I could use them for the project – I enjoyed drawing fonts and learned how to do old-school tattoo lettering, and I could do a little bit of electronics to hook up a switch. All these things, I thought it was super-interesting. It was the first time I could just use little bits of everything I knew to make something that was really cool, and I was hooked after that.

laura kampf
Laura works mostly with wood and metal in her weekly videos

Have you tattooed yourself with the tattoo machine?

I wanted to and then, thank God, because I was really young, it’s very likely that I would have done that, a tattoo artist came by and I showed him the machine, and he was like, “Don’t do it. It’s running way too fast. You will make mincemeat out of your skin”. But I bought pigs legs and pig’s ears and tattooed them. I couldn’t eat pig for probably two years after that. It was so warm, and tattooing the piece for a couple hours, the fat was running out of it – it was disgusting.

It’s interesting that if you look at the stuff that you’re making now, the anchor point that started all of this is a prison tattoo machine.

Looking back, I remember the little things that I made; when I showed them to people, they just didn’t show the same excitement for them as I did. And it was such a disappointment until I realised that no, the stuff I was making was really bad. That’s why no one was excited, because I didn’t know what I was doing. Once I got better and better, and especially with YouTube and talking to the community – well, I’m preaching to the choir here; everyone knows making is fantastic, and we have a very focused, niche community – and they get it.

laura kampf dog
All good workshops need a dog

Do you feel like a bit of a sense of responsibility being a woman in this community, being queer in this community? Two of the things that are a minority in this field. Do you feel that affects your work at all? 

I didn’t to begin with, I have to say. In the beginning, I felt more that it wasn’t about me, it was about the things that I make, and my sexuality and my gender don’t play a role in this. I don’t think about my sexuality all day long; I don’t think about the fact I’m a girl all day long, so why would it be in my videos? But I have to say that I changed my mind about these things. Because visibility is really important.

I had this really weird experience at the 10 Maker event a few years ago. I was wearing this T-shirt I got for free on one Christopher Street Day, it says ‘Gay Okay’. I love that shirt; it’s a really nice fit. I went to get some groceries with Brett from Skull and Spade and Hassan from HABU, and there was this girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old, and she saw me wearing that shirt, hanging out with regular dudes, doing regular stuff in a regular supermarket, and her jaw dropped. We were in the countryside, you don’t see things like rainbow flags there. And I could tell she’s maybe gay too, and it was so good for her to see that. There’s nothing different about you – you can still hang out with guys, you can still,   you know, go shopping and all these things. That’s when I realised, institutions like Christopher Street Day are so important, but it’s also important to just have it integrated into regular stuff, not just special occasions. Today’s International Women’s Day? Well, we need to celebrate girls every day; every day you need to celebrate these things. 

So, I kind of made it a habit to have rainbow flags in my videos. Not every video, and never super-obvious, but in the background, when I talk to the camera sometimes. I do wear my Gay Okay shirt every once in a while. I don’t want to make it a point because people like to put you in drawers. And, once you’re the queer maker, you’re the queer maker, and that’s all people want to talk about. And I don’t want that because I still think, at the end of the day, it’s about the things I build and not about me and my sexuality and gender. But, yeah, to just sprinkle it in every once in a while, I think it’s very important.

I don’t get much negativity about this. I was surprised, pleasantly so, obviously, but yeah, a couple of days ago, I wore my Gay Okay t-shirt in my Instagram Stories, and people applauded me for it, and that’s really interesting. I would never have thought that.

laura kampf
It might not look like it now, but this will become a pub on wheels

Do you get much trolling at all? Or are you spared from it?

I think, at the beginning of my YouTube career, I was growing really fast and really, like, exponentially. And I had a couple of videos that went viral, like the beer bike, that went outside of the community. For those viral videos, you get negativity. They don’t know who you are, they don’t know the context, they don’t know what I’m doing. That’s why I hate having viral videos. It brings in the worst. I like to be in this little lake, surrounded by my followers.

A few people have said that, actually. That it’s the worst. It’s the thing everybody aims for and then, when you get there, you wish you weren’t.

Yeah, they take you out of context. Those people, they see one of my videos, they don’t know that I’m building something. And that’s another interesting thing that your community learns about you. They know I build something every week for the past six years. Every week, it can’t be the Holy Grail every freaking week. Sometimes it’s bad, but it’s stuff that I did that week – it’s documentation.

When I was a kid, I remember my mind was blown that The Simpsons had a different intro every episode. Something different happens every time. I couldn’t believe that, and how much work went into it. I think it primed me for being a weekly creator.

The tattoo machine that started it all
The tattoo machine that started it all

It’s impressive. There aren’t a lot of makers releasing weekly videos, and many that do are releasing build videos in weekly parts. And you just come along and go ta-da!

Haha, but not every video is a good idea. Some of them are really bad ideas. But that’s my privilege, you know, that I can still do that. Because I have to, otherwise there wouldn’t be a video, and I love that because the pressure helps me keep going. And the process is the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re building a tiny house or a scratch post for a cat. The process is me, being in the shop, listening to podcasts, listening to music, enjoying my tools, playing with the material – it’s all the same, it doesn’t really matter. 

So, the public bench stuff that I’ve been doing lately, I get so many questions like, “Oh no, how could you leave the bench” and, like, I don’t give a damn about the bench. It’s not the bench, it’s the process that I enjoy. I could literally throw everything that I build away – I could throw it in the trash right away. I wouldn’t mind. I’m so focused on the process.

I was going to ask you about the bench, because it was recently vandalised and so you made another one. Most people would probably just not, would just raise their hands in defeat and leave it. But you just made it again. 

I was expecting it to break eventually. And, to be honest, I was kinda hoping for it because I wanted to do it again. And, this time, I’m actually hoping for it to get broken again because I want to do it again.

Laura’s bike frame cup holder

I may be making this up, but I’m sure you once mentioned that it’s illegal to sell furniture in Germany unless you’re registered. Is that right?

Yeah, it’s a very broad description of this, but the craftsmanship in Germany is of a very high standard, right? At least we like to think so. So, if you want to be a carpenter, you’re first an apprentice for three years or so, then you can be a carpenter and work under a master carpenter. If you want to educate other apprentices, or if you want to sell certain furniture, I think chairs is one of them, then you have to be a master. And it’s the same for every field. I think the most plausible is electricians. If you are not a master electrician, you cannot, say, make a lamp and sell it.

But my interest is so general. I wanted to make lamps, but the notion of designing a lamp that’s made out of wood and then obviously has electricity in it, it’s just impossible. 

I spoke to the TÜV and asked them, if I design a lamp and want to sell it in a   store, how do I do it. And I would have to get it checked by their institution, which is a couple of hundred euros, and get a certificate. But I would have to do this for the next lamp design, and the next. And that makes them so expensive. I can’t sell a lamp for 150 euros if it costs me more than that to get it checked. I’m not interested in mass production, I want to make one-off pieces. 

I had already quit my job when I discovered this and remember having a big knot in my stomach thinking, ‘what do I do?’, and YouTube was the answer. 

Could you not use YouTube as a way of selling lamps? It’s not a lamp, it’s a video prop?

Yeah, there are loopholes – this is not a lamp, this is art. But, when I quit my job to become a self-employed lamp seller, I really only quit my job because I hated working for other people, not because it was my dream to sell furniture and lamps. I didn’t know YouTube really existed as a thing for me, and once I figured out people were actually making money off this, I was like, OK, I need to get a camera, I need to give this a try. Because that would be better than building stuff to sell it. I wasn’t interested in selling stuff. I don’t want clients. I don’t want that pressure from anyone else except me, so YouTube worked out perfectly for me. 

How to build a tattoo machine from scratch – one of Laura’s most popular videos

The job you quit was as a Display Artist for Urban Outfitters, if I remember correctly? Designing displays within a store. That sounded like a brilliant job.

It was. It was a great job, but it wasn’t for me. It was probably the perfect job, but I am not a good employee. I was asked a couple of years ago if I would do a talk about my career and how I made this job for myself and followed my dreams, blah, blah. I don’t like ‘follow your dreams’. It was the other way around. I avoided my nightmares. That’s how I got here. I never dreamed of this, I didn’t know this existed. So, I think avoiding your nightmares is much more efficient than following your dreams.

With your design school background, when you create something, how much of that project is art over functionality? Dovetails versus pocket holes for instance. 

It’s more, and this is hard to explain, but I have this internal measuring unit of how much work should go into a project. I know how much time I can put into a project, and there’s this bucket of work I’ve put into it, and depending on how full the bucket is determines how the project looks and whether I use pocket holes or dovetails, for example.

You work a lot with wood and with metal, as well as a few other materials, all of which require their own set of skills. Where have you learned all your techniques?

All YouTube. That’s the cool thing. It’s all full circle. There are some things – I had a couple of jobs where I learned some skills. I worked as a flight case builder for three years, just filling those black flight cases. Which sounds very, very trivial. It’s not though, It’s crazy. You have to work so precisely, otherwise, the catches won’t close and all these things, and everything is building boxes. So I learned a bunch of stuff there. It was my Karate Kid apprenticeship. But a lot of it is YouTube. I remember watching Jimmy DiResta – I saw his TV show online, and then I watched a bunch of his videos without realising it was the same guy. Eventually, I noticed he had a weekly schedule and a podcast, and it was all exactly what I needed to see and hear. Right when I quit my job and I couldn’t sell lamps, there were these people telling me that they do this for a living. It was perfect timing. I feel like I’m the second generation YouTuber and they’re the first. 

Laura’s cargo bike

As well as those makers, what else influences your work?

I like to listen to a lot of hip-hop, like super-aggressive hip-hop that is the complete opposite of me and has nothing to do with my world. And I like to watch horror movies, super-scary and bloody horror movies. I like to explore the opposite of what I have. A view into a completely different world. The Fantasy Filmfest is a huge inspiration for me. These movies that go right to DVD; they don’t go into the big theatres. I like to think about how they got made? How did they think of that? That’s the biggest inspiration. And, with hip-hop, the personas, and why they feel like they do, and how do they come up with those lines. They’re in their own universe, they have their own rules. I just love that. It’s how I feel when I’m building stuff. I’m telling myself a story that I don’t know the ending of. I don’t like to make sketches, I don’t like to know if it works. If I see someone else had the idea and did a full video about it, I don’t even want to do the idea anymore. I want to have that unknown. This is the idea, this is the stuff you have, now try to make it happen.

Is there anything still on the list? Projects you still want to work on?

I don’t know if you saw it on Instagram, but I bought a Multicar. It’s so good. It’s the slowest car ever; it is painfully slow – 45 kilometres an hour and that’s it. But it has torque; you can tow pretty much everything with it. So my plan is to take the world’s smallest pub that I built a couple months ago and put it on at the back of the Multicar.

Something is holding me back at the moment, though. I have all the parts, I should be able to do it, but I don’t know what it is. I experience that quite often – I have an idea, and everything should be good to go, but I’m not doing it. And then, eventually, it turns out I wasn’t sure about the colour, or something else that was missing that I didn’t know at the time. So I don’t push it. But that’s the project I’m looking forward to.

Do you think you’ll ever just get to the point where you’re going to stop doing weekly videos? Or is this you for life?

I don’t know. Like, that’s the one thing that I’m really scared of, like, what happens when I get sick? Because at the beginning of the year, I hired my best friend. So now we’re both relying on my mental and physical health. So I think it’s a good idea to broaden stuff and have more income streams. I love doing the TV stuff [Laura recently started presenting a new TV show], because whenever I’m working with the TV people, I think, like, oh man, I love YouTube. And, when I do too much YouTube, I start really looking forward to working with actual professionals again. It’s a cool balance. I kind of hope that I can keep doing this. You know, I think it’s really cool. And as I said, there’s no other place for me. Where would I go?

Clever keyring with screwdriver

You have YouTube, you have TV, you have your podcast, and you sell merchandise. Is there anything left?

I think I would like to actually have a couple of products now. Some of the furniture I’m building, if you look at them in a different context to ‘this is just what I built this week’ and is only the product of seven days’ worth of work, I think some of those ideas aren’t that bad. And if you put some more work into them, they could be pieces that would sell. But I would want someone who takes the prototypes and does the whole production for me. I’m not interested in all that. But I think it would be cool to have a line of plywood furniture.

So we won’t be seeing a run of the Laura Kampf bench across Köln?

A newspaper interviewed me about the bench. And for the interview, they also approached the city saying, hey, wouldn’t you want to work with her? And you know, maybe collaborate on this because this might be a cool thing. And they said that they don’t have the personnel. But honestly, if they would have done it, that would have made it so boring. Working with somebody in an office telling me where the broken benches are so I can go and fix them. That’s a job.

Laura’s beer bike

Is there anything you’ve ever made that you haven’t wanted to share? A build just for you?

Until I hit publish, I feel like that every week. It feels like I’m just making it for myself. I talk very positively about YouTube, and that’s genuinely how I feel about it, but sometimes it’s really hard on me because I’ll work seven days on a video, think it’s the best thing I ever did, and it makes me so happy. I’ll edit it for hours, sink all this time into it, all this energy, and then the video tanks, and it kinda ruins it for me. I’m in a super-good mood right now because the bench video did so well, and people understand what I’m trying to say. But, there are other cases where it doesn’t work as well, and where I feel like I’ve dropped the ball and couldn’t get my excitement across. And that’s always super-disappointing because I’m always excited about the stuff I make; I always have some angle I find super-interesting, otherwise, I’m not motivated to do it. And, when the video tanks, it makes me feel like I lost the opportunity to spread that excitement, to spread that motivation, and that feels like I wasted my time. And that’s the downside of YouTube. 

I mean, I think every creator takes it in a different way. And you need to find a way to deal with this, and it’s really important to talk about it. This is my dream job and I can do whatever I want to do as long as I don’t drop the ball. I hired my friend, so now I can’t drop the ball for the both of us.

Laura appeared in our video “How do you define ‘maker’?”

Laura Kampf produces a video every Sunday on her YouTube channel. You can also follow her on Instagram and, for any German-speaking readers, her podcast – Raabe & Kampf – with friend and journalist Melanie Raabe can be found wherever you listen to podcasts. 

HackSpace magazine issue 45 out NOW!

Each month, HackSpace magazine brings you the best projects, tips, tricks and tutorials from the makersphere. You can get it from the Raspberry Pi Press online store or your local newsagents.

Hack space magazine issue 45 front cover

As always, every issue is free to download from the HackSpace magazine website.

The post Meet Laura Kampf: Wood and metalworker appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Meet Simone Giertz: Inventor, robotics enthusiast, and YouTuber

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/meet-simone-giertz-inventor-robotics-enthusiast-and-youtuber/

Even if you don’t follow Simone Giertz on social media or YouTube, there’s a good chance you know of her work. Originally hailed as the Queen of S***** Robots, Simone’s early videos of questionable contraptions, such as the Toothbrush Machine and Hair Washing Robot, quickly went viral, birthing a variety of GIFs and shareable content that quickly took over the internet. But, nowadays, she’s shelved her bots and focuses her attention on more reliable projects, such as her highly successful crowdfunding campaign for The Every Day Calendar, and the impressive Truckla, a Tesla pickup truck that beat Elon Musk’s Cybertruck to the post when shared online in June 2019.

Looks like it works fine to me

Alex Bate caught up with Simone Giertz (pronounced Yetch, not Gerts) to discuss how she went from unreliable robots and GIF stardom to bunk-beds made of leaves and office chair sidecars for needy pets, and why her openly discussed brain tumour helped to realign her business model.  

A career of two halves

HS  To me, as a viewer, it feels like your YouTube career is split into two halves. There’s Simone, the Queen of S***** Robots, and then there’s everything post-surgery, like Truckla and The Every Day Calendar. Do you see it too?

SG  The difficult part about YouTube, and also the good side of it, is that if you have a really long career, you grow up during that career, and you change and your interests change. And I don’t want to just play a role, I want to be genuinely excited about the things I do – you get sick of things, and you want to explore new things. So, in order to do that, I’ve really tried to be ‘theme agnostic’ for my YouTube channel. 

And that was something that was really hard with S***** Robots, because it was something that I knew that people really liked, and that I had a level of success with. But I was just not that excited about it anymore. And I think the brain tumour became a really good page turner for me, because I had such limited energy capital, you know, and I really just wanted to spend my time and my very limited energy on doing things that I was super-pumped about.

I think the projects I build now still have some elements of the stuff I did in my early days, but they’re definitely less GIF-compatible.

In the beginning, all I was thinking about for every project was a GIF. That was the main deliverable that I had in my head, and the main piece of content that I focused on, and then I kind of built a YouTube video around it, and around the process of creating this GIF. And I let go of that. Not every project needs to have a punchline. It can be fine. It can be a little bit more dull.

But, I still feel guilty about it.

HS  Really?

SG  Yeah. People are very sweet about it, but I still get comments with people being like, ’Oh, I miss the robots.’ But, at the same time, you have to think, ’It’s my life, and I really want to do the things I want to do.’ And I’m also so drawn to my product business and wanting to focus on that. And the way that my YouTube channel can co-exist with that is for me to explore different products and make videos about them. And it’s actually becoming a pretty good tag team.

Kickstarter success

HS  Talking about your product business, the biggest one to date was obviously The Every Day Calendar. 2300-odd backers, and over half a million dollars raised. How did you feel when your first Kickstarter just soared like that?

SG  It was fun and scary. Because, as somebody who’s terrified of disappointing people, crowdfunding campaigns are kind of like the worst position to put yourself in because you really risk disappointing people. But, I don’t think we did. I mean, we were late, but I really just wanted to deliver a good product because it was expensive. And, yes, we raised over half a million dollars, but it’s not until now that we’ve actually broken even.

HS  Wow.

simone giertz everyday calendar
Simone surrounded by The Every Day Calendar

SG  It’s so expensive. And so much of that is in product development. When it comes down to it, and you’re actually putting something out in the world, it’s just crazy how much it costs. And I mean, we probably didn’t do it in the most efficient way we could, because we were rookies. But, it was definitely very humbling and terrifying.

HS  Would you do further products with Kickstarter? Or do you think you’re now at a point where you would just create a product and sell it, and not have to rely on crowdfunding?

SG  We’re hopefully launching our store this summer, and we’re going to have four different products in it. And, I’m hoping that any easier products can be self-funded. And, if there’s something more complicated, like the Companion Chair, which is definitely going to be a bigger project, it might end up being crowdfunded because with funding, you also get market testing. You can get a lot out of it. But, that said, after I did The Every Day Calendar, I remember saying I’d never do it again. Every night at 3 am, I would just wake up and be like, ’Oh my god, what if we send out the calendars and then, in two years, all of them stop working! People are going to be really angry.’ I’m scared of that. But, I guess that also, even if customers are buying your product off the shelf, you are always going to live with that fear over your head.

Simone Giertz

The early days

HS  It’s really interesting to go back and watch your earliest videos, particularly the first one in Swedish, and see how far you’ve come. Was it always the aim to start the business? To have staff and be opening an online store and selling your products?

SG  I mean, no, I would definitely be lying if I said that this is some sort of master plan. There was no scheming where I had the large whiteboard – ’This is the trajectory of how I’m going to become known as the Queen of S***** Robots. And then I’m going to pivot that into running a product business.’ I’m definitely not that smart. 

But, I had an inkling of what I was interested in. And I mean, I really liked making videos. And I think that everything kind of happened in a very fortunate way. Because I had this job where I was a Maker in Residence at a US company called Punch Through Design. And my job was just to build different things. And right when my job there was ending, I posted the Toothbrush Helmet, and that started getting some traction. I was moving back to Sweden because my visa expired, and I just had this year of living with my mom again, and having very few expenses and I was like, ’OK, I’m gonna just make sure I work enough to get by, but then the rest of the time, I’m just gonna spend it on building these machines that I want to build.’

So I was very fortunate in the way that I could structure things so I was able to spend time on my YouTube channel in the early days.

But, it’s also so easy to look back and be like, ’Of course, all these things led me to where I am today.’ But when you’re in the middle of it, you’re just flailing. And my flailing, fortunately, landed me in a position that I’m very happy with today.

Commander Scraps the canine sidekick

[It’s at this point of the conversation that Simone’s three-legged canine sidekick, Commander Scraps, decides to join us. Those who have seen Simone’s build video for the Companion Chair or Lego-based Dog Selfie Booth will already know of Scraps. Those who haven’t, well, Scraps is adorable, so you should definitely check them out.] 

Simone Giertz and dog
Scraps is first and foremost a dog, but he’s also the brains behind Simone’s Companion Chair

Creative freedom

HS  Some online content creators are often stuck within a theme – wood working, electronics, 3D printing, and so on. But, for you, it seems that you’re the theme, you’re the brand, and you can get away with creating whatever content you want. Do you see that when you interact with your community? That freedom?

SG  It’s something that I thought a lot about in the early days, like, how much is the channel about me and my life? And how much is it about the things that I build? And I think what I struggled with is that I’m not that interested in my life. Like, I really want to make videos that I myself would want to watch. I’m not really interested in vlogs, so I decided early on that while it’s about my life to an extent, it’s still centred around these projects I’m building.

In some ways, I’m pretty private on the internet, but also very open, like when it comes to brain tumour stuff. I was really open about it, and I wanted to tell everyone about it because it was a way for me to process what was happening. I remember having to tell myself that I had to stop telling waiters or Uber drivers that I had a brain tumour. ’Hi sweetie, how are you today? Well, I have a brain tumour, but other than that, I’m pretty good.’

When it came to talking about it online, it was a no-brainer. Haha.

But then there’s other stuff that I don’t talk about, like, I don’t really document my life. I don’t talk about my friends really, or my relationship status, or anything like that. Because you have to draw the line somewhere. And I always felt like documenting my life was just too intrusive.

Simone Giertz
Don’t ask

Robot queen

HS  When you look at your most popular videos on your channel, even though you’re known as the Queen of S***** Robots, those videos aren’t actually in the Top 5. Instead, it’s the video of you in the zero gravity simulations, and Truckla, and locking yourself in your bathroom for 48 hours. It’s interesting that the thing you’re most known for isn’t the thing your audience is most interacting with.

SG  Those robot videos mostly did really well on other platforms, like Twitter and Reddit. Not so much on YouTube because it has its own metrics and algorithms. 

The thing that is really useful for other creators who are getting started is to figure out what is your hook, or what is the very simple version of what you’re doing. Like, Queen of S***** Robots kind of became the headline. And it was this very clear message, and it was something that was really easy for journalists to write about. It was a spearhead for branding.

This was not something I was thinking about at the time, but looking back, my fear then was to make sure I didn’t get pigeonholed, and that I could never move on from it, because that’s the problem when people only know you for one thing – you can’t really move on beyond that. It’s really nice to have that spearhead, and then you can broaden it, and that’s how you have longevity.

I didn’t want this to be over in a year. I wanted to be able to keep on doing it because I was really enjoying it. And now, I want to make sure that I have more legs to stand on, because when you’re going through health problems, you realise that if you can’t be in front of a camera, everything grinds to a halt. If you’re not well enough to work, or if YouTube changes its algorithm, it becomes such a fragile business structure. So, that was one of the reasons why I decided I needed to go into products. 

Simone Giertz

HS  I guess you can’t really be known as the Queen of S***** Robots where everything you make doesn’t really do what it’s meant to do, and then expect people to buy serious products from you and trust they’ll work.

SG  That’s definitely one of the things when we launched The Every Day Calendar – I was wondering how are people going to be able to take this seriously? But, I think that’s what’s really nice, that my audience has been around long enough and they’ve seen that there’s more to it than that – there’s actually, ironically, a lot of work that goes into making S***** Robots.

Collaborative community

HS  I remember the first time I saw your work was when you collaborated with Adam Savage to make an automated popcorn machine in 2016. It’s a great video that really highlights how great collaborative work can be when two people focus on what they’re really interested in to make a final product. And you’ve worked on other videos with creators such as Laura Kampf. Is there anyone else you’d like to work with?

SG  I’m really interested in people who are kind of beyond the community that I’m currently in. It would be really fun to do stuff with musical artists; I’d love to collaborate with OK Go. Or venture beyond that and work with people who make art, and fashion designers. People who are outside the world where I’m creating. And there are people that I just love and would always want to work with, like Laura. She’s the sweetest, most talented, down-to-earth and funny person. I really love working with her. I should really think of who’s on my bucket list.

Something I’ve really missed during the pandemic is just getting to spend time with people who are excited about what they’re doing, and having that excitement rub off on me. There’s nothing more inspiring than someone being  pumped about something, even if you don’t understand what it is. In some ways, lockdown has been great for creating as I’ve had more time to loiter in the shop, but I definitely miss that input and just being able to talk to people.

A surprisingly interesting video, despite the title

Secret new ideas…

HS  And are there any projects you’d like to build that you just haven’t gotten around to doing yet?

SG  Honestly, I just want to build stuff for my house right now, which I know isn’t the most interesting answer. I still have the CEO Bouncy Chair on my list – I want to make this kids’ bouncy chair, the type where you’re almost in some sort of plastic diaper. But I want it to look like a mahogany desk with a Rolodex and it’s for grown-ups. And make some spoof commercial for it when it’s marketed as an exercise device, but there’s just some balding white guy in it. I think that’s the only one that I’m still eager to build. Let me look at my notes…

[Simone proceeds to pull out her phone and list project ideas from the notes app. Should I tell you what they are or should I leave them as a surprise? With great power comes great responsibility!]

HS  Those are definitely some interesting ideas…

[I’m very responsible].

Check out Simone’s TED Talk

HS  Going back to your audience, you seem to have been somewhat spared a lot of the negativity people receive in comments, and online in general. Why do you think that is?

SG  I’m just always so scared. Haha. I’ve been spared from the trolls and the hate, and I’m just terrified of ruining whatever equilibrium is happening right now. That’s one of the reasons I post so seldomly. I was looking the other day and thought, ’Oh, it’s been 45 days since I last posted on Instagram!’, and I notice I keep getting DMs from people asking if I’m OK. I’m just always scared to overstep, or do something that would upset people, or cause me to fall from some sort of pedestal. I just never want to post something that doesn’t work for other people, you know?

Simone gives a great interview here

Inspirational YouTubers

HS  I get it. The comments section of YouTube alone can be an awful place sometimes. Speaking of YouTube, are there any other makers at the moment who are inspiring you?

SG  I love 3×3 Custom. She’s my happy place because she’s at a level of making that I’m just not at. Her jig work is just wild, and the quality she puts out. And I love Nicole McLaughlin. She does these really fun and weird fashion contraptions, like shoes made out of tennis balls. She’s very cool. She’s a level of coolness that I aspire to and never expect to get to.

But, one of the most inspiring things for me is time. And I know that if I run out of ideas, it’s because I’m overworked and I haven’t had enough downtime and time to just loiter in the shop. I try to enforce this on Fridays, where me and my teammates just work on whatever project, and it doesn’t have to be work-related. And some of my best ideas have come from that type of work, where I don’t know what my end goal with this is, but I’m just going to tinker with it for a little bit.

Simone was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert!

You can follow Simone on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos of her project, and subscribe to her YouTube channel for new content. Also, because why wouldn’t you, you can follow Scraps on Instagram too! 

Issue 44 of HackSpace magazine is on sale NOW!

Each month, HackSpace magazine brings you the best projects, tips, tricks and tutorials from the makersphere. You can get it from the Raspberry Pi Press online store or your local newsagents.

HackSpace 44 cover

As always, every issue is free to download from the HackSpace magazine website.

The post Meet Simone Giertz: Inventor, robotics enthusiast, and YouTuber appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi and Google Code Next bring computer science to 1000 Chicago students

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-and-google-code-next-bring-computer-science-to-1000-chicago-students/

To round off Computer Science Education Week 2020, the Google Code Next team, working with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and some incredible volunteers in the Chicago area, helped over 400 Black and Latinx high school students get coding using Raspberry Pi 400. Here’s Omnia Saed with more.

In partnership with Google Code Next, the Raspberry Pi Foundation curated a computer science activity for over 400 Chicago Public Schools students. Over 1000 kits with the newly released Raspberry Pi 400 were sent to six public schools to mark the end of Computer Science Education Week (7-14 December).

Google Code Next

Google Code Next is a free computer science education program for Black and Latinx high school students. Between 2011 and 2018, Black and Hispanic college students each only made up 3 percent of computer science graduates; Code Next works to change that. The program provides students with the skills and inspiration needed for long and rewarding careers in computer science.

“We aim to provide Black and Latinx students with skills and technical social capital — that web of relationships you can tap into,” said Google Diversity STEM Strategist Shameeka Emanuel.

The main event

The virtual event brought over 80 Google volunteers, students and teachers together to create their very own “Raspimon”—a virtual monster powered by Raspberry Pi. For many students, it was their first time coding.

Matt Richardson, Executive Director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation North America, opened the event by telling students to share their work with family and friends.

“I hope you find new ways to solve problems or express yourselves creatively. More importantly, be sure to share what you create with someone you know – you might just spark curiosity in someone else,” he said.

In an interview with the Chicago Sun Times, Troy Williams, Chicago Public Schools interim director of computer science, explains, “Our students being able to have access to these Raspberry Pis and other resources supplements the learning they’re doing in the classrooms, and brings another level of engagement where they can create on their own. It really helps toward closing the digital divide and the learning gap as well.”

Want to join in with the fun? You’ll find a copy of the activity and curriculum on the Code Next website.

Top view of a woman's hands using the Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard and official Raspberry Pi mouse

And if you’re looking to introduce someone to coding over the holidays, there’s still time to order a Raspberry Pi 400 computer kit from our network of Raspberry Pi Approved Resellers.

The post Raspberry Pi and Google Code Next bring computer science to 1000 Chicago students appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Designing the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/designing-the-raspberry-pi-compute-module-4/

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 designer Dominic Plunkett was kind enough to let us sit him down for a talk with Eben, before writing up his experience of bringing our latest board to life for today’s blog post. Enjoy.

When I joined Raspberry Pi, James, Eben and Gordon already had some ideas on the features they would like to see on the new Compute Module 4, and it was down to me to take these ideas and turn them into a product. Many people think design is a nice linear process: ideas, schematics, PCB, and then final product. In the real world the design process isn’t like this, and to get the best designs I often try something and iterate around the design loop to get the best possible solution within the constraints.

Form factor change

Previous Compute Modules were all in a 200-pin SODIMM form factor, but two important considerations pushed us to think about moving to a different form factor: the need to expose useful interfaces of the BCM2711 that are not present in earlier SoCs, and the desire to add extra components, which meant we needed to route tracks differently to make space on the PCB for the additional parts.

Breaking out BCM2711’s high-speed interfaces

We knew we wanted to get the extra features of the BCM2711 out to the connector so that users could make use of them in their products. High-speed interfaces like PCIe and HDMI are so fast coming out of the BCM2711 that they need special IO pins that can’t also support GPIO: if we were to change the functionality of a GPIO pin to one of the new high-speed signals, this would break backwards compatibility.

We could consider adding some sort of multiplexer to swap between old and new functionality, but this would cost space on the PCB, as well as reducing the integrity of the fast signals. This consideration alone drives the design to a new pinout. We could have tried to use one of the SODIMM connectors with extra pins; while this would give a board with similar dimensions to the existing Compute Modules, it too would break compatibility.

Compute Module 4 mounted on the IO Board
Compute Module 4 mounted on the IO Board

PCB space for additional components

We also wanted to add extra items to the PCB, so PCB space to put the additional parts was an important consideration. If you look carefully at a Compute Module 3 you can see a lot of tracks carrying signals from one side of the SoC to the pins on the edge connector. These tracks take up valuable PCB space, preventing components being fitted there. We could add extra PCB layers to move these tracks from an outer layer to an inner layer, but these extra layers add to the cost of the product.

This was one of the main drivers in changing to having two connectors on different edges of the board: doing so saves having to route tracks all the way across the PCB. So we arrived at a design that incorporated a rough split of which signals were going to end up on each of the connectors. The exact order of the signals wasn’t yet defined.

Trial PCB layouts

We experimented with trial PCB layouts for the Compute Module 4 and the CM4 IO Board to see how easy it would be to route the signals; even at this stage, the final size of the CM4 hadn’t been fixed. Over time, and after juggling parts around the PCB, I came to a sensible compromise. There were lots of things to consider, including the fact that the taller components had to go on the top side of the PCB.

The pinout was constantly being adjusted to an ordering that was a good compromise for both the CM4 and the IO Board. The IO Board layout was a really important consideration: after we made the first prototype boards, we decided to change the pinout slightly to make PCB layout on the IO Board even easier for the end user.

When the prototype Compute Module 4 IO Boards arrived back from manufacture, the connectors hadn’t arrived in time to be assembled by machine, so I fitted them by hand in the lab. Pro tip: if you have to fit connectors by hand, take your time to ensure they are lined up correctly, and use lots of flux to help the solder flow into the joints. Sometimes people use very small soldering iron tips thinking it will help; in fact, one of the goals of soldering is to get heat into the joint, and if the tip is too small it will be difficult to heat the solder joint sufficiently to make a good connection.

Compute Module 4 IO Board

New features

Whilst it was easy to add some headline features like a second HDMI port, other useful features don’t grab as much attention. One example is that we have simplified the powering requirements. Previous Compute Modules required multiple PSUs to power a board, and the power-up sequence had to be exactly correct. Compute Module 4 simply requires a single +5V PSU.

In fact, the simplest possible base board for Compute Module 4 just requires a +5V supply and one of the connectors and nothing else. You would need a CM4 variant with eMMC and wireless connectivity; you can boot the module with the eMMC, wireless connectivity gives you networking, and Bluetooth connectivity gives you access to IO devices. If you do add extra IO devices the CM4 also can provide a +3.3V supply to power those devices, avoiding the need for an external power supply.

We have seen some customers experience issues with adding wireless interfaces to previous Compute Modules, so a really important requirement was to provide the option of wireless support. We wanted to be as flexible as possible, so we have added support for an external antenna. Because radio certification can be a very hard and expensive process, we have a pre-certified external antenna kit that can be supplied with Compute Module 4. This should greatly simplify product certification for end products, although engineering designers should check to make certain of meeting all local requirements.

Antenna Kit and Compute Module 4

PCIe

This is probably the most exciting new interface to come to Compute Module 4. On the existing Raspberry Pi 4, this interface is used internally to add the XHCI controller which provides the USB 3 ports. By providing the PCIe externally, we are giving end users the choice of how they would like to use this interface. Many applications don’t need USB 3 performance, so the end user can make use of it in other ways — for NVMe drives, to take one example.

Ethernet

In order to have wired Ethernet connectivity with previous Compute Modules, you needed to add an external USB-to-Ethernet interface. This adds complexity to the IO board, and one of the aims of the new Compute Module 4 is to make interfacing to it simple. With this in mind, we added a physical Ethernet interface to CM4, and we also took the opportunity to add support for IEEE1588 to this. As a result, adding Gigabit wired networking to CM4 requires only the addition of a magjack; no extra silicon is needed. Because this is a true Gigabit interface, it is also faster than the USB-to-Ethernet interfaces that previous Compute Modules use.

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

Open-sourcing the Compute Module 4 IO Board design files

Early on in the process, we decided that we were going to open-source the design files for the Compute Module 4 IO Board. We used our big expensive CAD system for Compute Module 4 itself, and while we could have decided to do the design for the IO Board in the big CAD system too and then port it across to KiCAD, it’s easy to introduce issues in the porting process.

So, instead, we used KiCAD for the IO Board from the start, and the design files that come out of KiCAD are the same ones that we use in manufacture. During development I had both CAD systems running at the same time on the computer.

Easier integration and enhanced possibilities

We have made some big changes to our new Compute Module 4 range, and these should make integration much simpler for our customers. Many interfaces now just need a connector and power, and the new form factor should enable people to design more compact and more powerful products. I look forward to seeing what our customers create over the next few years with Compute Module 4.

High-density connector on board underside

Get your Compute Module 4

The new Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is available from our network of Approved Resellers. Head over to the Compute Module 4 product page and select your preferred variant to find your nearest reseller.

Can’t find a reseller near you? No worries. Many of our Approved Resellers ship internationally, so try a few other locations.

The post Designing the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

3D-printable cases for the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/3d-printable-cases-for-the-raspberry-pi-high-quality-camera/

Earlier this year, we released the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera, a brand-new 12.3 megapixel camera that allows you to use C- and CS-mount lenses with Raspberry Pi boards.

We love it. You love it.

How do we know you love it? Because the internet is now full of really awesome 3D-printable cases and add-ons our community has created in order to use their High Quality Camera out and about…or for Octoprint…or home security…or SPACE PHOTOGRAPHY, WHAT?!

The moon, captured by a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera. Credit: Greg Annandale

We thought it would be fun to show you some of 3D designs we’ve seen pop up on sites like Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory, so that anyone with access to a 3D printer can build their own camera too!

Adafruit did a thing, obvs

Shout out to our friends at Adafruit for this really neat, retro-looking camera case designed by the Ruiz Brothers. The brown filament used for the casing is so reminiscent of the leather bodies of SLRs from my beloved 1980s childhood that I can’t help but be drawn to it. And, with snap-fit parts throughout, you can modify this case model as you see fit. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Nikon to Raspberry Pi

While the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera is suitable for C- and CS-mount lenses out of the box, this doesn’t mean you’re limited to only these sizes! There’s a plethora of C- and CS-mount adapters available on the market, and you can also 3D print your own adapter.

Thingiverse user UltiArjan has done exactly that and designed this adapter for using Nikon lenses with the High Quality Camera. Precision is key here to get a snug thread, so you may have to fiddle with your printer settings to get the right fit.

And, for the Canon users out there, here’s Zimbo1’s adapter for Canon EF lenses!

Raspberry Pi Zero minimal adapter

If you’re not interested in a full-body camera case and just need something to attach A to B, this minimal adapter for the Raspberry Pi Zero will be right up your street.

Designer ed7coyne put this model together in order to use Raspberry Pi Zero as a webcam, and according to Cura on my laptop, should only take about 2 hours to print at 0.1 with supports. In fact, since I’ve got Cura open already…

3D print a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera?!

Not a working one, of course, but if you’re building something around the High Quality Camera and want to make sure everything fits without putting the device in jeopardy, you could always print a replica for prototyping!

Thingiverse user tmomas produced this scale replica of the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera with the help of reference photos and technical drawings, and a quick search online will uncover similar designs for replicas of other Raspberry Pi products you might want to use while building a prototype

Bonus content alert

We made this video for HackSpace magazine earlier this year, and it’s a really hand resource if you’re new to the 3D printing game.

Also…

…I wasn’t lying when I said I was going to print ed7coyne’s minimal adapter.

The post 3D-printable cases for the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera appeared first on Raspberry Pi.