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I got into Maker Faire and making things, then I ran out of time. I had to learn Kubernetes. My kids were interested then they weren’t. My son is very technical

I got into Maker Faire and making things, then I ran out of time. I had to learn Kubernetes. My kids were interested then they weren’t. My son is very technical and expressed interest in robotics, but he keeps coming back to game development and blender, and that is fantastic. I have a half dozen micro boards gathering dust for projects I was going to Make. I guess I haven’t seen value enough in my daily life from my little creations, and fundamentally making something novel is remarkably difficult. I’d really like to wire that gear up with MaxMSP or processing and make some beautiful sonic spaces, but for now it stays on the shelf. Is this just me or did something fundamental of that kind of experience undermine the maker movement in general?

taurath 7y ago
I’ll be honest - if I had nothing but time and a paid off house, I’d be sorely tempted to just tinker for a while. The bay is no place to do that though - it’s too expensive.
- shortoncash 7y ago
  So true. The rent forces you to be on the hamster wheel.
  - taurath 7y ago
    It USED to be the place to experiment. Now it’s the place to try to make money before the landlords get you.
    - worldsayshi 7y ago
      This is likely severely limiting the innovation output of that area. You need breathing space to do groundbreaking stuff.
- madengr 7y ago
  I live in flyover country, with a paid off house, and good income. If you don’t have a mortgage, then it will be medical insurance (which costs just a much). If not that, the college savings, which is also equivalent.
Phlarp 7y ago
Counter experience that still echos a lot of the same themes: I started tinkering with electronics around 2011, the typical beginner Arduino projects with the starter kit you've all seen-- it was enjoyable and I learned a lot, but never made anything that went beyond a toy or learning demo. By 2014 I was gainfully employed and had a little more disposable income so I gravitated towards freestyle and racing quadcopters which I've continued to enjoy through today. My lab and expertise have continued to grow every step of the way, and I've been excited to implement some very basic home automation on my own with ESP8266 kits now that I'm a homeowner. Realistically there isn't much "maker" related things I would see value in beyond commodity tools and a 3d printer, but vendors with FPV electronics touting cool new features or enhanced functionality have a reliable track record of cracking my wallet open. I suspect this is a broader feeling and contributed to Maker Faire struggling to find a niche with reasonable margins amid a race to the bottom in the associated hardware. Ultimately I suspect Arduino boards gathering dust on the self are the overwhelming majority. People are either interested in it and rapidly move on to more specialized applications (Hobbyist multi-rotor electronics quickly graduated from 8bit AVRs to 32 bit ARMs) or they aren't and the dev kits find room in the closet.
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  I'm one of those "rapidly move on to specialized applications" people who never moved on. :-) My Arduino is gathering dust but somewhere along the line I became a ham radio operator and my world changed dramatically after that. So I'm really thankful to DIY, maker, and hacker culture for all of the encouragement, tools, and tutorials that helped me get to a very happy place indeed.
  - cced 7y ago
    What about your world has changed due to being an HRO?
    - themodelplumber 7y ago
      Well. I appreciate the opportunity to reminisce. :-) It's only been 2 years for me, but: First I became a local volunteer for ultramarathons, health care emergency exercises, things like that. Next I developed a bunch of communications standards to support people in wildfire-type emergencies. Then I just got really involved in learning about radio tech that uses the internet, and started working on a webSDR project to get a local server set up. In between all of that I've participated in some ARISS SSTV events via the International Space Station and have some nifty commemoration certificates on my wall. And finally I made a bunch of new friends and became part of a group that actually mostly observes a really high standard of communications decency and loves to support learning and technology. Through the community I've befriended astronomers, cops, engineers, firemen, physicists, all of those things I idolized as a kid. This is to say nothing of the gadgetry, the ability to reach out across the world using any number of methods. Randomly getting in touch with a Japanese radio operator whose daughter lives just down the street from where I used to live in Japan. Talking to a Hugh from Ireland and telling him about my son who is also named Hugh. Getting my kids on the air and asking a bunch of radio operators across the US to take turns wishing them a happy birthday just for fun. Knowing they're enjoying it too. Fun little moments like that.
untog 7y ago
I think (perhaps unfairly) that these fun hardware projects are often parents like ourselves harking back to a day when exactly that sort of thing was absolutely fascinating... but that's not the world we live in now. Which one is going to be more rewarding: building a smartphone, or making an app? It's the latter. That's not to say hardware stuff can't thrive, just perhaps not at the scale venture capital would require.
- logifail 7y ago
  > Which one is going to be more rewarding: building a smartphone, or making an app? The counterpoint to this would be: if your child built an app and showed it to their friends, would they be impressed? How about if they built a smartphone?
  - untog 7y ago
    They'd probably be more impressed with the app. They could all download it to their phone and use it together!
    - Tempest1981 7y ago
      But they already have dozens of similar social apps... it would need to be unique, not just another chat app.
rexpop 7y ago
Your job made you take time out of your regular workday? How many hours are you working, weekly?
mch82 7y ago
Check out the Arduino Leonardo for your son. It can emulate a USB HID input device (keyboard, mouse, joystick, etc). So your son can create custom controllers for his games. Just map GPIO to keys & analog pins to xyz scrolling & you’re off & running :-)
- reilly3000 7y ago
  Will do! He’s already gotten into a second keyboard for macros and attempting to repurpose a semi-broke game pad. This will be right up his alley!
dmix 7y ago
The world needs more good software than another person making toy electronics IMO. I see them as a hobby for electronics people, non-programmer computer types, or just for fun for anyone. But given a choice between some cute electronic that won't leave my house and building a web or github based side project that thousands of people could potentially use, I'd go with the latter every time. I say that after giving up on my own gaming electronics thing I was building until I realized my time could be better spent and I could buy a finished one from China for half the price.
- yitchelle 7y ago
  >> The world needs more good software than another person making toy electronics. Rather sad to read that electronics is thought of as a toy. It is the "body" which software runs on. I agree cute electronics is probably not that useful but the are many others.
  - worldsayshi 7y ago
    Perhaps it's because you need to invest so much more time to make something useful in hardware. In software it's still possible to make small useful projects.
    - Tempest1981 7y ago
      Hardware is, well, hard. But the kits available can make it much easier and more approachable. You just need to learn the ecosystem -- like learning a computer language and development environment.
  - amelius 7y ago
    In the embedded world, electronics is a useful skill. Also RF design or low power design are very valuable skills.
- logifail 7y ago
  > The world needs more good software than another person making toy electronics [..] I'd be just as happy to see my kids getting interested in electronics as coding.
_hardwaregeek 7y ago
I've noticed that it's hard to get really great returns on maker projects. Maybe it's my impatience but software provides me something immediate that's cool and useful. Besides, debugging software is worlds easier for me than debugging circuitry. Also, why are microcontrollers stuck in the C++ world? Stuff like CircuitPython is changing that, but it's not that ubiquitous. I'd love an ergonomic and mature Rust ecosystem on Arduinos, or even a gasp JavaScript runtime. Shouldn't chips be fast enough for this? I'd love to run some basic web stuff on an Arduino. Adafruit has been driving a lot of usable, rewarding electronics. They've been pushing LEDS (mostly WS2812 and APA102) in usable, prepackaged form factors. I really love their LED strips that are already diffused. They're beautiful and immediately usable. They're a little expensive, but I use their products to try out my ideas. But besides them there's not a lot of companies who make physical hardware appealing and available. Side-note, why aren't there LED strips with a 3.3v logic level??? Almost all microcontrollers have a 3.3v logic level but APA102/WS2812 have a 5v logic level. Very annoying to convert.
- pbadge 7y ago
  Hey I'm building a hardware company to address affordable housing 10x faster than existing approaches, read a bunch of your comments and they seem really insightful. Want to get coffee? Shoot me an email if you're interested at Pbadger27<at>gmail.com
- heeen2 7y ago
  In my experience you can drive ws2811 with 3.3v, the signal gets conditioned after the first led.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  For battery powered applications, you want power efficiency, which often means using “portable assembly” (aka C/c++). A lot of micro-controllers are run from batteries, especially high-volume products, so there’s always going to be a pull towards power efficient languages, even if your app has wall power available. Second heeen’s comment on using 3V3 directly. I built Halloween costumes that ran directly off an 18650 powering the Arduino and driving the APA102 LED strings. No issues as the batteries ran from 4.2+ to 3.7 or less volts. If it was life safety, I’d care, but for blinkenlights, I’m willing to push outside the datasheet.
webreac 7y ago
Time is also my problem (I have 3 childs). I also think that the amount of effort needed to produce something with enough polish to be useful (software or hardware) is very high. IMHO, the quick pace at which everything change is a major cause of this complexity. Even for professional products, for example it is already difficult to find hardware supported by redhat 6. As opposite, see the effect of stability of arduino or ne555.
fizzledbits 7y ago
I had a similar experience until I realized how many other hobbies exist among friends and family that I could apply the knowledge to. I worked with my brother and cousin to add “push to” functionality to their homebuilt telescopes using IC linear magnetic encoders, which are so small they can be embedded in pockets in the wood, making for a much more integrated and beautiful scope than is possible with off the shelf products. Now making a more robust version of a similar gizmo to instrument my brother’s millwork shop. Then a wireless temperature/fan regulator for my grill. Guitar (or keyboard) effect pedals make for an endless series of wonderful, creative projects as well. In other words, all stuff we’d be doing anyway, to which the widget hacking adds an extra dimension of improvement and interest. As a kid I imagine I would have loved to build weird game controllers with my dad. Or customized RC airplanes. I hope companies like osh park, sparkfun and so on never go the way of radio shack.

taurath 7y ago

I’ll be honest - if I had nothing but time and a paid off house, I’d be sorely tempted to just tinker for a while. The bay is no place to do that though - it’s too expensive.

shortoncash 7y ago
So true. The rent forces you to be on the hamster wheel.
- taurath 7y ago
  It USED to be the place to experiment. Now it’s the place to try to make money before the landlords get you.
  - worldsayshi 7y ago
    This is likely severely limiting the innovation output of that area. You need breathing space to do groundbreaking stuff.
madengr 7y ago
I live in flyover country, with a paid off house, and good income. If you don’t have a mortgage, then it will be medical insurance (which costs just a much). If not that, the college savings, which is also equivalent.

Phlarp 7y ago

Counter experience that still echos a lot of the same themes: I started tinkering with electronics around 2011, the typical beginner Arduino projects with the starter kit you've all seen-- it was enjoyable and I learned a lot, but never made anything that went beyond a toy or learning demo. By 2014 I was gainfully employed and had a little more disposable income so I gravitated towards freestyle and racing quadcopters which I've continued to enjoy through today. My lab and expertise have continued to grow every step of the way, and I've been excited to implement some very basic home automation on my own with ESP8266 kits now that I'm a homeowner. Realistically there isn't much "maker" related things I would see value in beyond commodity tools and a 3d printer, but vendors with FPV electronics touting cool new features or enhanced functionality have a reliable track record of cracking my wallet open. I suspect this is a broader feeling and contributed to Maker Faire struggling to find a niche with reasonable margins amid a race to the bottom in the associated hardware. Ultimately I suspect Arduino boards gathering dust on the self are the overwhelming majority. People are either interested in it and rapidly move on to more specialized applications (Hobbyist multi-rotor electronics quickly graduated from 8bit AVRs to 32 bit ARMs) or they aren't and the dev kits find room in the closet.

themodelplumber 7y ago
I'm one of those "rapidly move on to specialized applications" people who never moved on. :-) My Arduino is gathering dust but somewhere along the line I became a ham radio operator and my world changed dramatically after that. So I'm really thankful to DIY, maker, and hacker culture for all of the encouragement, tools, and tutorials that helped me get to a very happy place indeed.
- cced 7y ago
  What about your world has changed due to being an HRO?
  - themodelplumber 7y ago
    Well. I appreciate the opportunity to reminisce. :-) It's only been 2 years for me, but: First I became a local volunteer for ultramarathons, health care emergency exercises, things like that. Next I developed a bunch of communications standards to support people in wildfire-type emergencies. Then I just got really involved in learning about radio tech that uses the internet, and started working on a webSDR project to get a local server set up. In between all of that I've participated in some ARISS SSTV events via the International Space Station and have some nifty commemoration certificates on my wall. And finally I made a bunch of new friends and became part of a group that actually mostly observes a really high standard of communications decency and loves to support learning and technology. Through the community I've befriended astronomers, cops, engineers, firemen, physicists, all of those things I idolized as a kid. This is to say nothing of the gadgetry, the ability to reach out across the world using any number of methods. Randomly getting in touch with a Japanese radio operator whose daughter lives just down the street from where I used to live in Japan. Talking to a Hugh from Ireland and telling him about my son who is also named Hugh. Getting my kids on the air and asking a bunch of radio operators across the US to take turns wishing them a happy birthday just for fun. Knowing they're enjoying it too. Fun little moments like that.

untog 7y ago

I think (perhaps unfairly) that these fun hardware projects are often parents like ourselves harking back to a day when exactly that sort of thing was absolutely fascinating... but that's not the world we live in now. Which one is going to be more rewarding: building a smartphone, or making an app? It's the latter. That's not to say hardware stuff can't thrive, just perhaps not at the scale venture capital would require.

logifail 7y ago
> Which one is going to be more rewarding: building a smartphone, or making an app? The counterpoint to this would be: if your child built an app and showed it to their friends, would they be impressed? How about if they built a smartphone?
- untog 7y ago
  They'd probably be more impressed with the app. They could all download it to their phone and use it together!
  - Tempest1981 7y ago
    But they already have dozens of similar social apps... it would need to be unique, not just another chat app.

rexpop 7y ago

Your job made you take time out of your regular workday? How many hours are you working, weekly?

mch82 7y ago

Check out the Arduino Leonardo for your son. It can emulate a USB HID input device (keyboard, mouse, joystick, etc). So your son can create custom controllers for his games. Just map GPIO to keys & analog pins to xyz scrolling & you’re off & running :-)

reilly3000 7y ago
Will do! He’s already gotten into a second keyboard for macros and attempting to repurpose a semi-broke game pad. This will be right up his alley!

dmix 7y ago

The world needs more good software than another person making toy electronics IMO. I see them as a hobby for electronics people, non-programmer computer types, or just for fun for anyone. But given a choice between some cute electronic that won't leave my house and building a web or github based side project that thousands of people could potentially use, I'd go with the latter every time. I say that after giving up on my own gaming electronics thing I was building until I realized my time could be better spent and I could buy a finished one from China for half the price.

yitchelle 7y ago
>> The world needs more good software than another person making toy electronics. Rather sad to read that electronics is thought of as a toy. It is the "body" which software runs on. I agree cute electronics is probably not that useful but the are many others.
- worldsayshi 7y ago
  Perhaps it's because you need to invest so much more time to make something useful in hardware. In software it's still possible to make small useful projects.
  - Tempest1981 7y ago
    Hardware is, well, hard. But the kits available can make it much easier and more approachable. You just need to learn the ecosystem -- like learning a computer language and development environment.
- amelius 7y ago
  In the embedded world, electronics is a useful skill. Also RF design or low power design are very valuable skills.
logifail 7y ago
> The world needs more good software than another person making toy electronics [..] I'd be just as happy to see my kids getting interested in electronics as coding.

_hardwaregeek 7y ago

I've noticed that it's hard to get really great returns on maker projects. Maybe it's my impatience but software provides me something immediate that's cool and useful. Besides, debugging software is worlds easier for me than debugging circuitry. Also, why are microcontrollers stuck in the C++ world? Stuff like CircuitPython is changing that, but it's not that ubiquitous. I'd love an ergonomic and mature Rust ecosystem on Arduinos, or even a gasp JavaScript runtime. Shouldn't chips be fast enough for this? I'd love to run some basic web stuff on an Arduino. Adafruit has been driving a lot of usable, rewarding electronics. They've been pushing LEDS (mostly WS2812 and APA102) in usable, prepackaged form factors. I really love their LED strips that are already diffused. They're beautiful and immediately usable. They're a little expensive, but I use their products to try out my ideas. But besides them there's not a lot of companies who make physical hardware appealing and available. Side-note, why aren't there LED strips with a 3.3v logic level??? Almost all microcontrollers have a 3.3v logic level but APA102/WS2812 have a 5v logic level. Very annoying to convert.

pbadge 7y ago
Hey I'm building a hardware company to address affordable housing 10x faster than existing approaches, read a bunch of your comments and they seem really insightful. Want to get coffee? Shoot me an email if you're interested at Pbadger27<at>gmail.com
heeen2 7y ago
In my experience you can drive ws2811 with 3.3v, the signal gets conditioned after the first led.
sokoloff 7y ago
For battery powered applications, you want power efficiency, which often means using “portable assembly” (aka C/c++). A lot of micro-controllers are run from batteries, especially high-volume products, so there’s always going to be a pull towards power efficient languages, even if your app has wall power available. Second heeen’s comment on using 3V3 directly. I built Halloween costumes that ran directly off an 18650 powering the Arduino and driving the APA102 LED strings. No issues as the batteries ran from 4.2+ to 3.7 or less volts. If it was life safety, I’d care, but for blinkenlights, I’m willing to push outside the datasheet.

webreac 7y ago

Time is also my problem (I have 3 childs). I also think that the amount of effort needed to produce something with enough polish to be useful (software or hardware) is very high. IMHO, the quick pace at which everything change is a major cause of this complexity. Even for professional products, for example it is already difficult to find hardware supported by redhat 6. As opposite, see the effect of stability of arduino or ne555.

fizzledbits 7y ago

I had a similar experience until I realized how many other hobbies exist among friends and family that I could apply the knowledge to. I worked with my brother and cousin to add “push to” functionality to their homebuilt telescopes using IC linear magnetic encoders, which are so small they can be embedded in pockets in the wood, making for a much more integrated and beautiful scope than is possible with off the shelf products. Now making a more robust version of a similar gizmo to instrument my brother’s millwork shop. Then a wireless temperature/fan regulator for my grill. Guitar (or keyboard) effect pedals make for an endless series of wonderful, creative projects as well. In other words, all stuff we’d be doing anyway, to which the widget hacking adds an extra dimension of improvement and interest. As a kid I imagine I would have loved to build weird game controllers with my dad. Or customized RC airplanes. I hope companies like osh park, sparkfun and so on never go the way of radio shack.