It would be nice for the world to acknowledge that gender isn’t relevant to someone’s contributions to a software or hardware project. You’d be one hundred percent right to believe that. From my perspective, as someone who weighed this decision myself, it does matter to someone considering joining a community. It does matter when you see a list of contributors, listen to a panel or see a photo from an event and don’t see a lot of people who look like you. A person could very well feel like she doesn’t belong.
It made me realize that being a part of a community that encourages all types of people to participate is where I wanted to be. And I’m here to state that the RISC-V community is open in every sense of the word. It’s an active, enthusiastic, supportive group that — above all — wants everyone to have access to free and open hardware and software. The RISC-V Foundation is so new that almost everyone is a newbie, and the culture of the community is still being formed.
Also check out her presentation on RISC-V debugging from the last RISC-V Workshop.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
