In honor of Women’s History Month, we’d like to celebrate the wonderful team over at Alpenglow Industries who are leading by example in the female maker-sphere. Special thanks to Adafruit’s Phillip Burgess for bringing them to our attention.
Here’s more about their mission:
On a more serious note, women are especially underrepresented in the technical electronics industry (fewer than 10% of electrical engineers are women), and we at Alpenglow Industries aim to be a force of change. We’re adamantly against business models that target women by doubling-down on stereotypes of what women are “supposed” to be interested in – i.e. the shrink it and pink it movement or the three things I hate most are math socks (only available in women’s sizes of course). We promote women by being a company of women creators ourselves and making what speaks to us; highlighting the accomplishments of our female tech leaders, mentors, and friends; teaching concepts in plain language without judgement, and teaching technical jargon instead of lording it over everyone; and reaching out to communities that are already predominantly women (ex: knitting and textiles), while creating electronics gadgets relevant to their existing interests.
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.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 7.3.0 RC0 Out and Much More! #Python #CircuitPython @micropython @ThePSF
