Leah Buechley felt that designing and building electronics was problematic. The process was slow, expensive and the outputs were limited. Electronics were small, hard to use and not aesthetically pleasing.
How to “sketch” with electronics is Buechley’s TED Talk from 2011 where she demonstrates some of the projects she developed at MIT’s Media Lab. The first demonstration is the sketchable circuit, designed to be fast, inexpensive and fluid. Circuits, switches, controllers and a musical interlude are demonstrated using magnetic electronic pieces, ferrous paper, and a conductive pen.
After developing these tools the Media Lab team explored the idea that anything involving a pen and paper can now be an electronics project. The next demonstration is a pop-up book where the act of pulling the tabs causes different images and objects in the book to light up.
These ideas were spread to the masses in workshops and on display at conferences over the last five years. Buechley next developed the LilyPad Arduino, a set of sewable electronic pieces that help people to build their own interactive textiles. Light sensors, temperature sensors, accelerometers, push buttons and slide switches are used for inputs. RGB LEDs, speakers and vibrating buttons are used as the outputs.
Leah Buechley is a great speaker and this talk is almost five years old but still demonstrates the goals she had to develop new tools and share those tools with the world. In July she gave a very interesting talk about the Maker movement and diversity at Constructing Modern Knowledge 2015. All of the ideas here are built around the desire to inspire future generations to pursue STEM and STEAM careers, and the combination of art, creativity, and scientific learning.