It’s the middle of February, 2021. What’s going on since I last wrote, and what’s coming up next?

Wrapping up at CaptionHub

My stint at CaptionHub got extended a little, and I finally wrapped in the middle of February, last week. Everything went as well as I could have hoped on the overhaul of some fundamental parts of the codebase that I was working on.

I’m pleased with the decisions we made. It was good to review all the work with the team and agree that, yes, those decisions we took our time over and drew so many diagrams of were sensible ones, and it had been worth investing the time at the point in the process. We added more complexity in one location, but managed to remove it from several others, and I enjoyed the points where code became easier to re-use simply because we had standardised an interface.

A pleasure to be back writing Ruby, too; not just for its familiarity, but for just how it is constantly such an expressive language to work in and to write. And, of course, a pleasure to work with such a sharp and thoughtful development team.

Working with Extraordinary Facility

I started working with Matt at Extraordinary Facility around the end of January. Let’s call this project Ilkley for now. It’s years since I worked with Matt at BERG, and I was excited for the opportunity to work with him again. I enjoy his eye, taste, and process as a designer so much. You should definitely check out his recently published Seeing CO₂ prototype for an example of his approach.

Ilkley is a physical product prototype. I’m taking a prototype that existed between hardware and computer software, and shrinking it into a dedicated box: porting all the code to run on a microcontroller, building the user interface, adding necessary extra hardware to make it entirely standalone… and then designing custom circuit boards to fit into an enclosure. That means: firmware, a bit of EE, some CAD, and then iterating software to get it feeling right. Leaping back and forth between the digital and physical, and code, electronics, and atoms; from pens and paper to alt-tabbing between code editors, KiCad, and Fusion 360. It’s been highly enjoyable so far.

I’ve appreciated the way Matt is laser-focused on the outcomes he’s looking for. The existing prototypes were the design work; this phase is entirely about bringing that design to life. Implementation, feasibility, and building a roadmap for the future. Until he can get more people to use it, it’s not worth us spending time altering anything else. We still go off on diversions and discussions, of course, as we chat things over, but they’ll get gently parked before they jump their place in the queue. It’s great to still have those discussions, though!

Our first tranche of work investigated whether what Matt hoped for was possible. The answer was an emphatic yes, and by the end of it, we’d gone from a large breadboard and tangle of jumper wires on my desk to a small, custom “bench prototype” PCB. Nothing that could fit into a box yet, but something I could reliably send Matt (in New York) to evaluate and test. (Which in itself helped me prototype the answers to “_how do we best ship prototypes across the Atlantic_”).

I also could then start prototyping other submodule circuits on breadboards, experimenting with them whilst not worrying about the main electronics, which were ‘frozen’ thanks to having a fixed design.

One top tip from this process: something that helped enormously was continuously maintaining an up-to-date schematic of the breadboard prototype as I worked on it. As I built the tangly prototype on my workbench, I also drew it up in KiCad, altering it whenever wiring changed, or resistor values were altered. The tangle got more complex as time went on, but this didn’t matter, because there was always a map of it available in the ECAD tool. When we were happy with the prototype I’d been demoing on video calls, it was easy to start the work to turn it into a PCB because I already had the schematic. I didn’t need to start deciphering the knot of wires; I could just put them to one side and move straight onto board layout.

I did exactly the same for the small submodules as I built them; those schematics would then be ready to use again for the first ‘full’ prototype.

Progress has been really good, and I’m going to start a second phase of work soon, to take the various sub modules and bench-sized prototype, and start turning it into an entirely self-contained object. That’s going to run over the next couple of months, I’d imagine, with some gaps to get things fabricated and pull things together.

Teaching at UAL CCI

Having wrapped at CaptionHub, and with at least one client project moving on, I’m also going to be teaching an undergraduate course at UAL’s Creative Computing Institute - the Sound and Image Processing module for students in the first year of their BSc. One afternoon a week, for the next three months.

Why teach? I’m not an academic, and don’t plan to become a full time researcher or lecturer. But I’m dovetailing a small amount of teaching around my client work over the past few years - Hyper Island, the IOC, and now this.

A few answers spring to mind.

Firstly, it’s a bit about the shape of the “industry” I work within. I’m a consultant and freelancer. How do I develop talent, or share my knowledge with others? I can’t do it with the other employees of my company of one. Sharing my knowledge with students and learners through teaching engagements is one way I can. Many of my peers who are located more within the Design community integrate teaching into part of their practice well, and whilst I often use the word ‘design’ to describe a lot of my work, ‘technology’ is also an important part of my practice - and ways of integrating teaching into technical practice is something I perhaps don’t see as much of. So I’m going to see how it goes.

Secondly, I find it a great way to cast a lens at my own practice. Nothing forces you to re-evaluate your own work, approaches, or knowledge, than having to explain or discuss ideas with others. Is it selfish to say that? I don’t think so; more just to reinforce that you can’t help but learn things yourself by going through the process of teaching.

And perhaps most importantly - I learn from all the students I teach. This is in part a reflected version of the previous point - yes, I learn by looking at my own understanding and reflecting on it… but I also learn from listening and sharing with others. Students and learners at all levels bring new perspectives, expertise, experience, and ways of understanding to the table, and I (along with the rest of the group) get to share in that with them.

All of which I value. So, an opportunity arose, to think about images and sound from first principles, and ways of exploring and explaining that. I said yes.

---

Which all feels like a good slate for now: prototyping design products; teaching about the landscape of code; a little slack between all that for reflection and personal development and work, which (at the end of a year that was already busy before being A Bit Much on top of it all) is much needed.

Onwards.