Happy Pi Day!

Source: etsy.com via minouette on Pinterest

It's March 14th, also known as 3.14 or Pi Day! Here's some pi-inspired items from the Mad Scientists of Etsy.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day – Wearable Electronics Edition by Polymath

Originally posted by Polymath

Ada Lovelace Day was established last year as an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. If you’re not already familiar with Lady Ada, it’s worth learning more… The daughter of Lord Byron, she worked with Charles Babbage on his analytical engine and wrote the world’s first computer program.



In honor of Lady Ada, I’d like to highlight a handful of the women who inspire me in the world of wearable electronics and soft circuitry.

Leah Buechley

Director of the High-Low Tech research group at the MIT Media Lab, Leah developed the Lilypad Arduino – the microcontroller boards I’ve been using in my own wearable electronics experimentation. It’s a dream of mine to someday be involved with her lab – they come up with incredible, innovative, and beautiful things there!

LED Bracelet - Leah Buechley, 2005

Hannah Perner-Wilson

One of the graduate research assistants in Leah Buechley’s lab, Hannah has developed some incredible resources for others interested in wearable electronics, including the reference site HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT (with Mika Satomi) and a bunch of Instructables.

Knit & Crocheted Sensors - Hannah Perner-Wilson, 2009

Diana Eng

You may recognize Diana’s name from her stint on Project Runway a couple of years ago. She’s still going strong with wearable technology - most recently authoring Fashion Geek and creating Fairytale Fashion, a collection with electronics and shape-changing garments which integrated feedback from the public through her website during the design process. For extra geek points, she also covers ham radio for Make magazine!

Twinkle Dress and EL Wire Dress - Diana Eng, 2010

Syuzi Pakhchyan

Syuzi wrote Fashioning Technology, the first book that I picked up on the subject of soft circuitry, and runs a community by the same name. Syuzi is great about encouraging more people to experiment in the field – the Fashioning Tech community is very welcoming, and she regularly shares the projects that members blog about there.

ePuppets - Syuzi Pakhchyan, 2008

Alison Lewis

Alison is the founder of SWITCH and author of SwitchCraft. She also teaches at the Parsons School of Design, and brings a more high-fashion perspective to her work. I was incredibly flattered when she recently featured my Skirt Full of Stars on SWITCH.

Rodarte-style Lighted Heels - Alison Lewis, 2010

Becky Stern

Becky may have done more to spread the word of DIY soft circuitry than anyone else. As Associate Editor at MAKE and CRAFT, she frequently shares wearable tech projects and has produced a couple of CRAFT videos about wearables. She also teaches soft circuit workshops (I had to miss the one at Urban Craft Uprising in Seattle last summer because I didn’t have anyone else working my booth), and sells soft circuit starter kits through her company, Sternlab.

Lilypad Embroidery - Becky Stern, 2008

Lynne Bruning

‘Textile Enchantress’ Lynne makes absolutely stunning garments that frequently involve things like electronics or UV-reactive materials. She has also generously shared quite a few instructables of soft circuitry techniques. I’m particularly fascinated by the work she’s been doing using smart fashion to assist impaired individuals – like this sonar garment for the visually impaired.

Bats Have Feelings Too - Lynne Bruning, 2009

Angela Sheehan

Creator of the blog Soft Circuit Saturdays, Angela is another maker who has been diving deeply into wearable electronics. I love seeing what another dedicated explorer who is not a professional in the field comes up with!

Temperature Sensing Cup Sleeve - Angela Sheehan, 2009

Interested in seeing more posts honoring women in science and tech? Check out the list of posts over at Finding Ada, or follow the #ald10 tag on twitter.

Ada Lovelace Day 2010 MSOE Blog Mash-up

Today is the second annual international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science, Ada Lovelace Day 2010 (ALD10). I'm sure you'll all recall, Ada, brilliant proto-software engineer, daughter of absentee father, the mad, bad, and dangerous to know, Lord Byron, she was able to describe and conceptualize software for Charles Babbage's computing engine, before the concepts of software, hardware, or even Babbage's own machine existed! She foresaw that computers would be useful for more than mere number-crunching. For this she is rightly recognized as visionary - at least by those of us who know who she was. She figured out how to compute Bernouilli numbers with a Babbage analytical engine. Tragically, she died at only 36. Today, in Ada's name, people around the world are blogging about women in science and technology, whose accomplishments have all too often gone unrecognized or unacknowledged.

Today, the Mad Scientists of Etsy, many of whom are women in science and technology, is hosting our own ALD10 Blog Mash-up. We'll be posting on this topic all day and collating results here. You can find links to individual MSOE blog posts below:

Ada Lovelace Day: Rosalind Franklin & Henrietta Swan Leavitt by Ulixis
Ada Lovelace Day 2010 Profile: Ursula Franklin by minouette
In celebration of Ada Lovelace: Marie Curie by AliciaMae
Happy Ada Lovelace Day – Wearable Electronics Edition by Polymath
Ada Lovelace and Henrietta Swan Leavitt, of computers and stars by bijoutery