Women on the Mic // Year in Review

Every week at 10am PST, Hackster Café now features a video interview with someone from the hardware community. In these last days of Women's History Month, I'd like to highlight a few of our interviews from the past year. They may not technically be history yet, but these folks are certainly destined for greatness.

Come back to make sure you catch 'em all, as we are making sure everyone wants to be included in the article. It bears saying that extra online attention can translate to harassment – especially for women, and more so if they have intersecting marginalized identities. We're also making sure not to misgender anybody by including them (a practice we definitely recommend for articles like this).

Don't miss the extra hardware features at the bottom! We've pulled together some extra projects and products to complement the theme.

Features from the past year

Emily Velasco and the Orb: After her previous Lissajukebox project, we welcomed Emily back for a second interview, to talk about the Orb – a wibbly-wobbly speaker in a custom-made wooden enclosure, producing weird and wonderful sounds. Check out the live demo around 21:15, and follow Emily on Twitter and Instagram.

Jill Ogle of Remo.tv: This interview included interactively driving telepresence robots around Jill's place! It was a ton of fun, and we got to hear about building and running a community around these bots, as well as putting together a kit.

Debra Ansell, aka geekmomprojects: We got a peek into Debra's workshop, a sparkling wonderland filled with sculptural LED experiments. More recently, Debra has been exploring different ways to combine LEDs with mirrors for various effects, and she's also created a strangely compelling Blob. Follow Debra on Twitter and Instagram.

Lenore Edman of Evil Mad Scientist Labs: We chatted about the AxiDraw Mini kit, running a hardware business, overlooked products in the EMSL shop, and more. Lenore is that person who comes to each conference with sewing patterns for adding pockets to your dresses, and has also been described as the "fairy godmother of making" and "ultimate reference librarian for matters maker, scientific, and technical." It certainly `fits! Follow Lenore on Twitter.

Charlyn Gonda's chic hardware: Charlyn combines diverse materials and techniques – 3D prints, electronics, laser-cut wood, plastic foliage, LED "neon", origami – to create polished, modern (and rainbowy) pieces that would be at home in an interior design or jewelry catalog. Follow Charlyn on Twitter and Instagram.

Kitty Yeung's BLE brooches: Kitty is another returning guest, and this time, we explored her beautiful smart brooches. A complement to her fashion tech line, Art by Physicist, these flower-shaped wearable-tech pins help parents and children stay together. We also took a look at her Micro:bit-powered teapot cozy. Follow Kitty on Twitter and Instagram.

More projects and products

As the resident video personality, I've also shared some projects on the Hackster channel, including the Wonder Woman Mind Tiara! This was a collaboration with the AARP, for their contest seeking solutions to alleviate the symptoms of menopause. Here's the video where I modeled an enclosure for my wearable alertness device.

I also got to unbox this "Doctor Who" HiFive Inventor Coding Kit, which features lessons narrated by Jodie Whittaker, the first female Doctor Who!

And finally, the gorgeous "Space Girl" badge soldering kit from Elkei Education! Here's the assembly video:

Check back and stay tuned!

I believe that parity is best achieved by ensuring that we elevate skilled people of all forms, all the time, striving every day to make sure everyone is represented as equals and experts in our mainstream channels – not just once a year, or in special categories. However, events like Women's History Month give us a unique opportunity to showcase this excellence in our community. Plus, these events encourage us to examine how we're doing, and by evaluating our progress, we hope to continually improve.

As mentioned above, we're making sure everyone wants to be included in this article, so please check back! You can also explore the video archives for yourself. And be sure to join us every Tuesday at 10am for more :)