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Welcome to the CircuitPython Show. I'm your host, Paul Cutler. This episode, I welcome

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Noe Ruiz, who is a designer engineer with Adafruit Industries and the co-host of 3D

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Hangouts, which you can catch every Wednesday on the Adafruit YouTube channel.

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Noé, welcome to the show.

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Thanks for having me.

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How did you first get started with computers and electronics?

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Sure. We'll start with the computer first and then electronics. So back in the 90s,

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like around '94, '95, my brother Pedro, he saw an advert or an infomercial on local television

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about using a Macintosh to like do your book reports and edit video and do graphic, you

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know, publishing.

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Like, so, he was like really enamored in that and it really got him into like, "Let's get

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a Mac" because we didn't have a computer yet and you know, it was the 90s and folks were

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trying to get computers and that was I think a really good investment.

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It wasn't cheap but man, did we just invest all our times and learning how to use that

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thing like using Super Power Goo and like all these like creative Mac paint, you know,

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kind of style apps that really got me on like the track to doing like creative design work.

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And then for the electronics, I got a Makey Makey, I think around December of 2012 or

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2013.

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We saw their Kickstarter video, me and Pedro did.

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We thought this would be a really cool like kind of gadget that we can, you know, play

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with and maybe make some projects around.

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So the Makey Makey was like our first like entry into electronics.

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How did you get into design?

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- Design, like I've always been enamored with design.

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For high school, I took a commercial arts class

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and there I learned the principle of design,

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color theory, typography, and it was a good mix

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of doing the traditional stuff, like printing things out,

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making things for stationery, but also designing things

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in Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Illustrator.

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So that's where I really got to get my training in.

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And design for me has always been like a thing.

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Before I had a computer, it was always drawing.

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So it was always like creative in that realm,

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like just drawing and loving special effects from movies

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like Jurassic Park and watching,

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I think it was called Movie Magic on Discovery Channel.

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Like that's like the sort of stuff

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that we were like really into.

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So I think that's kind of how I got into design.

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- How did you first get into design for 3D printing?

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- Yeah, so really it started off

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when Pedro decided to get a MakerBot Replicator

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near the end of 2012, he saw that it was a really big thing

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that happened.

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I guess it was like CES.

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He saw that the MakerBot Replicator was something

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that you can now purchase.

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You don't have to put it together.

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It's ready to go out of the box.

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It was really focused around creative designers.

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So he just went ahead and bought that.

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He already had 3D modeling experience.

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I had barely any 3D modeling experience.

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But I saw him 3D print one of his models that he made.

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At that time, we were working on a iPhone game

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that was centered around the Tron light cycle type of game

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mechanic.

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And he 3D printed his Tron cycle model.

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And I was like, this is so freaking cool.

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I got to learn how to do this.

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I don't know how I stumbled upon this TinkerCAD.

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Back in those days, it was a very scrappy, small team.

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But it was a web-based 3D modeling app

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that was like you just dropped in primitive shapes, you smashed them together and you

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can make something really cool.

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So, I thought I'd make - I think it was either a pencil holder that eventually turned into

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like a planter because Pedro actually was - he had a collection of carnivorous plants.

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These are like pitcher plants, the penthes plants.

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And I thought it'd be really cool to make like a planter that was like a face and the

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picture plant and the leaves were kind of like its hair.

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So I spent my time working on that and I came up with this kind of cool thing.

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You can actually still find my Tinkercad designs from 2012, 2013 and I thought that was like

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the coolest thing ever.

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So I just kept at it, making more and more planters.

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Eventually, I got into you know, making things around the house like light fixtures, little

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signs that were all you know, based around typography and stuff.

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that's kind of how I got into design. I was like, the printer was there and I wanted to

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do something. I saw a page would do something, I was like, I gotta do something to you.

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A lot of your designs use snap fit enclosures. How and why did you start designing this way?

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Yeah, so snap fit enclosures was something that like, I think the way I remember is like,

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I remember doing the Pie Girl project for Adafruit back in like 2013 or 2014. And all

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My projects from that era was all screw driven standoffs,

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like you have screws for everything.

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But as you know, with Adafruit Learn Guides,

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we have to document assembly

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and screwing things over and over again

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for years and years and years became kind of a nuisance.

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And I remember getting the idea

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by looking at the enclosure for my dental floss, right?

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Or maybe even it was a shampoo bottle,

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But all these things have these little snap fit, like tops that have this tiny

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little ridge and a tiny little like indentation.

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And I was looking at it when they brushed my teeth.

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I was like, what if I could, I could design this into the enclosure.

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So I no longer need to like invest my time into screwing

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things and taking it apart.

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So it took me quite a few times to really nail like the right layer height and the

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right size and geometry for the snap fits.

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So I think around the Pie Girl Zero, which was like maybe the third or fourth Pie Girl,

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because we've done so many of them, that's when I finally figured out, okay, I can, this

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is like the right kind of recipe to make snap fit enclosures.

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And then from then on, I just started adding it to everything.

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So I think that's kind of the origin story.

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Dental floss.

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That is a great story.

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I would have never guessed that that was the origin and the inspiration for snap fit enclosures.

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Yeah.

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person came up with that and it's just like you see it everywhere. You know, all the shampoo

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models and like as a dental floss, they all use this snap fit kind of thing, which is

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like super clever.

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You've been doing 3D hangouts with Pedro for over 500 episodes in 11 years. What are some

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of your favorite memories?

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Yeah, so I had to look back because like we've - it's been a while, right? So, I think the

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The most memorable one was doing it live in New York at the Adafruit headquarters and

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we did an episode where we had like five guests.

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We had Philip Burgess, we had Scott Shawcroft, we had a bunch of people on it.

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Like I forget, like we had a bunch of people on that.

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It was a really fun show and it warrants another re-watch because it was just fun to see how

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many folks in Adafruit we could stuff into the camera there, in the camera shot.

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So that was a really memorable one.

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Off to see if I can track that one down and add it to the show notes.

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Yeah, please do.

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Any other memories come to mind that you've enjoyed over the years?

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The other memorable moment was just the first one. It was the first episode.

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It was really nerve-wracking and re-watching it for just a couple minutes.

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You know, I feel a little cringe because hearing my own voice doesn't sound that great,

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but it's nice that it was like our beginning journey of like,

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Like how do you structure a show?

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What kind of segments?

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Yeah, it felt more structured back then.

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Like we had more 3D news was a part of the beginning of the show.

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And we had another co-host actually.

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We had Matt Griffin, who was Adafruit community lead.

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And he helped us out really doing the first episode.

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He eventually went on to work with Ultimaker.

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But it was really cool to have like three people doing this where he would cover the

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And then we would do a little bit of layer by layer.

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And then I think we ended it with our learn guides.

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But yeah, episode one, that's got to be a nice milestone

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to do the first one.

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You maintain a GitHub repository of CAD files

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for Adafruit parts.

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What goes into creating each part?

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Yeah, so Lamar, you still use this Eagle CAD, which

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has now been folded into Autodesk Fusion.

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And they have this nifty feature where

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open an Autodesk--

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I mean, you can open an Eagle CAD file in Fusion

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and generate it into a 3D model.

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So from there, you can choose how thick you want your PCB.

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You can choose what color of solder mask, silkscreen.

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You can map different 3D models to all the different footprints

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for the components.

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So what I end up doing is I just click that Generate button.

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And then from there, I clean up some of the solder mask stuff

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because there's some extra labels and stuff.

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But from there, I really like DigiKeys.

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Searching through DigiKeys catalog,

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you can find a lot of 3D models of all sorts of components--

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jelly bean components, of course,

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but also a lot of the temperature pressure sensors

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are all out there.

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All the CAD models are out there for those various types

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of sensors.

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So it's really nice to get those and then just map them

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to the 3D model.

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I think a few years ago, I had to draw

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them out by--

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not by hand, but you would get the data sheet,

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and you would sketch it out and make the part by hand.

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But nowadays, I rarely have to do that,

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because it's amazing just how many 3D models

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of various sensors and components there are.

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So it's really nice.

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And DigiKey also brings in 3D models

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from other places like EasyEDE, and I

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think there's a few other ones.

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But they aggregate all the different data

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sheets plus CAD models.

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And another cool thing about DigiKey is you can--

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when I'm searching for a part, there

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is a filter where you can say, show me the 3D model.

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And that way, I can only see the 3D model for the thing, which

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is nice because there's a lot of repeating components,

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like buttons, for example.

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There's so many buttons on DigiKey.

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So it's nice if one manufacturer doesn't have it,

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another one does.

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And it's pretty much the same shape.

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Another thing, I kept doing it so much

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that I needed to make a learn guide and a labor alert

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tutorial on how I do it.

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So there are resources out there now.

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So it's definitely documented.

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But getting the word out is still

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one of those things I struggle with.

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So maybe we can get the word out here now.

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But I need to talk about it more.

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People can request parts via issues on the GitHub repo, too.

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Do you get an opportunity to get to some of those requests

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from time to time?

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Yeah, I try to do one a week.

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This week, I actually did two or maybe three.

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Yeah, I encourage folks to go out there

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and add your part request.

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Normally, I try to just do Adafruit circuit boards,

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not components that we stock from other places,

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like a connector or something like that.

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Those are a little bit trickier to do because I have

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to find a data sheet and draw it from scratch.

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But doing Adafruit PCBs is like--

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I got the workflow pretty much locked down.

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So I encourage folks to add their part request.

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And going forward, we are starting

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to, as the new product gets released,

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as a part of the Learn Guide for that product,

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we're starting to get that generated.

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So we're trying to get those more

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part of the release of the Learn Guide or the product Learn

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Guide.

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BRIAN DORSEY: Very cool.

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You mentioned Layer by Layer earlier,

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which is a playlist you have on YouTube

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through how to design various things using a CAD program like Fusion 360.

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What motivated you to start Layer by Layer?

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Yeah, so me and making tutorials has, it goes way back to like my early web

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design days where I just wanted like a way to kind of teach my co-workers like

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how I could do things, certain things, maybe be more efficient or here's a

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a cool tip on how I design this thing.

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So I've always been doing that for all the different careers,

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I guess you could say, from web design

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to UX design for mobile devices.

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So as I started learning more and more about CAD,

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going from Tinkercad to 123D and then to Fusion,

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I just thought it was an interesting thing to do.

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And I always felt that once you teach something or try

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to do like a tutorial, then you really start to understand like the workflow or the technique.

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So I think it was instilled in me from an early age that that's a really good way to

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kind of learn is to is to like try to teach it.

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If anyone wants to learn more about you and your work, where should they go?

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Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram.

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That's normally where I post my stuff.

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My handle is @Eckin.

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Last question I ask each guest, you're starting a new project or prototype, which board do

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you reach for?

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That's a good question.

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I probably would reach for these days, probably a CutiePie ESP32 type board, mainly because

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it's so small and it has the STEMIQT connector so I can connect all sorts of sensors and

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things to it.

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Yeah, that the CutiePie seems to be like my go to now.

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Noi, thanks so much for coming on the show.

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No problem.

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Thank you for listening to the CircuitPython Show.

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For show notes and transcripts, visit www.circuitpythonshow.com.

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Until next time, stay positive!