Synthesis Studios

I recently attended the kick-off workshop for Fritzing, an open-source initiative to help artists and designers turn their electronic prototypes into products. Fritzing was initiated by Reto Wettach at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (just outside of Berlin) in collaboration with André Knörig and Zach Eveland. They plan to create a schematic editor and PCB layout tool that’s easy-to-use for people new to electronics. The goal is two-fold: first, to allow people to document and share the things they’ve made, and, second, to help get them manufactured. In this way, Fritzing builds on and extends the current trend towards homemade and DIY electronics embodied by projects like Arduino and Make Magazine.

Fritzing builds on and extends the current trend towards homemade and DIY electronics. by first allowing people to document and share the things they’ve made, and second helping get them manufactured.

The reason I was involved is because of my work on Arduino, an open- source platform for electronics prototyping — i.e. making the things that Fritzing will help people document and manufacture. Arduino originated at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, where I got a Masters in interaction design. It’s since grown into quite a wide- spread project, with thousands of users around the world, and is used in a number of universities. We were lucky enough to be there as the interest in DIY electronics started to take off and the project expanded quickly. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s rewarding to see the amazing things that people have been able to make as a result. At Synthesis, I’m lucky enough to get to spend 20% of my time working Arduino, which lets me accomplish a lot more than I could in my spare time. (Yet another reason this place rocks.)

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