[atoav]

As an electonics labs person I applaude all efforts to mske our practise more renewable. However this is a circuit that I would have wired without PCB at all, directly point to point, wire to pin.

Better than a greenwashed alternative is to avoid using msterial that is not necessary. Yet one also had to consider the whole lifetime of a product: ten throwaway circuits versus one very durable one etc.

[itsdesmond]

They’re investigating “can circuits be produced from”, not asserting “this is a better medium for this exact circuit”. It is a tutorial on creating clay PCBs at all, a demo of the technique.

[atoav]

Yes. And thus using a circuit that has the complexity of a circuit one would put onto a circuit board would be a good demonstration. E.g. showcasing vias and other circuit board technologies.

Understandably the first step is to start simple, but that is the essence of my criticism: Too many of these projects become viral hits that stop making any progress after the first symbolic success. Cynics would say these projects all too often stop exactly at the point where the actual challenges start.

And as someone who cares about the environment, I am not sure how I feel about a hundred symbolic projects that go nowhere. Are the substrates of PCBs really the problem? What if people have to throw entire devices with mud PCBs into the bin after a year because the mud PCB couldn't handle the vibration and humidity? Is that environmentally sound?

I'd love to someone really explore alternative PCB materials. But that means living in reality and compsring the whole lifecycle of the result to existing technologies. A automotive tire made of mud is also environmentally sound. It is just that it falls apart after half a block.

[jand]

> Too many of these projects become viral hits that stop making any progress after the first symbolic success. Cynics would say these projects all too often stop exactly at the point where the actual challenges start.

What can you do to ensure the "real work" can actually be done, more precise paid for? Well, you could demo early in hope to attract coins. Maybe that is happening here.

[itsdesmond]

You’re bringing so much weird baggage to this. A viral hit? This is a ~2,300 word piece, equivalent to an article in The Atlantic introducing a 30 page PDF tutorial and code repo which is ran as a workshop in hacker spaces and at conferences. It isn’t a proposal for a new scale industrial process seeking VC funding.

You’re critiquing it for not being something you value, but it isn’t trying to be that thing. They’re not doing the thing you think they are badly, they’re doing something you haven’t bothered to understand.

Honestly, I think the only way one could look at this and bring that critique is if they both didn’t look at shit but the pictures and saw the word “feminist” used and began to intellectually infantilize the authors.

[atoav]

I am a feminist myself so why would that be reason to critique anybody over it?

The "weird baggage" I bring to this is thst I run an electronics lab at the university level. Of course this means I have seen a lot. My criticism by the way doesn't have a lot to do with these projects themselves, more with how a specific type of writing is treating these projects and how readers with insufficient background knowledge would then misunderstand it.

A comparable thing is when scientific writers talk about how a promising first material test is likely the battery technology of the future. How do you feel after reading decades of these articles?

And don't get me wrong: I do believe that these efforts can ultimately lead to actual change. We just need to be transparent what it is and how long it takes to introduce actual change.

[codebje]

I love freeform wire circuits.