Teardown Session 47: Carrie Sundra and Helen Leigh Discuss Running Hardware Events
** Many thanks to this Teardown Session's sponsor: Qorvo! **
In this Teardown Session, Crowd Supply's Helen Leigh talks with Alpenglow Industries' founder, Carrie Sundra, about running great hardware events, from workshops and meet ups to conferences. As well as sharing their experiences running and attending hardware events around the world, you'll get lots of great advice on running your own events, generating attendance, encouraging inclusivity, setting pricing, and more.
Carrie will also be giving us a sneak peak at some of the things she is preparing for this year's Makerfaire Bay Area along with some other sparkly demos.
Plus, the bizarre truth behind the American Wire Gauge (AWG) is revealed!
Links & Resources
Alpenglow Industries:https://www.alpenglowindustries.com/
Alpenglow on Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@alpenglow
Open Hardware Summit 2025: https://2025.oshwa.org/
Carrie's Supercon 2022 Talk "Manufacturing on a Shoestring Budget": • Hackaday Supercon 2022: Carrie Sundra - Ma...
Carrie's Teardown 2024 Talk: "Using 3D Printed Parts for Production": https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/...
Claire Cassidy (lasermistress):https://www.clairedaniellecassidy.com/
Hardware Happy Hour- Portland: https://www.meetup.com/hardware-happy...
Circuit Launch workspace: https://www.circuitlaunch.com/
Makerfaire Bay Area: https://makerfaire.com/bay-area/
PwrTool 500 HA shunt/monitor on Crowdsupply: https://www.crowdsupply.com/voidbox-i...
About Our Guest
Carrie grew up on the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands, then attended Harvey Mudd College where she proudly scored a 19 on her first electrical engineering exam. Electronics felt esoteric and un-relatable, so she subsequently chose to pursue more mechanical and manufacturing courses. But shortly after starting her first job, she got thrown into fine-pitch SMT soldering and sensor research for a 6” micro air vehicle (and this was in 1999, this stuff didn’t exist yet). Suddenly, faced with a super cool application and concrete “thing” to build and make work, electronics got a lot more interesting. Ever since, she’s designed custom PCBs and helped develop products for a variety of applications - from avionics for small UAVs that are now in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, to livestock thermometers, to waterproof power scrubbers, to assistive devices for freezing-of-gait Parkinson's symptoms, to her own yarn-winding and twisting devices. She now lives in San Luis Obispo, a coastal California town which is home to a burgeoning tech and maker community. She climbs, snowboards, knits, makes stuff, and teaches soldering to anyone who wants to learn.
About Crowd Supply
Crowd Supply is the crowdfunding platform of choice for engineers, hackers, designers, and idealists. We help them with the funding and support they need to deliver respectful, thoughtfully crafted, open source hardware to their delighted backers.
Come see what our creators are making: https://www.crowdsupply.com
About the Teardown Sessions
The Teardown Sessions is a series of interviews and hands-on learning sessions with Crowd Supply creators, staff, and lots of special guests.
Follow Us!
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Twitter: @crowd_supply ( / crowd_supply )
Instagram: @crowdsupply ( / crowdsupply )
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