516: Voices From the Cataclysms of the Universe
Transcript from 516: Voices From the Cataclysms of the Universe with Sophi Kravitz, Christopher White, and Elecia White.
EW (00:01):
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<music>
(00:31):
Welcome to Embedded. I am Elecia White, alongside Christopher White. Our guest this week is Sophi Kravitz. We are going to talk about art and engineering, and consulting and cosmic rays.
CW (00:44):
Hi, Sophi. It is great to talk to you again.
SK (00:46):
Yeah, it is great to be here again. Thanks.
EW (00:47):
Could you tell us about yourself, as if we met at the Chabot Observatory, looking at various space related art?
SK (01:00):
Sure. Hi, I am Sophi Kravitz. I am an electrical engineer and artist. I work at the intersection of those two worlds, and also sometimes separately.
(01:09):
As an artist, I design and build projects that detect mostly invisible forces. Cosmic rays from distant stars, electromagnetic fields, environmental data. I like to build sculptural experiences that explore various things that come from that data. But I have been working with emotion, like hope, longing. And most recently science fiction, human futures.
(01:41):
As an engineer, I work as a consultant for companies or startups, wear many hats. Wearing many hats is a necessity. I usually work in some form of hardware design, whether I am designing products or testing. Sometimes I write content about the work.
(01:56):
I took 2025 off from engineering consulting, to focus on my art practice. I am getting back into hardware work in 2026.
EW (02:06):
All right. We will be asking about pretty much all of that, I think. But let us do lightning round first. Are you ready?
SK (02:14):
I am ready.
EW (02:15):
Hardware or software?
SK (02:17):
Hardware. Definitely.
CW (02:19):
Art or engineering?
SK (02:19):
Both.
EW (02:22):
Marketing or engineering?
SK (02:23):
Engineering.
CW (02:25):
What is your preferred way to share your projects?
SK (02:28):
That is actually a good question, because I have cycled through various platforms. Right now I am using GitHub quite a bit. I have quite a lot of stuff still on Hackaday.io. I am going to leave it there. I also love that platform.
(02:47):
I put everything on my website, but I think that personal websites are- They are good when you direct someone to go there.
CW (02:54):
Yeah.
EW (02:56):
Favorite source of cosmic rays?
SK (02:58):
My own art, of course.
CW (03:00):
What superpower should they bestow upon you?
EW (03:03):
The art? Or the cosmic rays? Or both?
CW (03:04):
Either one.
SK (03:06):
What superpower? The ability to feel the future.
EW (03:09):
Unicorns or griffins?
SK (03:13):
Unicorns.
CW (03:14):
Do you complete one project or start a dozen?
SK (03:17):
Complete one.
EW (03:18):
Do you have a tip everyone should know?
CW (03:20):
Mmm.
SK (03:23):
I feel like my favorite thing to do right now, is not going to be relevant in probably a year. But, every time I am learning a new software, I have an AI window up as a help chatbot. I got fluent in Blender this year from doing that. I am using it now for AutoCAD, and it is amazing.
(03:44):
But I imagine that by next year, every software is going to have an AI chatbot in it, inside, to help you do that.
CW (03:53):
She is one of the few complete one projectors. I feel like we have a survey now, that says something statistical about whether people start dozens of projects and do not finish them.
EW (04:07):
Both ways are very, very valid.
CW (04:08):
Oh, sure. Sure. Just it is rare for someone to say, "One."
EW (04:10):
I think that people who complete one project say, "No," to the podcast, because that is yet another project.
CW (04:16):
<laugh> Okay. You are right. We have some sampling bias.
EW (04:18):
<laugh>
SK (04:19):
Yes. Yeah, I would agree. Although sometimes I will work on two projects at the same time. I have two projects going at the same time, usually.
EW (04:29):
Well, you talk about art and engineering, and those are separate projects.
SK (04:37):
Kind of. I think that the artist mind of curiosity, as a sort of baseline, is the same as the engineering or the science mind. It all starts with some kind of question or inquiry.
EW (04:59):
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(05:43):
Which brings me to one of the questions I was looking forward to asking on this show. Which is, tell me about the sounds you hear from space.
SK (05:56):
<laugh> Are you asking specifically about my new art project?
EW (06:01):
The one called "Messages from Space"?
SK (06:03):
Yes.
EW (06:04):
Yes.
SK (06:05):
Okay. So maybe I will tell the audience here what that project is, in a brief way. If that is okay.
EW (06:13):
Please.
SK (06:15):
So "Messages from Space" is a project where cosmic rays- Which are real, not science fiction. Particles from space that originate during space violence, like gravitational waves or black holes or any kind of things crashing around in deep space.
(06:32):
Those things travel at the speed of light, but from a far distance. So they originate millions of years ago, before humanity ever existed. And that is really what I think is so cool about cosmic rays.
(06:46):
They come and hit a sensor on the board that I designed, which goes to an SD card of prerecorded stories and sounds about a hundred years in humanity's future.
EW (07:02):
So these cosmic rays not only come from far away, they come from long ago.
SK (07:11):
Yeah. That is right.
EW (07:11):
Sort of a "Galaxy far, far away"?
SK (07:14):
Yep.
CW (07:14):
Some of them come from our galaxy too. But yes, many from "Galaxy far, far away." They are "Star Wars" particles.
EW (07:22):
Exactly.
CW (07:22):
Mm-hmm.
EW (07:22):
That is where I was headed, yes.
SK (07:24):
Mm-hmm. Yep.
EW (07:27):
And then, how do you sense them?
SK (07:31):
The circuitry is similar to a Geiger counter, which is a sensor. The sensor I am using is called a "Geiger–Müller tube." That tube is filled with three gases. Two of them are noble and one of them is not.
(07:50):
What happens is you charge that gas up inside of the tube, the vacuum pack tube, up to a very high voltage. In my case, I have a 375 volt supply on my board. When an ionized radiation particle hits that tube, it causes a short across the tube, which basically makes a one or a zero, or an on or an off. And so I sense that binary.
(08:18):
In a Geiger counter, typically the hits or strikes are counted. And so you might not say it is an alarm, until several thousand strikes have been counted.
EW (08:34):
But instead of that, for yours, you trigger...
SK (08:39):
I trigger sounds, and light.
EW (08:41):
One of the sounds you trigger is a meow.
CW (08:43):
<laugh>
SK (08:45):
It is a meow, yes. A meow and purr. So visually the circuitry sits inside of a sculpture- This project is to be realized in 2026. I have play tested it a couple of times, but it is very much in progress, and the sculptures will probably look something different.
(09:09):
But right now the sculptures look like planets, and one of them has a bunch of cats hanging off of it. And that planet has cat sounds.
EW (09:21):
You have about five, six, a dozen of these planets so far?
SK (09:27):
Yeah, I have six planets. I have made 15 boards. Or, I have had the boards made. The first versions I made myself on my very own hot plate, but the yields was terrible.
EW (09:42):
You took the smaller version to Chabot, which is an observatory in Berkeley, California.
CW (09:49):
And science museum, yeah.
EW (09:51):
Science museum.
SK (09:51):
I brought it to a private event that was held at Chabot Space and Science Center, recently. It was a large party and I was able to show this art piece there.
CW (10:03):
A preview.
SK (10:05):
A preview. Yeah.
CW (10:06):
Okay.
EW (10:07):
How do you know the cosmic rays are going to come when you are having a demo?
CW (10:11):
Oh, they are always coming.
SK (10:12):
Yeah, go ahead Chris. Yeah.
CW (10:14):
You know cloud chambers, right? Do you ever have seen a cloud chamber in a museum?
EW (10:19):
Let us just-
SK (10:21):
They have one at the Exploratorium.
EW (10:22):
Say that I do not. This is not the same as the blue radiation. Cherenkov?
CW (10:30):
Cherenkov radiation? No, that is from nuclear reactors. This is that you get a... Sophi, help me out. You get a chamber and you reduce it to vacuum, and then you get a vapor in it. So it makes kind of a cloud in it, in glass.
(10:44):
Then you can actually see the particles, as they interact with- They make little trails through the cloud, as they come through. They are coming through every second, every three or four a second. They put random directions. Yeah.
SK (10:59):
The amount of time- Well, let me just back up a little bit. So the way they come, they do originate in deep space. They come through our atmosphere, and then they split into showers of secondary particles. What we get here on Earth is the secondary particles of the first particles splitting up. Not that makes it any less cool. Just being more accurate.
(11:29):
And Chris, I actually did not know that is how cloud chambers work, but that sounds about right.
CW (11:34):
I may be making up half of it. So if I am wrong, somebody let me know.
EW (11:37):
It sounds like a cloud chamber and the Geiger–Müller tube are about the same thing, just at scale.
SK (11:43):
Maybe.
EW (11:44):
All right. Well, this is what Wikipedia is for. We do not need the exact technology.
CW (11:46):
<laugh>
SK (11:48):
Yeah, right, exactly. Yes, exactly. I did just see a cloud chamber at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
CW (11:54):
Yeah, I love those. The whole idea of being able to detect these things is exciting to me. I do not know. It is just- Yeah.
SK (12:04):
Yeah. It is super exciting. And you are right, Chris, they do arrive constantly. There is a value for it. They come randomly, so they were at one time used to generate random numbers. But they come to us at the rate of about one particle per second per human head volume.
EW (12:24):
Wow. That is a very specific statistic.
CW (12:27):
<laugh>
SK (12:27):
I have read it in a few different places. And-
EW (12:32):
"Per human head volume." Let me just write that down.
SK (12:35):
So the three of us right now, even though we are on different sides of the country, we are each being bombarded at approximately the same rate, but at random times.
(12:52):
So to come back to your question of how do I know it is going to work, that is how I know. Because it is happening all the time.
CW (13:00):
Real question is if it stops working, has something gone horribly wrong with the universe? Or is it broken?
EW (13:05):
<laugh>
SK (13:08):
That is right. Did a dome just come over the whole of earth?
EW (13:13):
Have the aliens arrived? Or has my battery died? <laugh>
SK (13:18):
Exactly. Yes. I have to say, a very long time ago- Where this project originated from, was I did an internship about 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago, where I worked for a company who made kVp meters. Which are what measure the quality of the image in X-ray machines, used for dentists and other medical procedures.
(13:49):
I believe these devices are- You can still buy them, but I think they are less relevant now because of the digital technology. But I am not really sure.
(13:59):
However, I worked there. My first product as an intern was we designed a radiation detector. A personal radiation detector. It was called "PRD." It was right after September 11th, 2001. I tested the radiation detector everywhere. I also was the person who was writing the firmware, so I could adjust the sensitivity.
(14:29):
I learned that that thing worked everywhere. It worked in the plane. You get more when you are at a higher altitude. It worked in the subway. It worked- Basically, it worked everywhere. What a way to show an intern that there are invisible rays bombarding us all the time.
CW (14:52):
This is why airline pilots get way more radiation than normal people.
SK (14:58):
Yeah. Yeah, that is right.
EW (15:01):
Back to the demo, the smaller demo. So now I accept that not only will it work, because there are particles coming all the time, but that they come in showers. So I can expect the whole thing, a number of the units to react at similar times, because of the shower nature.
(15:30):
"Because of the shower nature." Really? It is like I do not speak for a living. "The shower nature."
SK (15:37):
Yes. Because of the shower effect, it is likely that two or three or four may go off at the same time. In fact, I have a project from 2011 that is called "Radiation orchestra," where multiple sounds play at the same time.
EW (15:57):
What would I hear? Okay, I would get a meow and a purr, and a light up on the cat planet. What other planets do you have? Do they have names?
SK (16:10):
No, not yet. But I imagine that they will.
EW (16:13):
Can I help with that? <laugh>
SK (16:16):
Yes, absolutely. The way I had originally conceptualized this for the stories with that, would be that the planets would be in clusters. And so we would have a biological cluster, an emotional cluster, a scientific cluster, a mechanical cluster, and a healthcare cluster.
(16:39):
In those clusters- The original idea for the piece is that there will be 37 of these sculptures, each one holding a cosmic ray detector. You will walk through a path and experience the music and the stories that these cosmic rays trigger.
EW (17:04):
How do you make music that is approachable, appealing, and random?
SK (17:11):
I am working with two sonic environment developers, whose names are Ria Rajan and Sofy Yuditskaya. They are making this whole thing sound palatable. I think we have landed on making it sound like a sound bath.
EW (17:30):
Okay. Okay, like ambient sounds. I started thinking about games, where you have a soundtrack, but then as you do things, it needs to be pleasant inside the soundtrack. And so...
SK (17:48):
That is about right.
EW (17:49):
Okay.
SK (17:49):
Yeah.
EW (17:49):
Okay.
SK (17:50):
Yeah. I would say that is a really good analogy. I put one of those game sounds, those ching ching sounds, in one of the planets. And after listening to it for a couple of days at Chabot, I was like, "That sound has to go."
EW (18:12):
There are a lot of things that are fun for about five minutes, and then after an hour, you are just like, "Please, no."
CW (18:20):
Well, that is the trick of these procedural things. It is random, but it is also somewhat procedural. The trick is how do you make something that does not just wear a groove into your head.
SK (18:32):
Right. And also is meaningful.
CW (18:34):
Yeah.
SK (18:35):
That is why I have the whole next year to work this out.
EW (18:38):
For me, the cool part is the randomness. And the making something invisible become experiential. I guess, experiencing the invisible, experiencing the ineffable. <laugh> Sorry.
(18:57):
As an engineer, I find that sort of making things approachable- Okay, I get it from an engineering perspective. Tell me about the art.
SK (19:13):
So, why is this art, as opposed to engineering?
EW (19:17):
Well, if it was just engineering, this would just be a sensor and it would just give me ones and zeros. Or maybe it would be the Geiger counter.
CW (19:28):
It would output a JSON file you looked at every afternoon.
EW (19:32):
It would auto graph. Thank you.
CW (19:33):
Right. Yes.
(19:34):
<laugh> All right.
SK (19:40):
So... What is the question?
CW (19:41):
Yes, I agree.
EW (19:42):
The question is, what makes it art?
SK (19:45):
Oh. Is that not always the question? What is art, even?
EW (19:49):
What is art, even? Yes.
SK (19:51):
I think it is art because this installation, "Messages from Space," is more than a sensor. As you said, if it were a sensor, it would just be a Geiger counter, or a JSON file, or a auto generating graph.
(20:06):
This is giving you the randomness, as though it is telling us something about our future as humanity. And so I think this inquiry based installation is the place where it crosses over into art.
EW (20:24):
I can see that. Because when I think about if we generated cosmic rays, as humans- Which I understand we do not, unless something is very wrong. Our cosmic rays could travel through the galaxy, through the galaxies, and in a hundred million years might hit somebody else's art project.
SK (20:49):
Yes.
EW (20:50):
The voices from the cataclysms of the universe is just kind of magical. You do not know that that is always around you, that it is always here. Part of me wants to be able to touch it, but if I cannot touch it, then hearing and seeing it is a reasonable second place.
CW (21:13):
I am going to ask a slightly more specific "Is it art?" question. So I am thinking about a cloud chamber. I am thinking about my experience looking at just a cloud chamber, which is a completely anodyne, not art, not intended to be art. It is a box that you look through.
EW (21:29):
I think the museum curators would have some issue with this, but go ahead.
CW (21:33):
Let us just stipulate it was originally designed as an instrument.
EW (21:37):
Sounds beautiful though.
CW (21:38):
Fine. It is beautiful. I am not disputing it.
SK (21:41):
It is very beautiful.
CW (21:41):
I met it somewhere with us.
EW (21:42):
No, sorry.
CW (21:43):
The particles coming in, There is a sense of wonder there. There is a sense of being connected to things in the universe. So that sterile artifact produces that response.
(21:55):
What is your goal with putting intentional art on top of that kind of detector? What do you want to mediate in the experience beyond just the, "I am looking at a science thing and having a sense of wonder."
SK (22:12):
I am asking people who experience this installation, I want them to imagine future experiences, and to imagine connection and communication, and also optimism and hope. Because that is the futures that I am presenting in this art piece.
CW (22:32):
Okay.
EW (22:36):
How does the optimism and hope come into it?
SK (22:40):
Well, we could definitely read a gazillion science fiction books, and listen to a lot of dystopia that is all around us. I tend to ignore all of that stuff. So all of the fiction that I am writing is optimistic.
(22:57):
And also just realistic. It is not so hard to imagine a future, let us say ten years from now. And then if you went on top of that and said, 20 years, 30 years, or even a hundred years. Which is a pretty big jump, because a hundred years ago, well, we were not here. It was wildly different, and we would not have been able to imagine what was going to come.
(23:20):
But I think there are some things that we can imagine. Some of the stories that I have written are about getting a heart transplant. How does that work? How does a hip transplant work? How do our knees work? What does it feel like when you have not just a eye surgery- I have forgotten what that is called.
EW (23:41):
Cataract?
SK (23:42):
Not cataract, the other-
CW (23:44):
LASIK?
SK (23:44):
LASIK. What happens when LASIK actually lasts forever? What happens when it is genetic modification, and you can just be born with 20/20 vision? Or a third eye?
(23:55):
Some of these things, I think are- They are optimistic and they are not that far out of what could be possibility. So these stories are not science fiction in the sense of a totally different world. It is the same world, but what I imagine things are going to be like in a hundred years. If we are still here.
EW (24:21):
Where do the stories come in? We have talked about sounds and lights, but.
SK (24:28):
Well, there will be 37 sculptures and you are walking down a path. Let us say every fifth or sixth one. Or each cluster will have one that tells stories.
EW (24:40):
Okay.
SK (24:41):
Yeah. Oh, and then a question I get asked a lot about the sounds and the stories- I think eventually you will land on this, so I will just answer it. Why is it not cacophony? Since I did say that they go off all the time.
CW (24:56):
Oh. Yeah.
SK (24:58):
The answer to that is I have tuned them so that they go off every tenth time.
EW (25:04):
So we get some meows and some purrs, and then a cat saying...
SK (25:11):
It is not a cat. The way they are written right now, there are only about six or seven stories fully written and edited. And I will actually, I will put a link to that- I will give you a link to that for the show notes, so people can listen to the stories. They are dialogues. They are between 60 seconds and two minutes.
EW (25:32):
Do they need to go in order?
SK (25:34):
No.
EW (25:35):
Okay.
SK (25:37):
But if you walk into the biological cluster, you are only going to hear stories about how we deal with things like our food. How do we eat? How do we see in the future? If you walk into the mechanical cluster, we might find conversations about transportation, which I picture to be like that podcast "Car Talk."
CW (26:04):
Okay.
EW (26:04):
Okay. So as a cosmic ray comes and hits the designated storyteller in each group, it plays one of the audio snippets, that is a dialogue being held. And it does not have to be in order. Is that right?
SK (26:31):
That is right.
EW (26:31):
Okay. I am getting it. I am getting it. Be easier if I came see it. When can I come and see it?
SK (26:38):
Sometime in 2026.
EW (26:40):
You said that.
CW (26:41):
That is like 30 years from now.
EW (26:42):
I know <laugh>.
SK (26:48):
I am hoping to be able to present this project in its full form, sometime about halfway through the year.
EW (26:57):
Do you have a site? Do you have a place it is going to go?
SK (27:03):
I do not have anything confirmed. But if you are a listener who would like to host this piece, please be in touch.
EW (27:12):
Yes. You can contact the show, and we will forward your information to Sophi. Or you can probably reach Sophi from her website, which will be in the show notes.
(27:21):
Okay. So that is art. Clearly there is electrical and software in there. But you have focused on that for the last year, and now you just need to manufacture a couple dozen more. Trivial problem. Not a trivial problem.
SK (27:41):
It is kind of trivial at this point to manufacture boards, once you have done the first one.
EW (27:47):
Well, you also have to do the sculpture, and make- It sounds like you have the stories, so you have made a lot of the decisions.
SK (27:52):
Yes.
EW (27:56):
Yes, it probably is not as hard as conceptualizing it all, but it is also not going to be, "I am just going to crank out 30 more systems."
SK (28:05):
Oh. That is true. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. Yes.
EW (28:11):
There is a production aspect to it. It is never easy to make 30 of anything, except maybe cookies.
SK (28:21):
Mmm. Yes. I am also a great baker, if this falls through.
EW (28:27):
<laugh> I have heard your birthday cakes are really good. But you have spent the last year developing a lot of this concept and other artworks. But you also said that next year you are going to finish this, and be working as an electrical engineering consultant.
SK (28:50):
Yeah. It was pretty magical to take the year to focus on this project. I worked on some other projects too. I also got pretty fluent in 3D modeling, which I had long fought with for many years. But.
EW (29:05):
How did you get better at it? I start, and then I get so frustrated.
SK (29:11):
Which software?
EW (29:13):
I have started- AutoCAD is the one I always go back to, even though I kind of hate it. But there is a free online version. Yeah. But then I make a box and then I am like, "Okay, I want the box to do this." And I am just look at it and think, "Okay, it would be nice if it did that."
(29:35):
The truth is what I need to do is sketch it out on paper first. Because I just do not have a good mental model, let alone what the actual tools are. But if I could get past the, "I do not know mechanical engineering hardly at all," what would be the tips and tools to get me further with modeling things?
SK (29:57):
I am coming back to your idea of drawing it on paper. My first job in engineering was with civil engineers. My job as a drafter was to view different things from photos, in different views of the same thing.
(30:16):
I just could not figure out how to get a 3D thing onto a flat piece of paper. It was terrible. So I cut pieces of paper up and folded them to make these 3D models, to make that connection in my brain. It took me a long time, but I got there.
(30:37):
Coming back to the first question you asked me was about a tip, and I said, having a ChatGPT or Claude window up while you have a software, is a superpower. I had fought with Blender for years. I think we are up to Blender 4.5 now, and I started trying to learn it at maybe, I do not know, 2.5 and gave up every time. It was just- I feel your frustration, Elecia. You are seen.
(31:11):
But this year, just having that AI window up and fighting it. I worked in Blender almost, I would say almost every day this year, and became proficient, with the help of a chatbot.
EW (31:28):
You are telling me I have to put a lot of time into it? Because I was not signing up for that.
SK (31:31):
<laugh>
CW (31:33):
The thing that helps me get better at CAD- I am not good at it, but I can make simple boxes and mechanisms and things.
EW (31:38):
You have done pretty- Yeah.
CW (31:40):
The thing that helped me, was that I had to do it for a client, and I had to make this work. Therefore I sat down, and I did not use a chatbot, but I had a lot of YouTube videos and stuff open. It was very specific, "Okay, I have gotten this far, and now I want to do this. How do I do this?" And then I would learn to do that little thing.
(31:58):
But there was, I think in Blender 2, there are some fundamental principles like, "Okay, you start with 2D shapes. And you extrude them. And then you subtract things from them, by intersecting them with other things." Once you kind of get that idea- Once I got over that, I felt like all the CAD stuff was like, "Okay, these are all variations on the same theme. You are extruding things, you are taking cuts out of them and that kind of thing."
(32:26):
It gets much more complicated, of course, when you are making something real. But the basics I did not understand. The first few times I tried it was like, "What is all of this? I do not understand."
SK (32:37):
There is a new basic- Oh, like you Chris, I had a client a few years ago who requested that I use Inventor, which is an engineering CAD software for mechanical engineering. I think what happened was their mechanical engineering intern left, and I was there, so suddenly-
EW (32:56):
If the intern can do it.
SK (32:57):
Right. They were like, "Oh, we have a warm body here who can also do this." There was no AI back then. But I also like you, Chris, I had to fight through it just to finish the project. But to add to the extrusion and 2D stuff, there is another thing that I do on the art side. Which is to sculpt the thing by hand in clay and scan it.
CW (33:25):
Ohh. Cool.
SK (33:25):
And get in a, what is like a mesh model. So it is a surface model.
CW (33:32):
And then do you manipulate that further digitally?
SK (33:35):
Yeah.
CW (33:35):
Okay.
SK (33:36):
Yeah. As I get better at digital sculpting, I am feeling my analog sculpting mind, I do not know, surrender or something.
CW (33:45):
<laugh>
EW (33:48):
As you were talking Chris, I was thinking, "Well, that will make sense, because that is what I would do in clay." So Sophi saying, "Do it in the clay," I am there for that.
CW (33:58):
There are applications- I think there are pure sculpting applications too, where you start out with a sphere or a cube, and you go in and you rotate the thing around. I found those difficult, because it is one of those 2D to 3D mapping things in your head, as you are spinning it around and trying to do stuff. But yeah, you can do that.
SK (34:15):
Yeah, you can do that with Blender. You can pull in spheres or cones, and-
CW (34:21):
With a brush. So you are actually kind of using a brush.
SK (34:25):
Mm-hmm. And clay tools, which are surprisingly- They surprisingly map to the analog sculpting tools that I learned with.
EW (34:38):
What software is that?
CW (34:39):
Blender.
SK (34:40):
Blender. So I use-
EW (34:43):
Blender is big and scary. I do not know that I can do this.
CW (34:44):
Blender is much better than it used to be, from the 1.0 days or so. But it does everything now, so it is a little big and scary. It will do video editing too.
SK (34:56):
That is right. The thing you might like Elecia, is that it is all Python based under the hood. So you actually can write snippets of code to do what you want. And ChatGPT taught me how to do that, which was pretty amazing.
EW (35:11):
I could take my origami, which is Python generated, put it into Blender, fold it in clay, and then 3D print it.
SK (35:24):
That is right. And actually that sounds like an amazing project.
EW (35:30):
<laugh> I have some weird new origami, so-
CW (35:34):
I do not know how you get the folding step. That is kind of step two with a question mark.
EW (35:39):
Well, there is the origami simulator, so I am just assuming that I can mash those together.
CW (35:45):
Oh, you might be able to, oh yeah, build it up.
SK (35:47):
I find as someone who really is not that familiar with coding or with Python, I found getting Blender to do stuff in Python, with the help of AI, was pretty straightforward.
EW (36:02):
One of my problems with using AI for tools, is that the AI always seems to be using a random collection of versions. It says, "Go here and do this," and I go there and it is not there.
SK (36:16):
That is right. Yeah. That is super frustrating. I often very sternly tell my AI to- "I am using this version." When I say my AI, I primarily use Claude now, but I started out using ChatGPT the most. I do not use Gemini, just because who needs three AIs telling you what to do?
EW (36:42):
There is no reason to have really- Once you get really comfortable with one. I tend to reach for Gemini, because it is the one that first worked for me. I do not- Yeah, I should try the others. But yes.
(36:58):
Okay. So learning mechanical, but you have been an electrical engineer for a long time.
SK (37:06):
Yeah.
EW (37:08):
Are you worried about having taken a year to focus- See, but your art is still very engineering. I have this question about you taking a break and going back to tech. But your break was full of tech.
SK (37:21):
Yes. It was.
EW (37:22):
This is not the first time you have had a break from doing deep technical work.
SK (37:28):
No, it is not. I worked at Hackaday on the business side for almost seven years. I did not work in a technical role there.
(37:36):
But prior to going to Hackaday, I had a lot of very technical roles. I primarily worked as an engineer with scientists. So the expectations were pretty high that both I would be technical, and also be willing to learn all kinds of minutiae about the specific science.
(37:59):
I was worried. I think a lot of people worry. You get out of your technical role, you go into management, you go into business. These are kind of normal pathways for people who have been in engineering for a long time.
(38:13):
You worry about both getting back into tech, and then also, what does it mean when I become an individual contributor? Or I am a one person company? Or even a three person company? What does it mean to not be in charge of a big department? Or a manager? Or in business?
(38:37):
But I really wanted to be back in engineering. For me, it is very creative. I love it. I never stopped loving it. I honestly just missed it a lot. And it has been very fun to- I feel very grateful that I was able to get back into it. I still love it as much as I ever did.
EW (38:59):
Were you worried? I do not know why I have this fear that if I put down technical work and do something creative, I will never be able to go back to technical work. But I also know I am not alone with that fear.
SK (39:14):
Yeah. I was very worried. I was not sure that I would be able to get a technical role, because I had not done anything technical in a pretty long time.
(39:27):
However, if you join a startup or a small company, they do not care. It is like if you cannot do the work, you are not going to be staying. And if you are doing the work, they are not necessarily noticing if you are- I was spending weekends studying.
(39:47):
I still spend a lot of extra time studying or learning what the actual task is. Maybe that is just my nature and because I am into it. But part of it is also- Or at least in 2021 when I came back to engineering, part of that was just a lack of experience. But like anything, if you want it, you are going to fight for it.
EW (40:14):
I guess this is one of the burnout things, is that at some point I feel tired of technical work. Then I think I have to continue, because there is no way I would ever pick this up again. The truth is, if I would actually give myself some space to heal a little from the burnout, picking it up again would be fun.
SK (40:42):
I think so. And I do not think that you ever lose your ability to reason and problem solve. Even things like your specific technical skills, whatever those might be for anybody, mechanical engineering or coding in Python or electrical engineering, the laws of physics do not change. The tools change.
(41:04):
But as a technical person or as an engineer, the expectation and the necessity is that you are going to keep up with whatever the tool of the day is. Especially if you are working on a team and everyone is using that tool.
(41:25):
I went back to college for engineering at age 36. I think if I had not been in school with people who were 19 at that time, I would have missed the whole idea that your value as an engineer is being able to hop on and off different tools.
CW (41:45):
Yeah, I think that is true. It is a paradox, right? Because stuff does change, but the stuff that changes tends to actually be, I do not know, minutiae. There is not a lot of, "Oh, we are fundamentally changing how computers work this month. And you missed it, sorry." A lot of people will say that the AI is that, but I do not think it is.
(42:10):
That is the same, true of electrical engineering, probably more so for electrical engineering. It is not, "Oop, physics breakthrough. Turns out wires do not exist anymore. You have to learn to use pretzel straws or something." That does not happen a lot. And what we learned as engineers and computer programmers and whatever, is how to learn those things.
SK (42:31):
That is right. Yeah.
CW (42:34):
I lose sight of that, because I am currently, like I said, coming back to doing more technical work. I had done some client work this year, but it was mostly Python and it was mostly kind of glue code, piecing things together. It was not a lot of code doing logic and things like that.
(42:50):
But now I am moving back to embedded stuff, and back with C and C++ and microcontrollers. Yeah, I was like, "I do not know. I do not remember how to do any of this stuff."
EW (43:00):
But your biggest problems so far have been tools, which-
CW (43:02):
My biggest problem has been tools, or-
EW (43:04):
Would have been a problem a year ago.
CW (43:05):
Learning a giant library that I do not know. And what is wrong with it, and why does not it work on this microcontroller? Which- No, I did not. Maybe I lost a step here or there briefly. Like, "Oh, I cannot remember my debugging workflow or something. Or, what is a common problem here?" But that is stuff you pick up.
(43:21):
But the fear of it is real, because when you jump back in, it is a little slower. You are a little both, really, because you have may forgotten a few things that you will pick up quickly, but also because you are hesitant and trepidatious. At least I am.
EW (43:40):
There is nothing like anxiety to make everything go a little slower. Much slower.
CW (43:43):
Right.
SK (43:45):
That is definitely true. But I think also the people that you are working with. My experience mostly in technical roles, has been the people that I am working with are also- Perhaps they are struggling with the same thing. Or they very much understand that it takes a certain amount of time to get familiar with something.
(44:05):
So there is no shame in being like, "I am working hard, and I am going to understand this in X amount of time, if anyone is even asking. I find that usually everyone is too busy to even ask.
EW (44:21):
Yeah, everybody thinks that everyone is looking at them. When in truth, everyone else just wants you to finish what you are doing, so that they do not have to ask about it.
CW (44:31):
I think that is true. I think it is an additional quirk of contract work sometimes, where you are not- At least I feel guilty about, "Oh man, I thought this would take five hours and it is going to take me 30, which is a lot more money for the client or whatever."
(44:45):
So there is that aspect of it too, which I did not feel that so much doing full-time work, because, "I am salaried and everybody is working together," and whatever. But when it is a small client and it is like, "I am billing you hourly," I want to be efficient.
SK (45:00):
Well, you can also remember that, starting in 2026, that small client is going to be paying their full-time people a lot more for health insurance,
CW (45:11):
But I am paying me a lot more for health insurance.
EW (45:12):
<laugh>
SK (45:14):
That is true. That is why you need to work 30 hours, instead of five.
EW (45:16):
And that is why our rates are going up. <laugh> Do not bug us about the higher rates, please. See all of the health insurance and just how much it costs.
(45:28):
But you are going back to work in an engineering capacity. Do you have clients lined up? Or are you looking for some?
SK (45:39):
I am looking for something.
EW (45:41):
What kind of projects do you want to do?
SK (45:45):
What I have done in the past, is work for early stage startups, often wearing a lot of hats. Design engineering, or testing, or marketing even. Or writing content.
(45:57):
In 2026, I am adding a new service, which is helping hardware companies validate their products are ready to launch. So not just testing the hardware itself, but also the complete ecosystem.
(46:11):
Like, "Does your documentation work? Does your app work? Do the accessories connect? If you have an embedded platform that you are putting out into the world, and you spend a lot of money on marketing and your big launch, can the people who have it, can they connect successfully?" That kind of thing.
(46:33):
So like an external reality check, before something gets missed at launch.
CW (46:40):
Okay.
EW (46:41):
Kind of a QA department. Or not that.
SK (46:45):
Kind of.
CW (46:46):
Adversarial QA department.
SK (46:46):
Yeah.
EW (46:48):
"Black Hat QA. If we cannot break it, no one can."
CW (46:51):
Red team.
SK (46:52):
Right. <laugh> Yeah. And some security testing.
EW (46:54):
"Run by toddlers."
CW (46:54):
<laugh>
SK (46:54):
<laugh>
EW (46:54):
Sorry.
SK (46:54):
I realize companies do have- I think companies of course do QA testing, before they ever launch. But a lot of times companies are insular, and they are testing it within themselves. And when it goes to launch...
(47:12):
I am thinking of several pieces of hardware that I have not... I am just not going to name anything. But listeners, I am sure, think of your favorite hardware, that you were not able to get working and you abandoned on the first day. That kind of thing.
CW (47:28):
I think there is a psychological thing. We as software developers should not be testing our own code. Not because we are consciously avoiding breaking it. But because we are unconsciously avoiding breaking it, I guess, for lack of-
(47:43):
But we do not know- We do not try the things that are necessarily a little bit off the wall. Or...
EW (47:50):
Obvious to new users.
CW (47:51):
Obvious to new users.
EW (47:52):
<laugh> That do not have our experience and know that you are supposed to push this button, before that one.
CW (47:57):
There is a thing I learned in the mixing class recently. Where the instructor said, "Once you feel like you are done with the song mix, invite somebody else into the room, just to be there, while you listen to it again."
(48:10):
But they are not allowed to- They do not have to say anything. They are not supposed to comment on it. They are just supposed to be there, and then leave. He says that psychologically, once that person is there, you notice a bunch of flaws that you would not have noticed, because somebody else is just there.
(48:24):
I think it is a similar thing. It is like this outside voice existing, that does not have a connection to your company, or an emotional connection really, or not thinking the same way. I think that is a huge psychological thing for groups and people as well. So it is a great idea.
EW (48:44):
It is kind of rubber ducky ish.
CW (48:46):
Yeah.
SK (48:46):
Yeah. Yeah, and I think from an engineering perspective, I will be able to offer something probably a little bit deeper.
EW (48:56):
"Disco Duck QA Solutions."
SK (48:58):
I am looking for a company name as well. Oh, I do like that, "Disco Duck."
CW (49:03):
I think it is probably a Disney trademark.
SK (49:04):
It is probably taken.
EW (49:05):
<laugh> "Cosmic Duck."
SK (49:09):
Yes.
EW (49:09):
Sorry.
SK (49:09):
It actually kind of- I am going to pull it all the way back to the beginning, where we tried to get onto Zoom.
CW (49:18):
<laugh>
EW (49:18):
<laugh>
SK (49:19):
And you said, "This happens every time." Imagine if Zoom started out with a button that said, "Connect to this audio." Not made you click on some little icon that you do not necessarily- Mine was not on the screen, actually. I had to hover over it to see it.
CW (49:37):
Well, actually... <laugh>
SK (49:39):
Well, actually.
CW (49:40):
There is an option to do that.
SK (49:42):
Is there?
CW (49:42):
Yeah, it comes up with a big thing. It says, "Connect to your audio," and it shows you your- I do not know where it is, but on some of my computers it does that. So I must have it set different places.
EW (49:51):
When I connect to Zoom the first time, for a meeting, usually I get a pop-up that lets me choose all of that. But I do not know where the setting is that-
CW (49:59):
I do not either.
EW (49:59):
And since I do shift my audio quite a lot, it is important for that popup.
SK (50:08):
They could even just have, "Zoom, podcast mode."
CW (50:12):
Yeah. That would be a good idea.
EW (50:14):
<sigh> Then it would record to her without having trouble.
CW (50:17):
Yeah. The recording stuff for them is hard. Anyway.
EW (50:19):
Anyway.
SK (50:19):
Anyway.
CW (50:20):
Yes. Making common things common. <laugh>
SK (50:26):
Yeah. But I will also be offering hardware design and testing in the normal way, as well.
EW (50:33):
Cool. So if anybody is looking for a hardware consultant, Sophi's website will be in the show notes.
(50:40):
Okay. I want to go back to one more question about the art. You did another installation recently called, "Transmissions from the Lost."
SK (50:52):
Yes.
EW (50:53):
What was that? And who did you work with?
SK (50:56):
That was a precursor to "Messages from Space." I worked with Justin Day to realize the software. He did the software for the LED patterns. And with my partner and husband, Oliver Tanner, on some of the mechanicals and installations.
(51:14):
That was a piece that was at two festivals over the summer. I usually make a piece that just goes to festivals locally. This one was about getting the participants to feel an emotion, for somebody that they felt like had slipped through their fingers or lost.
(51:36):
There was a story. I wrote a story that you walked through a path, reading the story, not listening to the story. I think we can link to it on the show notes, if people want to read the story. At the end of the story, you were asked to put your hand on a sensor, which triggered a blinking pattern, and asked the participant to think about somebody that they lost.
(52:09):
This story was- The more deeper thought behind it, it was about the deportations. So I had the project on my website in multiple languages. But in the installation, just because the piece of paper only has two sides, it was Spanish on the back.
EW (52:27):
My next question in my list here is where do you get your ideas? But I feel like that one is an idea that really needed to happen.
(52:34):
So let me actually ask the opposite question, which is, I swim in an ocean of ideas. How do you decide which of your dozen projects is the one you are going to finish? You do not start a dozen. But how do you decide what is worth pursuing? And how do you turn away the ones that are good ideas, but you just cannot do everything?
SK (53:03):
Well, I have a list like a mile long of project ideas.
EW (53:07):
Yes!
SK (53:08):
That is excellent, to just have a Google Doc to put all the ideas into, so that I feel like there is never a project that got away. But I am pretty analytical about how I will decide if something is going to be- If I am going to actually pursue something.
(53:24):
First thing with an idea is, is it doable? Do I have the skills to do it? Do I know people who have the skills to do it, to work with me? Who will want to work with me on this? So that is a first gate.
(53:37):
There are definitely projects, large scale outdoor projects, that I want to build, that I do not have the resources for. Or the space to build. So those things sit on the sidelines.
EW (53:51):
"Requires football field." Let us put this one to the side.
SK (53:54):
Exactly. Yes. Or is public art. I would love to pursue large scale public art projects, and I am sure I will at some point. But yeah, is the project doable? I think is a pretty good gate.
(54:10):
And then, how much funding do I need? I can do a pretty quick budget. Even if it is wrong, I can get within a window of money. And then from there it will be like, are grants available? Am I going to get a rich collaborator? Et cetera.
EW (54:32):
I see the grants sometime. And this is all about me, not about you. I see the grants, and then I think that I should leave them for people who cannot do engineering work and make enough money to live on that, and still do the art. I do not know. It is not really guilt. It is more... I do not know. Where was I going with this?
SK (54:56):
I think that that is a altruistic way to think about grants. And you are right, or I agree with you, in one sense. And in another sense, if you are pursuing a creative career as a visual artist, it is validation. And it helps your career to get those kinds of opportunities.
(55:25):
If you, Elecia, were to receive a grant, and felt like you did not want to keep it for yourself, the money, you might then share it with collaborators, or with other people.
EW (55:39):
But I could still say, "Grant winning."
SK (55:42):
Yes.
EW (55:43):
Which, as we know from the rest of this podcast over the year, I need awards.
SK (55:48):
That is right. Yes. I would also say that, just using the podcast as an example, whatever you have spent on that, be it time, equipment, all of that kind of stuff, the grants are often pretty small, so you might not even break even.
EW (56:12):
<laugh>
SK (56:12):
I am just saying, you might not-
EW (56:13):
This is so true.
SK (56:15):
Right.
EW (56:15):
Sponsoring is wonderful. And yet, it still does not really pay us for our time.
SK (56:20):
Exactly.
EW (56:20):
It cannot.
SK (56:22):
So even though you make a living, it is not wrong to want to get reimbursed for the time and supplies that you put out on a project.
EW (56:35):
That makes sense. I think I just need to hear it a few hundred more times, before I managed to internalize it. But maybe Chris will just make a loop of you saying that. And every time I walk by somewhere in the house, it will- <intake of breath> Whenever there is a cosmic ray.
(56:55):
Sophi, do you have any thoughts you would like to leave us with?
SK (56:59):
I think I talked a lot.
CW (56:59):
<laugh>
SK (56:59):
I am good.
EW (57:02):
Well then, I am going to ask you one more question. When did you claim the identity of artist? And how?
SK (57:11):
Oh, I probably claimed that identity when I was teenager. I first went to a couple of different art schools, that I did not graduate from. So, yeah, I think I was an artist from teenagerhood.
EW (57:28):
All right. Our guest has been Sophi Kravitz, artist, electrical engineer, and optimist.
CW (57:35):
Thank you, Sophi.
SK (57:37):
Thank you for having me. That was really fun.
EW (57:38):
Sophi, it is always wonderful to talk to you. Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. Thank you to our Ko-fi and Patreon supporters. We really appreciate it.
(57:48):
If you would like to get an ad free stream or the occasional bonus episodes, join our Ko-fi and Patreon group for $5 a month. But everyone who contributes gets access to the Embedded listener Slack, which is a pretty fun place to hang out.
(58:06):
Now a quote to leave you with. From Helen Keller, "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."