ℓσяιs' cσяηεя •ᴗ•

wtf am i doing? aka i'm learning electronics again

so, like all my fellow adhders, i have many hobbies; we're talking:

and, hear me out, i'm not saying i'm active and on top of all of these.

daily:

a few times a week:

and that's about it? the others are... there.

sometimes i get back to them. like sewing, for example, i got so excited i bought a machine, took classes and made a pair of trousers. didn't touch it for a couple of years, but a few months ago i wanted to turn a scarf into a top, so i took the cobwebs out and just did it, y'know?

kumihimo, as well, i was off of it for a while, but then ran a kumihimo workshop at a festival i attended back in may.

some of these hobbies, though, i come back to them after (clears throat), 8 years. whoopsie!

and yes, i am talking about electronics and robotics. truth be told, when i was a kid i wanted to be a robotics engineer - the fact that i still remember my incredibly vivid daydreams about my ✨perfect robot✨ might suggest that storytelling was always more of my thing - but once math & physics & chemistry hit me in school, i completely changed tracks and worked to become a communicator instead.

except,

around 8 years ago i started exploring this dream again, and was super burnt out with advertising and was thinking about going back to school so i could learn automation. in fact, i was waiting for a more favourable financial moment, as i was unemployed at the time. my always-so-lovely husband got me an arduino kit, and i started learning a bit of coding, it was so much fun!

but life happened, adhd happened, i got a job i loved as an english teacher. then covid hit, then i moved across the world and well... even though the arduino came on this journey with me, i never got back into it.

until a couple of weeks ago.

i was on instagram and saw this video of a guy who built himself a 'desk buddy' using an esp32-s3 - and idk about you, but i have the bad habit of looking at something and going, 'huh, i bet i can make this myself'. and also, my creative tech juices were flowing as i spent the last month 'building' this blog, folkflora and hedge between worlds.

so out i took my arduino, breadboard and leds. first night, i made the led blink; the night after (with hubby's help), it was a clapping sensor (every time you clapped, the leds would turn on/off and a buzzer would go off). and then i intregated buttons to the circuit (wow!). and yesterday, i built a joystick-controlled led board. all by myself (aka using someone else's code but no hubby involved!)!

and truth be told, i bought some pieces from alibaba already (hi, adhd!) so i can build my very own desk buddy as well!

i'll keep my journey up to date here, probably, but anyhoo, i'm excited to have embarked on this parallel universe of iot. 🤖