Mohit Bhoite on Freeform Circuits and Following Your Passion

Mohit Bhoite is a senior hardware engineer at the IoT startup Particle by day and an inventive electronics sculptor by night. Though the technique he uses, called “free-forming” or “dead-bug style” circuitry, is one that you may have seen before, he takes it to a new level with his polished look and the way he’s able to embody character and express emotion with each of his circuit creatures. Mohit is also a Bantam Tools remote resident. We chatted with him to learn more about his journey, technique, and what inspires him.

How does your background and day job relate to your sculptures?

My background is in robotics and electronics, but I like to dabble in projects that allow me to use different kinds of skills, mediums, and materials, and that’s what I’ve been doing lately. It’s funny because the things I do at work are related to what I do on the side, but they’re almost the opposite because at work I design high-speed eight-layer circuit boards.

Most of the sculptures that I dabble with use anthropomorphic forms — they have faces. I like to add personalities to the circuits in a way where they’re almost telling you what they’re observing.

And then in my free time, I’m undoing them into these sculptures — unlearning the things that I learned in engineering school to make efficient circuits that will pass FCC certifications. Here I am, building free-wired, free-formed circuit sculptures that definitely will not pass any kind of certifications.

Tell us about your recent Particle/Adafruit mashup project.

I had been wanting to use brass for more than just as a wire to connect two circuit elements together. I wanted to use it to design a chassis and add it as support material. So when I got a chance to use the Bantam Tools mill for the very first time, I was super excited. I wanted to make a very simple faceplate for this sculpture.

Most of the sculptures that I dabble with use anthropomorphic forms — they have faces. I like to add personalities to the circuits in a way where they’re almost telling you what they’re observing. In this case, I was trying to figure out if I could use a tiny OLED display and express emotions with simple eye gestures.

What I’m doing is not anything new. People have been free-forming for a long time, but the kind of construction that I like to build is extremely geometric. That’s straight edges, boxing, in a way, which makes it feel even more artificial and yet lifelike. I could definitely build something that looks organic with organic faces and shapes, but I tend to avoid that.

When the sculpture comes together, it feels like, “Oh, this is so intricate and three dimensional,” but it always starts with a two-dimensional solder jig. You’re building two dimensional and then almost extruding it and combining two assemblies together to make it feel like it’s a complete three-dimensional sculpture.

One of the challenges with dead-bug-style circuitry is that you’re attaching components to each other without using a circuit board, so the entire thing is working as a heat sink. When you heat something up, the rest of the contraption may fall apart because the whole thing will melt at once. How do you resolve this challenge in your art form?

There’s a very simple solution to this. It took me a long time to get to it, but the simple solution is you add a dab of flux. So traditionally, you’re adding solder wire and applying heat at the same time, but with this technique, all you do is put a joint together, add a little bit of liquid flux on it, and then just directly bring in molten solder, which is on the tip of your soldering iron, to the joint. And it quickly adheres to the specific point where you’ve applied the flux, so it doesn’t spread out. Before it has a chance to spread out, it’s already set. And I think that’s the key, because we’re taught to solder with two hands, but with this technique, you can do it with one. Flux works like magic.

You grew up in Mumbai. What’s the maker movement and the hardware scene like in India today?

It has taken off like a wildfire. The city of Mumbai, which is home to 16 million people, has 30 engineering schools and is churning out so many engineers year after year. Just in one city. And a lot of engineering students get into engineering because of job prospects. But also, a high number of students get into it because they’re fascinated by the world of engineering and they want to make stuff. So you just have so many people really looking to be able to connect and make and share things. All of these engineering schools have these festivals called Tech Fests, where they invite kids from other engineering schools and have competitions.

Before Maker Faire or the maker movement, this was the way people connected — competing against each other on a technical level. But ever since Arduino and 3D printing came into the picture, there are now these local clubs set up within the schools that encourage kids to make things.

And it’s very organic. The education system doesn’t have proposals or things in place to say, “You need to have these kinds of activities.” Kids, students, are saying, “Hey, we want to make this.” And they’re coming together and making it happen.

What initially inspired you to get into electrical engineering and robotics?

I was a typical maker kid, who liked to open things up and see what’s inside, never being able to put them back together. But my first inspiration came from an article in Reader’s Digest Magazine in India back in the 90s. It was about Mark Tilden and the whole philosophy of BEAM robotics. BEAM stand for “biology, electronics, aesthetics, mechanics.”

The article talked about how Tilden was able to create these seemingly intelligent robotic creatures out of broken Walkman cassette players. And I was like, “This is perfect. I don’t even have to buy anything. I could just build things out of broken electronic components.” And in fact, he was the first one who inspired me to build these dead-bug closed circuits. Not because they were a better way to build things, but because you didn’t have to access custom PCBs or use PCBs, so you could just free-form these circuits, mostly solar-powered, and create these beautiful robots.

The electronics are the organs. There are these photo diodes that literally are its eyes, that look like eyes. And they have a big back full of solar cells, which look like shells. And so you can see the correlation between insects out in the world, behaving the same way these robots are, or vice versa. You feel like you’re playing god in a way, where you’re creating these lifeforms out of nothing.

In high school, I reached out to the founder of Solarbotics, Dave Hrynkiw, asking career advice on whether I should get into electrical engineering or computer science. He wrote back and suggested I should get into electrical engineering because I could do more. I took his advice and got into electronics. I got my bachelor’s in electronics, then I joined a startup.

Back then, there wasn’t anything called STEM education. You learned what you learned in your curriculum and that was it. If you wanted to do something extra, you’d have to do it on your own. So I joined a startup that was creating two-day workshops for kids, where we would go into their school, help them assemble a robotic kit that we designed, and then teach them the principles of physics, science, and math, through coding and building robots.

How did you end up in the States?

As a person who builds robots, I wanted to learn how to build better robots. So I set my eyes on Japan, because in my mind, Japan was like the mecca of robotics. But the only caveat was that you would need to learn the basics of the Japanese language before you could move there. So I started learning Japanese for six months, took the first exam, and failed miserably. And then one of my co-workers said, “Why are you working your way toward Japan? Why don’t you come to the United States? They have amazing research programs here.” And I was like, “Hmmm, okay.”

English was much easier than learning Japanese. I somehow ended up at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, in their Master’s in Robotics program, which to me was a dream come true.

I convinced my professor to let me into their Machining 101 course. So I got to use a CNC that has three axes, a lathe and all kinds of fun fabrication tools too. And that was my first introduction to milling, actually.

I used to watch the Dexter’s Laboratory cartoon a lot as a kid. He had this basement laboratory, and I was like, “ When I grow up, I want that.” I’ve been working toward that dream of having my own studio, my own workshop, where I can have access to tools. And I finally created that — in my attic, not in my basement — but having that goal in mind and treating life as a way of collecting tools, skills, hobbies, and projects has allowed me to have focus.

Tell us about your recent experience dipping your toes into the CAD/CAM world of modern machining with the Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Milling Machine.

I usually dabble in things that are small in nature, like smaller sculptures and smaller circuits, which allows me to keep the usage of my space pretty small. I don’t need giant machine shops or giant lathes. I can get away with tiny desktop versions of the big ones. I have a 3D printer and a basic woodworking workshop, but I didn’t have anything to work with metal, especially in a three-dimensional form. I was looking at desktop CNC machines, but nothing came close to Bantam Tools. Everything just works out of the box and takes up a really, really small space. It’s self-contained.

I was looking for something that would allow me to mill small brass, small circuit boards, and copper, so that I can use those in my sculptures. This seemed like the right fit. I didn’t really have the need to buy anything bigger. And knowing that I have limited space, this just works out perfectly. The thing I’m really looking forward to is, in addition to collecting tools, also being able to work with different media — not just metals, but plastics and wood.

How’s it going with the CAD/CAM side of things? This is often a stumbling block for people. How are you navigating it?

I have to give it to you guys, especially for the PCB, that you can actually import — not input, just open up — regular EAGLE board files. And the built-in package does the CAM for you, which is super easy. I’m not even fiddling with that. So as is, I’m able to mill without any knowledge of milling. For circuit boards, I’m relying on the built-in CAM. But for 3D objects, even the small faceplate that I made, I CAD-ed that up in Fusion 360.

And being able to import the tools into Fusion 360 was extremely helpful. The tools library is something new for me. And then learning about CAM and feed rates, this is all coming back to me because I only learned mostly manual milling. So I know the concepts, but then things have changed so much in the last 10 years, which was the last time I had milled something. Fusion 360 has a great CAM built in, which I’m able to take advantage of. I’m just taking it slow. Using the Bantam Tools feed rates and RPMs for different materials, I’m using that to slowly venture into more complicated, delicate projects.

You’re a studio photographer as well and your photography is just completely off the charts. When people ask you what you do, how do you identify? Is it artist? Engineer? Is there a line?

I think just calling yourself a maker or a person who builds things is appropriate because I feel like the terms engineer and artist are silos. We’re lucky to be alive in a world where you can work on the boundaries. You don’t necessarily have to identify with either of them. You’re just floating in and out of those Venn diagrams, where things are crossing over and you’re standing at the center, being able to access everything. I don’t really know if there’s a term or a word or an idea to describe that. But yes, I’ve always been fascinated by art. My elder sister is an interior designer, and my other sister has a Master’s in economics, so I grew up in a household that had artistic and analytical brains coexisting. I tend to go back and forth between those two worlds very easily, and I enjoy that space.

I think just calling yourself a maker or a person who builds things is appropriate because I feel like the terms engineer and artist are silos. We’re lucky to be alive in a world where you can work on the boundaries.

In fact, I do photography for Particle as well because at the startup, I was the fifth employee. We didn’t really have the resources to hire a full-time photographer or an art director. So we just got ourselves a camera and some lights, and I taught myself how to actually take product photography. It worked out well.

If you could go back in time and talk to yourself 10 or 15 years ago, what would you tell that younger Mohit?

I would just say, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” I think as teenagers, you’re bothered by so many things that are unimportant. I had a rough teenage life in trying to figure out who I am and how I’m going to contribute to this world. But as long as you focus on doing the things that you love to do, life just figures itself out. So I would personally say, “Just chill. Don’t get so anxious about becoming a millionaire or becoming extremely successful in the field that you want to be in. Happiness will not come from that. Happiness will come from being able to do what you want to do.”

What tips do you give people who are just starting their careers? How do you inspire the next generation to get into this stuff?

When I was in India recently, I held a small meetup in my city in collaboration with a local makerspace called Maker’s Asylum. There were 40 or 50 students that showed up, and I’m like, “Oh my god, people love my sculptures, and they must be very interested in knowing how I build them.” But surprisingly, none of them were actually interested in the sculpture aspect of it. I mean, they liked what I did, but they wanted to know how to get where I got. How did I manage to score a job at Particle? How did I move to the United States and have the ability to do what I do outside of my job and at my job. I was surprised, but at the same time, I was not surprised because a lot of students just want to make things and have aspirations to have access to resources the way a country like America does.

Don’t get so anxious about becoming a millionaire or becoming extremely successful in the field that you want to be in. Happiness will not come from that. Happiness will come from being able to do what you want to do.

And so most of the questions were, “How do you get a good job? How do you become good at making things?” There’s this idea that if I do something, I will get dramatically better, like a magic pill. That’s something that I thought was possible too, when I was a teenager. And obviously, that’s not true. And there’s a big age difference. I’m in my 30s, and they’re in their early 20s. Time, basically, will get you there. So I was just telling them, “Don’t try to chase what’s trending or what’s cool. Just get down to the basics. Build things. Build a lot of things. Fail. Learn from it.”

I realized, especially working in electronics, you have to have an enormous amount of patience because when you’re building things, things don’t work and you need to spend an awful lot of time figuring out why things aren’t working. Debugging is a big aspect of engineering. That’s true for any engineering, but more so for hardware because there are things out of your hand that are not visible. There are gremlins in your circuits and you may have no idea where they’re coming from. You have to fail and get frustrated. Just slog through the rough patch, make things, don’t rely on academic institutions to teach you how to be an engineer, but rather teach yourself. A lot of our curricula are archaic because it takes time to update your curriculum and your syllabus. But you have enormous access to the internet and tools and knowledge. You don’t have to rely on your college or school.

Imagine that you have infinite resources, what would you do? What kind of challenges would you take on?

Wow, in that case, I wouldn’t pick something that is realistic. I would take up something like fuelless propulsion. A physics problem. How do we propel rockets in deep space without relying on actual fuel? Or how to better harvest solar energy. Real problems. I feel like I’m too selfish when it comes to making projects, because I’m not solving real-world problems. I’m just making sculptures, making art. But with infinite resources, I would feel guilty not working on real-world problems.

I also love flying. And so being able to perpetually be in the air and fly would be awesome with some kind of nuclear or thermonuclear engine. I don’t know. But as far as resources, I would want to learn every skill out there on making things: glassblowing, woodworking, construction, ceramics, plastics. I would enroll in a neverending class that teaches you everything.

Mohit Bhoite is a senior hardware engineer at Particle, where he designs and builds their flagship IoT products. He’s an avid maker who builds free-formed electronic sculptures. Born in Mumbai, Mohit initially drew inspiration from BEAM robotics, Japanese carpentry, truss bridges, industrial plumbing, Islamic patterns, and the works of Mark Tilden and Peter Vogel.

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