Interview — Circuit Scribe
Electricity seems to be the magic of engineering. You know it works. You use it every day. But when you run into a problem that you don’t know how to solve, and it seems to be electrical, you run to the nearest EE to see if they can work their magic once again.
Circuit Scribe is aiming to change this, and they are doing it in a very creative way. They have developed a unique product that will teach you the fundamentals of electric circuits. Before it was Circuit Scribe, Ph.D. students Analisa and Brett developed a conductive ink at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that could carry electricity. They incorporated this technology into a pen that essentially lets you draw wires. You can now connect various electrical devices like fans, motors, and switches to make real, working circuits just by drawing lines on regular paper.
After an insanely successful Kickstarter campaign that got funded almost 8 times over, they have released several kits that make learning electronics fun.
I got the pleasure of interviewing Valerie Nogueira, the Director of Product Planning at Circuit Scribe and an electrical engineer. Check out our interview!
Can you give a brief description of what it is your company does so my readers can hear it firsthand?
Electroninks Writables developed the Circuit Scribe pen. Circuit Scribe is a conductive ink pen which allows users to draw circuits on paper. Since the ink is conductive, you can build prototype circuits on paper with standard surface mount components. However, our company also developed an extremely tactile module library to go along with the pen as a way to lower the barrier of entry into electronics and allow users 8 and up to start exploring circuits no matter what their level of previous knowledge is.
What is your role in the company and what does a general day entail for you?
I am the Director of Product Planning. I work on getting products from ideas on a whiteboard to final shelf ready goods. Right now we are working on creating some project-based DIY kits. We are in the final stages of prototyping before we send the product off to get a sample from our manufacturer. So right now my days are filled with doing all the final tests on our new product. I take a look at what we have so far, test ways in which it could fail and then make it better. I also look at how to simplify the product for manufacturability.
Photo Credit: Circuit Scribe
I read through your “Meet the Team” page and I love that you have some young engineers on board. What are some of your team member’s backgrounds and how did they find their way to Circuit Scribe?
Valerie and Gunnar were both students at Wentworth Institute of Technology when they applied for co-op positions at Electroninks. Valerie, Electrical Engineering student, worked full-time for Electroninks during the fall of her senior year and continued part-time until she graduated in August 2015. Gunnar, an Electromechanical Engineering student, worked full time during the summer before his junior year and has continued to work part-time while still in school.
Were there any classes in particular that really help you with the work you do? What kind of knowledge did you walk out of college with that really applies to developing your products?
I attended Wentworth Institute of Technology which focuses on a very hands-on learning approach. The majority of my electrical engineering classes were lab based and that’s where I really found I was able to take the things I learned in school and apply them to my job. I think the two classes which helped me the most in the role I am in now were my Digital Logic class and my Microcontroller applications class.
What software do you use for your designs?
We use EAGLE for our schematic capture and board layout needs.
What kind of failures have you come across that you had to work through to get a project up and running? I tend to see students get discouraged when they fail but I try to enforce that failure is a part of learning. What was something that happened during a project that maybe set you back or something you did not expect to get in the way?
Sometimes I feel like I spend a whole day or even a week failing. That’s what prototyping is about, you try something and if it doesn’t work, you figure out why and try again. Even when I finally have the “ah-ha” moment and it works, my next question is how can I make it work better.
Photo Credit: Circuit Scribe
A simple setup showing how to draw a circuit
What is an important lesson you learned during the development process? Or what is something you wish you had known when you started?
I think the most important thing I learned when I started developing products was to give myself a realistic timeline. A lot of times I have to solve problems I don’t know a lot about and that can mean I need to spend some time researching a topic I’m not familiar with before brainstorming a solution. If you let yourself get behind then you can become stressed and discouraged very quickly. So now before I commit to a date to have something done by I make sure to write down everything I need to do and identify how long each process should take and build in some extra time in case I run into an issue.
As a recent graduate yourself, what advice would you give to a young engineer that is about to finish college and get their start in the field?
In my opinion engineering school isn’t about how many equations you can memorize or how many problem sets you burn the midnight oil finishing. Engineering school is about learning how to identify a problem and build a solution. It’s about learning to work with a team and gaining the confidence to try a new idea. When you get into the field your ability to work with a team, own your decisions, and think on your feet are going to make you the most valuable. So apply for any job you want and trust that when they hire you, it’s because they know you are capable of learning not because they already think you’re an expert.
Thanks for your answers!
Thank you
Takeaways
Circuit Scribe is a great example of the engineering process at its finest. Identify a problem. Brainstorm a solution. Test until it’s fixed. Circuit Scribe does this so well every day and it shows through their work.
Their success also stresses the importance of planning in order to get something done which applies to so many areas in engineering, college, and life in general.
“A lot of times I have to solve problems I don’t know a lot about, and that can mean I need to spend some time researching a topic I’m not familiar with before brainstorming a solution.”
This is one of the extra lessons you learn from school. The professor is only there to show you what you need to learn. You need to rely on your own resources and deep-thinking to figure out how to solve the problem. This is as true in college as it is the real world.
Here is another great piece of advice I got from Valerie:
“So apply for any job you want and trust that when they hire you, it’s because they know you are capable of learning not because they already think you’re an expert.”
I hear from a lot of students that think they are underqualified for every job out there. They look at the criteria for the required candidate, and if they don’t meet every qualification, they don’t apply.
It’s okay if you’re not perfect!
The great thing about being engineers is that we have been taught how to learn. We don’t need to know everything before we dive in to a project. We are natural learners and researchers. I think by the time an engineer hits their junior year, they have been given at least one project with little instruction and somehow pulled it off.
This is engineering.
Make the best you can with what you have and figure out the rest. Circuit Scribe has made great waves in the engineering industry by doing just that and it shows through their work.
If you’d like to learn more about Circuit Scribe, check out their website at https://www.circuitscribe.com/ and learn electrical magic!
