July 2, 2024 • 44 mins
In this episode of the Bom: Engineering A Path Forward we’re back at mHub in Chicago looking at how music technology is more than synths and software. It’s everything from basic controllers that play a single sound to full haptic feedback setups that in recent times have been used to create an interactive playground to help children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Today, we’re talking to one of the product design engineers Fred Kelly from Heath Interactive about this impressive feat. Fred Kelly has been working on the musical playground for the past few years and they are going to tell us about the process of building this area and why advancing music technology is so important for accessibility.
Heath Interactive
The views and opinions expressed within this content are solely the speaker's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Supplyframe or its affiliates.
Today, we’re talking to one of the product design engineers Fred Kelly from Heath Interactive about this impressive feat. Fred Kelly has been working on the musical playground for the past few years and they are going to tell us about the process of building this area and why advancing music technology is so important for accessibility.
Heath Interactive
The views and opinions expressed within this content are solely the speaker's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Supplyframe or its affiliates.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think those types of instruments can have huge waves
in our entire artistic cultures. Like new genres come up
when there's an exciting new product, and I think that
that's been the zone that I've been really striving for,
is to make something that does something technically interesting, but
(00:20):
is approachable and fun enough that it inspires people to
make music they wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome back to the bomb engineering a path forward. I'm
your host, Magenta Strongheart. No matter what field of engineering
you're in, chances are you have a certain song, playlist
or artist that helps you get in the zone. In
recent studies conducted at the Harvard Medical School and the
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, it's been discovered that music therapy can
help patients recover faster from strokes, it can improve cognitive
(00:48):
abilities in dementia patients, and it's been shown to even
help people on the autism spectrum regulate their emotions better.
Music therapy goes beyond just listening to music and instead
uses the creative side of our brains to make music.
But with such a huge variety of ability, time and
more accessibility becomes the next problem to solve. Today, we're
sitting down with Fred Kelly, a product design engineer at
(01:09):
Heath Interactive who is working on that exact problem. Heath
Interactive is reshaping how music can be made and experienced
through the use of haptics, textiles, and interactive technology. We'll
hear about a musical playground designed to help children with
autism spectrum disorder explore music, how engineering components can be
turned into more accessible musical instruments, and what future musical
engineers can learn from a broader education. This is my
(01:32):
conversation with Fred Kelly, and this is the bomb. We
live in a time where design and technology touch every
aspect of our lives. But where did it all come from?
Who designed it, how is it built and brought to market?
What will look like in a year, two years, one
(01:53):
hundred years. From the phones and smartwatches that help us
in our day to day to the cutting edge spaceships
and three D printers that are leading us into the future.
Modern design is constantly shaping the way we work, communicate,
problem solve, and play, and every new design, big or small,
starts with an idea and a bill of materials. I'm
agenta strongheart and this is the bomb. Where we talk
to leading innovators in the tech world and celebrate the
(02:15):
transformational power of design. Welcome to the bomb Bread. I'm
super excited to chat with you and finally catch up
more in persons than a long time since last time
we saw each other and work together. I thought it'd
be good maybe to give a little background info on
how we first got introduced. We were working on a
(02:37):
project with one of Design Labs collaborators, Erica Earle, and
really her brain child. I would say, the project, and yeah,
you were kind of the genius engineer that was helping
out some problems. Eric is also a genius engineer, so
not to discredit her expertise at all, but I know
(02:59):
she was super excited for you to be involved in that.
And yeah, we got to work on some interactive audio
spatial technology stuff. I'm going to kind of like leave
it there because we could go, you know, on and
on about that, but there's tons of other things I
want to chat with you about. Obviously, we're here at
m Hub and they give you access to tools and things,
and just what a challenges sometimes it can be to
(03:21):
get access to the right tools when you have an
idea to make something right and that's one of the
best parts I think of being part of the university,
you know, campus and getting access to those labs and
things is so amazing. And to have one so focused
on what you're passionate about is huge. And you mentioned
you know your mentor that works at Heath, and the
last time we talked, we also talked about a really
interesting project you were involved in with them. I would
(03:43):
love to learn more about that. Yeah, you can give
the high level intro to it, sure, and then we
can deep dive into some of the technology you guys
were using. Awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So, Heath Interactive is a experiential like music installation company
and so they've made exhibitions at children's children's museums and
their latest project is this amazing interactive musical playground at
Cosaclina Children's Hospital and Pomona. And so what we've made
for them is a large musical staircase and a garden
(04:16):
of really cool musical flowers. So walking up and down
the staircase, they have sensors under each each under each
of the steps, they play music and they light up,
and we've designed these games for them that are just
fun to approach. Like you know, from any perspective, but
they're like secretly physical therapy exercises for kids on the
(04:36):
ASD spectrum. And so I've gotten to do software development
and some of the assembly, like on site, I am
often doing remote maintenance on it, and some of the
music as well, Like I got to do some of
the sound design and the flowers too. They're these they're
these large five or six foot tall flowers that have
(04:57):
flower pedals that light up and play music as well.
You touch them and you play whack the mole kind
of games or press the right color. And right now
we're working on integrating them all so that there are
these larger scale playground experiences that cross all of these
smaller installations that really make it feel like a unified
environment for like, you know, musical play that is also
(05:19):
therapeutically valuable.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Amazing, And do you think it's something that might even
go beyond like this specific hospital where it's installed or
is it going to be like do you see maybe
the future growth of the project. Have you heard any
whispers of that or is it still like very much
you know, you guys are establishing this one, which I
totally understand. Maybe that's a future kind of thing to
think about.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But no, I mean, I think a big part of
what I've worked on with them, mostly on the software side,
is really designing with the future in mind and making
sure that, you know, even though we have these shorter
term requirements and goals for the particular playground, that we
make sure that the software that we're writing and the
hardware plats that we're working on could expand to other places.
(06:03):
So you know, the implementation of the playground right now
relies on two computers in a closet in the hospital
and a lot of pretty intense networking for internet and
audio and power to make this you know, integrated playground
a thing. But I've been very excited and very fortunate
(06:23):
to work on a project to miniaturize all of these
elements so that they're all of the musical and interaction
design and lighting elements all run on a self contained
micro controller that can really be deployed and used anywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Wow. Yeah, that would make it super scalable and like
you said, able to kind of move anywhere. And yeah,
I mean, I just I love the photos I saw
of the project, and I'm like, I want that, like,
you know, the playground across the street from my house,
Like I would love for all kinds of you know,
people to be able to engage with it. So I
hope to see more of that in the future. And
I feel like what you're doing, like you said, to
kind of make the things more it sounds like it's
(07:00):
really DFM at the end of the day, like make
it easier to manufacture design for manufacturer and make it
easier to scale and be packaged and kind of self
sufficient and not have you know, funky installation, you know,
kind of one offs or hacks happening. But that's of
course integral part of the prototyping process. And I think
(07:21):
it'd be really interesting for folks to hear how kind
of if you could walk us through the timeline, maybe
high level at first, just I think sometimes people don't
realize how long this stuff takes. And I think you
all were probably still moving pretty fast because it's a
smaller team as far as I understand, so you can
move faster than some of the big giants that took
really long time to prototype things. But if you could
(07:43):
tell us generally how long each phase took and also
the development I'm sure there was a big planning phase
early on with the kind of like practitioners you're working
with within the facility or whoever's kind of idea was
to integrate the therapy and that sort of thing. And also,
now that I'm talking, I'm like, also how the project
kind of came about. Was it requested by the hospital,
(08:06):
was it a mix of like a patient request or
how this all came together?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You know, truthfully, I don't know the exact details on
how the Costacolina project came up. But I joined Heath
kind of after those conversations had been had with the
practitioners practitioners about what were the biggest therapeutic goals of
the project and everything like, so.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
They had kind of the brief ones you had started.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I think when I joined we had one flower installed
and the staircase okay, And so part of my job
was to make new add new like software functionality that
would differentiate the new flowers that we were installing. I
helped assemble the electronics for five additional flowers that we
(08:48):
put on site. And I think that process from you know,
the when I started to really having the at least
all of the hardware installed was probably a process of
like a year and a half, maybe two years of
pretty intense work. Now that all of you know we've
broken ground everywhere, we're going to need to break around.
For the most part, there are a couple of other
(09:09):
things going in, but this this stage of the playground
is finished from a hardware point of view, and onwards,
it's a lot of just software development, adding new features,
adding new game modes, tweaking the music, making sure that
the visuals are reading right. One of the biggest challenges
that the physical challenges on site was it's in a
(09:31):
very sunny outdoor playground and the LEDs that we were
using are very bright, but they're also diffused through kind
of a plastic shelf for the for the flower pedals,
and visibility and legibility and direct sunlight has been like
a major driver of like what colors we pick, so
(09:52):
we've we found out that certain color combinations read better
than others in sunlight and stuff that. You know, My
work was almost entirely remote for the most part, So
I've been developing from Boston during and after college and
now in Chicago, so I have kind of a virtual
view on what the visuals look like and what the
(10:12):
sounds are. But it's so different out there in person,
when you're really moving air, like real air, like you know,
the three elements that are ten pixels away from each
other on my screen and that I hear all the
same volume are ten twenty feet away from each other,
and they really sound different. Yeah, And so that's been
definitely a real just somewhere where we need to focus
(10:34):
a lot of energy and be adaptable to know that
what works great on the computer can feel very different
in person.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, And that actually speaks to I think something important
that has been a part of a number of discussions
for me recently around the value of, you know, in
person kind of collaboration and prototyping versus online and remote work.
And I think there's obviously pros and cons to both,
and a lot that you can accomplish now online and
(11:01):
also through stimulation tools and three D modeling tools and
all this that are incredible and have gotten you know,
so far even I feel like in the last ten
years or so even better. But also that at the
end of the day, you do kind of got it,
you know, check on it in person, because there's gonna
be those differences, those that nuance. And and also I
(11:23):
think just it speaks to even that relationship I think
between the maybe the design and development team and then
the actual user and realizing that. I think also having
people test it that are outside of the we made
it bubbable. You know, it's important too because there's some
things you're not as aware of or you're almost too
aware of that you're kind of compensating for something subliminally.
(11:45):
You know you have this bias or something that you
know it's supposed to go off at that time, or
you know you're going to see this, so you're not
as you know, fresh of course approaching it. And I'd
love to hear a little bit more about as much
as you can share the technology that you all are
working with, as far as as again whatever you can
share that you feel comfortable with, as far as the
hardware stack and how you're operating things with the software
(12:09):
and what you're working on now is kind of the
software upgrades and things. Yeah, and also like optimizing everything
for this reproducibility totally.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So the software platform that we use mainly for our
audio and visual system is and it's kind of like
people are sometimes surprised when I mentioned this is just
because it's such a large scale project. Is max MSP
which is, you know, a visual programming software platform that
musicians really love because you connect together different objects with
(12:41):
patch cables as if you're connecting together pieces of music here,
and so we've created these really complex chains of objects
that you like probably could implement in a text based
programming language. But it's so fast a prototype, it's really
hands on, it's very visual, and the documentation is incredible.
I mean, I could go on about that round. But
(13:02):
it runs on two macmini's in a closet in the hospital,
and then we run audio over Dante to each of
the individual installation so they have their own speakers and amps.
But we're not actually passing like audio signals under the
ground because I guess for I mean, i I'm not
sure the decision why, but my presumption is just so
(13:23):
that you don't have like signal degradation, whereas if you
keep the signal digital with Dante, you don't have any
loss of fidelity. And it's really easy to control. We
can row audio to whatever installation we want. It's really flexible.
And then each of the features themselves also has a
micro controller within it that takes in signals from the
(13:44):
kind of central computer and doesn't really do like logical
or interaction based computation. It's just it just repeats the
audio or repeats the video signals that we send to it,
and we do all also like this, the sensor data
actually goes from the installation back to the central computer
(14:07):
where we like do signal processing on it before we
kind of detect touches and hand presses and stuff like that,
because it's all the sensors are all capacitive touch.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Okay, sure is about that too, Yeah, what you were
using for the sensors.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Because there's no mechanical movement, right, so it's not like
a switch where, especially being outside after hundreds of thousands
of keypresses, something mechanically could break. And so having that
capacitive touch, I think has has been one of the
great kind of design constraints that they decided to make
it really have longevity outdoors, and it's not like it's
(14:39):
under crazy weather conditions in California or anything, but it
does get rained on, you know, it gets wet, it gets.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Powerwashed, and the heat even exposure and stuff and heat
can can play a factor some time play a role
in some of that definitely, especially if they're like closed
and plastic and that sort of thing. I'm surely interesting
to see how that lasts over the years as well.
That's a huge thing we talk about a lot of
times with different enclosures and totally, especially when we're thinking
(15:05):
about the different environmental where absolutely, and so as you
were prototyping this, I believe you were kind of on
an interdisciplinary team. Of course, and you come from computer
science background, which we'll talk about more, but I feel
like you've always been pretty interdisciplinary from what I've come
to understand. But what are some of your like pro
(15:26):
tips you would say when you're coming into a project
where some things are already established, you know, everything from
I would say interpersonal like you know, co working and
this kind of thing with your teammates, to working between
engineering and design and kind of balancing all the requirements
and needs both technically and in an organizational way, just
(15:48):
all of the things. How do you manage it? And
what kind of tips do you have for folks that
are jumping into teams in that way? Totally?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I mean, I think that the most challenging thing about
starting some like that is it's a very small team.
Like the two kind of main people are the founder
and my mentor, the founder, Jason Heath, and my mentor
in Hatwick, and it being such a small team, everybody
does everything. So I joined and they kind of let
me have a pretty narrow scope of what I could
(16:17):
work on so that I could just learn it really deeply.
And it was just I had to be comfortable knowing
that there were large swaths of this project that I
just had no understanding of that I could look at
sections of the code and like try my best to
interpret it at face value, but it probably took five
or six months for me to really have a handle
on the whole system. And that was you know, in
(16:38):
this project. It was everything from the max MSP you
know project itself, the networking that we were using to
connect the different installations together, the code that was running
on the micro controllers like at each level. So there
are many like kind of layers of information and I
found it really valuable too. Instead of trying to like
(16:58):
start really broadly in the slowly work my way in
of for a while, I was.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Just on.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You know, creating audio, creating a system to save audio presets,
and so that was kind of my angle to learn
just the audio side of Max likes as deep as
the deepest level as I could, and ended up like
basically writing a lot of the audio software that runs
on it now.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And that's something I feel like that will be amazing
for future projects and things, you know, like that's going
to serve you for a long time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
No, it was great. And then you know, all the
while to just finding the areas that were a little
bit at the edge of what I knew best and
you know, having to accept like feeling kind of dumb
and being in a new area that just felt totally unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Are you guys considering this like open source and anyway?
I mean you've talked pretty freely about it, which is awesome,
and there's that documentation online about how it came together. Sure,
or is that something you all are thinking about in
the future at all?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think the right now the code is quick closed source,
but I've been clear to talk about the specifics of
how it's.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I think you share it with those that's sweet that
the team is like, you know, cool with that. Yeah,
I know they were very supportive of it. Yeah, and
so you mentioned a few times that you got to
do some sound work for it as well, And I
would love to learn more about that side of the
things you do. So what kind of music do you
like to make and the instruments you mentioned a few times,
(18:23):
tell us more about those kind of paint a picture
for folks who you know, just so they can kind
of imagine that sort of thing, and then I want
to talk later about how this kind of all comes
together in your work between these two kind of spaces.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So as you know, my like second identity, like as
an artist, I make you know, music for myself in
like kind of indie rock lane, but I definitely have
I think more of an electronic drive or like you know,
I like electronic production a lot, and I think that
that's definitely like coming into vogue for indie music. But
(18:58):
there's a lot of just like you know, three piece
guitar band, which I did a lot of in colleges.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Is a time. How long have you been doing the
side of things?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, But I think that like being so deep on
the technology side has made it really fun to integrate
some of these more experimental sounds in like wrapped up
in kind of accessible traditional pop songwriting, which is what.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I love to do. So fun.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, So like I love co writing, I love writing,
and that's another kind of side hustle that I'm trying
to kind of bring up at the same time. You know,
I would love to like be a co writer for
like a pop singer or something like that. Working behind
the scenes.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Manifesto is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
We're putting that day right now. I would love to
work with. Naomi McPherson from Muna is my favorite producer ever.
They are like a genius genius and their production does
a lot of the stuff that I really admire of
like just mixing electronics with like cool pop and guitar production.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So they're cool awesome. Can you tell us about your
favorite instrument you've created.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I think that In undergrad I took an MIT
class where I first met I Hatwick, which consisted of
a grid of nine PlayStation two joysticks that I got
on Amazon. So just the part, not just a controller.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Who doesn't love playing with the joystick? I feel like
we I mean, it's not even a joystick really. It
was like a little tiny umb you know, thing we
had on our Hacketty badge last year for the conference,
and it was like you wouldn't believed just that little thing.
I feel like people were so stoked about.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I mean, it's it's a really expressive physical interface. Yeah,
it's like an x Y pad that it gives you
physical feedback because it's spring loaded, it wants to come
back to center. And that was I think the premise
of the instrument that I made was I wanted to
make an instrument where you could kind of reach into
a web of things that had a clear state of
(20:58):
rest and then disturb it and create music that way
that it would kind of sense the degree and the
strength and the angle at which you kind of disturbed
this system.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So are the joysticks almost like like if you like
moved your hand across them randomly. It's almost like that
where it's I don't know, I'm thinking like if you
move your hand through grass or something. Yeah, I mean
that was effect in a way as far as the
way you're parcticipating with it.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah. So each each joystick was associated with a note
in a chord, and you know, the the magnitude which
you displaced it was, how loud it was, and the
direction that you displaced it was where it was placed
in the stereo field. And so you could play and
move these notes around in space just by fiddling with
(21:43):
these joysticks and I had long like wooden dowels attached
to the end of them just to make it bigger.
And yeah, you could create larger gestures.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And that's awesome. Yeah, and so when were you breaking
on this project? And does it have a future here
inside of But like, is there a new way you
want to direction you wanted to take it, or what
are you thinking kind of about where it's going to go?
Or is it just a fun like keep it to myself.
It was justly gonna enjoy it. It was fun.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
It was a fun one shot. But I think really
the ideal version of it and the way that I
prototyped it before I tried to sensorize it was it
was just I had like a square enclosure with one
face open, and then I had a bunch of fishing
line across them. So instead of like moving these rigid
pieces of wood, you would pull and stretch pieces of.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
String like strumming almost or something.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, But it.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Turns out that it's really really hard to sensorize the
angle of a string like quickly. So like one way
to do it might have been to put a string
to put two joysticks and then a string in the
middle so that as you pull the string, the joysticks
would follow and you could like use mauth to triangulate
how far or what angle. But that was just outside
of the scope of what I could do a semester program.
(22:54):
But as I think there are new types of sensors
now that would make the calculations easier because I just
love the idea of like responsive materials that know if
they're being stretched. I just love the idea of like
disturbing equilibrium. And at the every year that Georgia Tech
(23:15):
there's the Guthman Prize for New Instrument Design, and the
winner had a pretty similar concept to their to their
instrument and they had figured it out, which I was
like very excited. Yeah that they were I don't I
think they were thicker. They were almost like have you
ever played a bass ukulele.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I can't say I have. It's like really.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Really thick rubber band strings that are kind of stretchy
but not really so that was kind of the medium
that they were manipulating. But they did this amazing performance.
It was really expressive and I could it was just
awesome to see them playing something like that.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
We have to take a quick break but when we
come back, Fred is going to tell us a little
bit about what they learned taking or non traditional approach
to education and what other music technologies could be learned
from this path. Welcome back to the Bomb Engineering a
(24:17):
path forward. When we left off, Fred was explaining to
us the possibilities of what you can do with incredibly
simple components. I want to go back a little bit
to kind of your educational background and coming from like
on paper computer science. I feel like it could be
so many things, right, So tell us a little bit
(24:39):
about how you took kind of your got from your
early studies to where you are now and kind of
entering such an interdisciplinary field. I would feel like, and
I really respect. I feel like how established you've become
very quickly as far as you know, traditional like career
trajectory out of school and stuff, being involved in these
(25:01):
projects that are kind of niche, you know, and bringing
together these different expertise in hardware, software, interactivity, audio, and
that sort of thing. So, yeah, that was kind of
a lot in one. Sorry to throw that at you,
but I guess we can start with your undergrad experience
and how you took some of those early interests and
(25:21):
made sure is a part of your learning and education
at Harvard, and then from there, how you kind of
put yourself out there for some of these other opportunities.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Totally, I think that my definitely, my undergraduate education was
like really circuitous and not straightforward, and I think that
was honestly really to my benefit. I felt like I
finished undergrad with a pretty strong, like generalist background. I
don't I don't feel like a you know, an expert
in anyone because even music technology, like it's a niche subfield,
(25:56):
and there's also so many within that. Yeah, of course,
But so I started undergrad very certain that I wanted
to major in electrical engineering. I when I was kind
of teaching myself music production in high school, I was
obsessed with digital amp modeling, and so I thought, you know,
there was a stage, you know, ten or fifteen years
ago where the virtual guitar IUMP plugins that like simulate
(26:20):
the sound of these very expensive pieces of vintage gear.
They sounded pretty good, but not perfect, And there was
one amp that I really loved, the vox Ac thirty
that and on the web forms people were like, this
is the one that's the hardest to model, and nobody's
gotten it right and whatever, so me and I do
it right.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
So I took a I.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Think two years of courses in electrical engineering where I
got most of my electronic circuits background. Is just taking
that those foundational courses, and of course every final project
I twisted very hard towards a music angle. So I
made like a pair of reactive gloves that were motion sensitive.
I made an analog synth that was really cool. But
(27:01):
you know, all of these hardware projects will often boil
down to software issues of like how are you routing
or processing your sensor data? What do you want your
instrument to sound like? I mean a lot of that
is just mediated through computers. And I became like kind
of less and less interested in guitar ent modeling. It
got better very quickly when I.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Was in the che is no longer there.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, no, it's kind of a solved problem, honestly. And
so I turned to computer science because I felt that
there were more opportunities to make like really cool physical interfaces.
But I wasn't as interested in like creating sound analog
and in the analog sphere, I thought that electronics were
really interesting to create the physical manifestation of a cool instrument,
(27:47):
but those often like boil down to creating a novel
input device.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So then then I moved to computer science, all the
while taking music classes when I could.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I was very lucky.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I got to be a songwriting student of es Bronza
Spaldings for like three semesters, so I was in these
like small, like ten or twelve person workshops and I
got to really just like satisfy that creative part of
me that because part of me also kind of like
wished that I went to Berkeley like early on Berkeley
(28:20):
College of Music, but I really got to scratch that
itch there, which I'm really thankful for. And then I
also kind of wish that they had like a music
technology major and they didn't.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Does not exist anywhere now because I feel like that's
got to be a thing.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, Georgia Tech has a great one. Cal Arts has
a great one.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I figured there's many many there's many people that want
to do that thing, of course.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
But yeah, and so I kind of built my own
like music tech major by I was able to cross
register at MIT, which has a lot of music tech
courses like within the purview of their music department. So
I got ian Howick there. I took classes from him.
Arona Gozi, who founded Harmon, which like invented rock band
and guitar Hero teaches there.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I love guitar Hero. I'm like, that's probably the thing
I'm most familiar with about anything.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
It's awesome, it's fun.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
It's just like a good design guitar hero. Yeah, and
I used to play with garage band a little bit, yeah,
when I was much younger.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But yeah, yeah, So I kind of took like every
opportunity I could to like design instruments for fun. I
did like the Mokehackathon one year, and they sent me
an awesome scent that I got to like tinker around it.
But so I think my undergrad I came away from
it not a particularly I mean, I'm not a bad
computer scientist. I'm not like a bad computer programmer. But
(29:36):
I didn't go into that major with the goal of,
like I want to work at Google. I want to
be like an excellent like genius with data structures and
you know, getting things to perform blazingly fast, Like that's cool.
But I see computer programming as a means to an
end for like a creative project.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You're like, I want to figure out how to make
this flower work. Yeah, the sculptural interactive six foot flower. Yeah, totally.
And I think that's that's awesome because that's also you know,
we need people to do those things too, of course,
so to figure those things out. And there's plenty of
people trying to be software engineers at ALE, so that's okay,
like it's that kind of solved problem out there. But yeah,
(30:15):
and so I'd love to hear kind of how you
feel like these disciplines inform one another. I mean it
does sound like, you know, you work on a lot
of projects that bring them together pretty seamlessly in a way,
I would say, but are there times where you're doing
something more on the engineering side and you really feel like,
you know, your creative street kind of comes in or
(30:36):
some experience you had in songwriting or something. You know,
maybe this is totally desparate, but you can tell me,
and you can also be like no way and vice versa,
like when you're you know, in the kind of creative
space writing music or you know, developing instruments, how your
kind of engineering brain might get activated.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I think that the biggest thing that I've learned, I
think from you know, exploring the technicals of music tech
is that there are a lot of really cool developments
in new instruments and input devices and whatever, but they're
often targeted for like a really academic audience. And so
(31:16):
I like challenging music. I like things that are like
atonal and have cool textures and are noisy and are
long and whatever. But I find that I get most
excited about really cool new projects that target traditional mainstream
musicians and producers. And I think that that's been like
a design goal for like what I want to get
(31:37):
out of my masters is to make instruments and tools
that really serve the everyday like laptop producer. I think
that's what's so fun about this project with eth Interactive,
is that the central goal of these installations is to
be accessible and fun and inclusive and let everyone express
themselves through music in a way that's like effortless and engaging.
(32:03):
So I think that, like, I don't know if I
would have that same value system if I didn't come
from a place of really also wanting to be a
musician as much as a as a designer or an engineer.
That you know, cool tech is fine, but I think
the things that really move music forward are you know,
(32:25):
if you look at the history of like like seminal
music tech products that have changed musical genres, you have
like Roger Lynn with the lendrum to the MPC sampler,
you know, the the rise of like the teenage engineering.
I think are kind of taking over that film. The
op one is this very approachable, not technical. I don't
(32:46):
think they're hardly like words in the interface. It's all
pictograms and it's not like technical at all. You're just
goofing around and making things that sound great. I think
those types of instruments can have huge waves in our
entire artistic cultures. Like new genres come up when there's
(33:07):
an exciting new product, and I think that that's been
the zone that I've been really striving for, is to
make something that does something technically interesting but is approachable
and fun enough that it inspires people to make music
they wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
That's really beautiful. I'm like mic drop right, I love that,
No totally. I mean, at the end of the day,
it comes down to wanting to kind of make that
impact and make a difference in someone's life as far
as like maybe they'll be inspired to make more music
or sounds from this, And I think that's really fun.
And I was wondering if you feel like there's something
(33:43):
like what would you say someone could learn interacting with
the playground that you helped work on that's not necessarily
like the target user that you mentioned, you know that
the project came out of the specific kids on the spectrum,
but in general, like if any one approach the playground,
what do you think would be something they would get
out of it or learn?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I think I would want them to think, like why
isn't there more of this in the world, Like why
isn't this a central part of our urban design, in
our like cultural resources to have, like you know, like
these these things should be everywhere. Everyone should be able
(34:24):
to make music. You shouldn't need to have, you know,
dexterity in your your hands and fingers to write music
and create. And there's something that Roger linz Tad in
a talk that has really stuck with me and I
think also been like a pretty just definitive goal of mine,
is that he says, the perfect instrument is one is
(34:46):
a USB cable that you can plug into the back
of your brain and all of the music that you
imagine like really comes out.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Into the air, just out.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, because I think everybody has music within them. Everybody
has developed their own tastes from the music that they like,
in the music that they listen to. And it is
a tragedy that like musical expression is inaccessible to so
many people because you need money for equipment and leisure,
(35:15):
time for lessons and to practice a community that will
support you and inspire you. I mean, all of these
things are are not available to everyone. And I think
that good products, and not necessarily products from a commercial sense,
but just development of new ways of expressing music is
like one of the most important things that I could.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Do in my life. Okay, so back to kind of
some of the process and ways that you're building things.
What are some of your favorite prototyping tools that you
work with in these such like diverse range of projects.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Sure, I think, like so many of us makers, I
definitely got my start pretty deeply in the Arduino world.
And it's awesome. It's an amazing platform. It's cheap, it's free, well,
the software is free, right, I mean, but these boards
are like just accessible and I think as i've I
(36:14):
feel like I'm kind of reaching the edges of what
that offers. But I'm also not ready to dive into
like pure ceed development and an embedded platform, because that's
a whole other can of worms and it's like textbooks
and hundreds of hours. So what I've found amazing as
a prototyping platform is micro Python on an ESP thirty two.
(36:34):
It is fast, the code is really readable. You can't
it's not quite totally compatible from desktop to the embedded version,
but there's a lot of work that you can reuse,
and it makes wireless communication really easy. It has great
like sensor inputs. The ESP thirty two boards are cheap.
(36:55):
There's even an ESP thirty two audio board. But I
think there you do maybe have to delve into the
more like high gear sea development, but I think microyth
so that you can do miro Python.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, definitely, we've definitely seen a lot of cool projects
come out of that platform. Definitely. Okay, And then last
but not least, we have some kind of questions that
are fun to just hear all the range of answers
people give, And so, what's something outside of technology that's
inspiring you these days?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Oh, that's a great question. I have always been a
furniture nerd. I love chairs and I'll never be able
to afford the ones that I really like. But the
I guess like Harvard had some deal with Herman Miller
and so all of their libraries, yeah, are decked out
in like legit Eames chairs and like vander Row like
(37:49):
the like chrome tubing chairs, and so I just love.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
A good chair. What came first the Herman Miller furniture
on campus or you already have them? Oh no.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I had definitely been like like drooling over CBET catalogs
and to just be like one and I'll never buy
one for as long as I live, but I'm just
gonna like and they're uncomfortable. I mean there there's the
the molded plywood one that doesn't have a cushion and
it is awful to sit in. But I would make
myself sit in sounds like one else.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And it's like, yeah, it's a work of art. That's
so fun. I was like, as someone who's yeah, big
fan of furniture and in the furniture world all the time,
I love to hear that. So that's fun. And last,
but not least, what would you say is on your
personal bill of materials?
Speaker 1 (38:39):
I never leave the house without my AirPods. I was
for a long time. I was like, these can't sound
that good. There's no way, because I would walk around
with like a pair of wired and fifties where my
daily driver, and they sound very good. The noise canceling
is amazing. They fit with everything. They're so small. I mean,
that's like one of the really few things that's in
(39:01):
my pocket basically like every day. Yeah, I love a
pair of Chuck Taylor's. I think that that's been like
I aspire to have like a cartoon character's uniform that
just wears the same thing every day, like not quite
the Steve Jobs but more like a shaggy kind of
like love.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
It would your cartoon character, though, Virgin be like, are
you wearing the same color all the time? Or would
you have like you know, like five, like one in
every color? If you could, it would be switch it
up or it's just the one color.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I think would be like the opening scene from the
SpongeBob movie where he opens it's a.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Hundred Okay, that's what I was wondering. I was kind
of visualizing that, but just want to check make sure
it's accurate. Accurate visualization awesome. I was gonna say on
the air pods. Note, I love air pods. I also
have them in my pocket at all times. I am
a hater. Though about the case, I'm like, we actually
had I might have. I'm trying to remember if I've
(39:55):
already complained about this on the Bomb before, because it'll
be embarrassing if I just talk about this all the time.
But just in case I didn't, I'll do it one
more time. But we had someone who works for an
engineer for Beats, so I was like, we were talking
about also how they did a good job. I'm still
keeping the branding like pretty strong so people don't necessarily
(40:18):
realize instantly that they're part of the same company. But anyways,
I was talking to him about I was like, dude,
you drop the case and the AirPods go like twenty
miles ei of their direction, Like I it's a miracle
that might haven't fallen down some crack or crevice somewhere,
because every time I'm astounded how far they bounce away.
And I'm like, I would think this is like a
(40:39):
simple fix, like just make it so they don't you know,
it doesn't open every time it falls and maybe it
was kind of a good lesson in like, you know,
design constraints and like prioritizing, like you know, feature creepy
can have everything whatever. But he was basically saying like,
you're not the first person to complain to me about this,
And he was like, not my project, but I'll still
tell you that. He was like, what would be the solution,
(41:00):
either like a stronger magnet or a latch or something
mechanical on the outside, Which, now this is my challenge.
I'm going to pose out to the world that you
can figure something better out. I'm sure. But I was like, yeah,
you know, stronger magnet, you don't need to do the latch.
I get that would not be you know, part of
their style. And he was like, well, there's been a
ton of user testing to flip up, Like people just
(41:22):
want to be able to flip open the box the
case with one thumb, like as quickly as possible, kind
of you pull it out and do it with one hand,
and they you know, got that fine tune. Yeah, so
they're like it can't be a stronger magnet. Then people
would complain about like not being able to open up
the case and stuff.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
It's like the MacBook lip I think yeah, and I'm like, well,
I'm gonna have to hack mine with a stronger magnet
because maybe I'm just too reckless with my I don't
know why I dropped them all the time, but really
frustrating you, honest, sorry, and the Brant.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
I think the solution is there. I think that the
fine mine in each of the individual headphones like solves
that for me.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I guess so, but what if it goes down a strain?
You know? Yeah, I'm not. I love that You're like,
they're trackable, it's fine, okay, whatever, But yeah, I think
I just need to get one of those like silicon
cases that goes on top that has the latch. There's
some very clearly, I'm just not I'm not smooth enough
to keep them off the ground for very long. So anyways,
(42:20):
sorry that was a total tangent. But thank you so
much for joining us today. If you want to give
any shout outs, now's the time. If you have any
like links of where to find your word or any
cool projects coming up that you want to promote, feel
free to put it out there website, Instagram, whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
So much for having this has been like really a
joy yeah. I mean, I can be found on Instagram
at Fred Kelly Music and I would love for people
to listen to my EP. Still it came out like
a few years ago now, but it really is the
piece of music that I'm most proud of and I'm
just happy that it's out.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
There in the world. Sweet. Thank you so much, Fred.
It asking to catch up and excited for the audience
to learn more about your word awesome. That was Fred Kelly,
product design engineer at Heath Interactive and their experiences designing
a new wave of interactive technology that makes music more
(43:13):
accessible to everyone. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart, and this
has been the Bomb. If you like the Bomb, don't
forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you
get your podcasts. You can follow supply Frame and Hackaday
on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn YouTube, and design Lab at supply
(43:35):
Frame Design Lab on Instagram and Twitter. The Bomb is
a supply Frame podcast produced by Me, Magenta Strongheart and
Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie Bowles and edited by Daniel Ferrara.
Theme music is by Anna Hogman. Show art by Thomas Schneider.
Special thanks to Giovanni Selinas Bruce Demingez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar,
Jordan Clark, the entire Supply Frame team, and you are
(43:55):
wonderful listeners. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. See you next week.
No
I think those types of instruments can have huge waves
in our entire artistic cultures. Like new genres come up
when there's an exciting new product, and I think that
that's been the zone that I've been really striving for,
is to make something that does something technically interesting, but
(00:20):
is approachable and fun enough that it inspires people to
make music they wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome back to the bomb engineering a path forward. I'm
your host, Magenta Strongheart. No matter what field of engineering
you're in, chances are you have a certain song, playlist
or artist that helps you get in the zone. In
recent studies conducted at the Harvard Medical School and the
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, it's been discovered that music therapy can
help patients recover faster from strokes, it can improve cognitive
(00:48):
abilities in dementia patients, and it's been shown to even
help people on the autism spectrum regulate their emotions better.
Music therapy goes beyond just listening to music and instead
uses the creative side of our brains to make music.
But with such a huge variety of ability, time and
more accessibility becomes the next problem to solve. Today, we're
sitting down with Fred Kelly, a product design engineer at
(01:09):
Heath Interactive who is working on that exact problem. Heath
Interactive is reshaping how music can be made and experienced
through the use of haptics, textiles, and interactive technology. We'll
hear about a musical playground designed to help children with
autism spectrum disorder explore music, how engineering components can be
turned into more accessible musical instruments, and what future musical
engineers can learn from a broader education. This is my
(01:32):
conversation with Fred Kelly, and this is the bomb. We
live in a time where design and technology touch every
aspect of our lives. But where did it all come from?
Who designed it, how is it built and brought to market?
What will look like in a year, two years, one
(01:53):
hundred years. From the phones and smartwatches that help us
in our day to day to the cutting edge spaceships
and three D printers that are leading us into the future.
Modern design is constantly shaping the way we work, communicate,
problem solve, and play, and every new design, big or small,
starts with an idea and a bill of materials. I'm
agenta strongheart and this is the bomb. Where we talk
to leading innovators in the tech world and celebrate the
(02:15):
transformational power of design. Welcome to the bomb Bread. I'm
super excited to chat with you and finally catch up
more in persons than a long time since last time
we saw each other and work together. I thought it'd
be good maybe to give a little background info on
how we first got introduced. We were working on a
(02:37):
project with one of Design Labs collaborators, Erica Earle, and
really her brain child. I would say, the project, and yeah,
you were kind of the genius engineer that was helping
out some problems. Eric is also a genius engineer, so
not to discredit her expertise at all, but I know
(02:59):
she was super excited for you to be involved in that.
And yeah, we got to work on some interactive audio
spatial technology stuff. I'm going to kind of like leave
it there because we could go, you know, on and
on about that, but there's tons of other things I
want to chat with you about. Obviously, we're here at
m Hub and they give you access to tools and things,
and just what a challenges sometimes it can be to
(03:21):
get access to the right tools when you have an
idea to make something right and that's one of the
best parts I think of being part of the university,
you know, campus and getting access to those labs and
things is so amazing. And to have one so focused
on what you're passionate about is huge. And you mentioned
you know your mentor that works at Heath, and the
last time we talked, we also talked about a really
interesting project you were involved in with them. I would
(03:43):
love to learn more about that. Yeah, you can give
the high level intro to it, sure, and then we
can deep dive into some of the technology you guys
were using. Awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So, Heath Interactive is a experiential like music installation company
and so they've made exhibitions at children's children's museums and
their latest project is this amazing interactive musical playground at
Cosaclina Children's Hospital and Pomona. And so what we've made
for them is a large musical staircase and a garden
(04:16):
of really cool musical flowers. So walking up and down
the staircase, they have sensors under each each under each
of the steps, they play music and they light up,
and we've designed these games for them that are just
fun to approach. Like you know, from any perspective, but
they're like secretly physical therapy exercises for kids on the
(04:36):
ASD spectrum. And so I've gotten to do software development
and some of the assembly, like on site, I am
often doing remote maintenance on it, and some of the
music as well, Like I got to do some of
the sound design and the flowers too. They're these they're
these large five or six foot tall flowers that have
(04:57):
flower pedals that light up and play music as well.
You touch them and you play whack the mole kind
of games or press the right color. And right now
we're working on integrating them all so that there are
these larger scale playground experiences that cross all of these
smaller installations that really make it feel like a unified
environment for like, you know, musical play that is also
(05:19):
therapeutically valuable.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Amazing, And do you think it's something that might even
go beyond like this specific hospital where it's installed or
is it going to be like do you see maybe
the future growth of the project. Have you heard any
whispers of that or is it still like very much
you know, you guys are establishing this one, which I
totally understand. Maybe that's a future kind of thing to
think about.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But no, I mean, I think a big part of
what I've worked on with them, mostly on the software side,
is really designing with the future in mind and making
sure that, you know, even though we have these shorter
term requirements and goals for the particular playground, that we
make sure that the software that we're writing and the
hardware plats that we're working on could expand to other places.
(06:03):
So you know, the implementation of the playground right now
relies on two computers in a closet in the hospital
and a lot of pretty intense networking for internet and
audio and power to make this you know, integrated playground
a thing. But I've been very excited and very fortunate
(06:23):
to work on a project to miniaturize all of these
elements so that they're all of the musical and interaction
design and lighting elements all run on a self contained
micro controller that can really be deployed and used anywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Wow. Yeah, that would make it super scalable and like
you said, able to kind of move anywhere. And yeah,
I mean, I just I love the photos I saw
of the project, and I'm like, I want that, like,
you know, the playground across the street from my house,
Like I would love for all kinds of you know,
people to be able to engage with it. So I
hope to see more of that in the future. And
I feel like what you're doing, like you said, to
kind of make the things more it sounds like it's
(07:00):
really DFM at the end of the day, like make
it easier to manufacture design for manufacturer and make it
easier to scale and be packaged and kind of self
sufficient and not have you know, funky installation, you know,
kind of one offs or hacks happening. But that's of
course integral part of the prototyping process. And I think
(07:21):
it'd be really interesting for folks to hear how kind
of if you could walk us through the timeline, maybe
high level at first, just I think sometimes people don't
realize how long this stuff takes. And I think you
all were probably still moving pretty fast because it's a
smaller team as far as I understand, so you can
move faster than some of the big giants that took
really long time to prototype things. But if you could
(07:43):
tell us generally how long each phase took and also
the development I'm sure there was a big planning phase
early on with the kind of like practitioners you're working
with within the facility or whoever's kind of idea was
to integrate the therapy and that sort of thing. And also,
now that I'm talking, I'm like, also how the project
kind of came about. Was it requested by the hospital,
(08:06):
was it a mix of like a patient request or
how this all came together?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You know, truthfully, I don't know the exact details on
how the Costacolina project came up. But I joined Heath
kind of after those conversations had been had with the
practitioners practitioners about what were the biggest therapeutic goals of
the project and everything like, so.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
They had kind of the brief ones you had started.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I think when I joined we had one flower installed
and the staircase okay, And so part of my job
was to make new add new like software functionality that
would differentiate the new flowers that we were installing. I
helped assemble the electronics for five additional flowers that we
(08:48):
put on site. And I think that process from you know,
the when I started to really having the at least
all of the hardware installed was probably a process of
like a year and a half, maybe two years of
pretty intense work. Now that all of you know we've
broken ground everywhere, we're going to need to break around.
For the most part, there are a couple of other
(09:09):
things going in, but this this stage of the playground
is finished from a hardware point of view, and onwards,
it's a lot of just software development, adding new features,
adding new game modes, tweaking the music, making sure that
the visuals are reading right. One of the biggest challenges
that the physical challenges on site was it's in a
(09:31):
very sunny outdoor playground and the LEDs that we were
using are very bright, but they're also diffused through kind
of a plastic shelf for the for the flower pedals,
and visibility and legibility and direct sunlight has been like
a major driver of like what colors we pick, so
(09:52):
we've we found out that certain color combinations read better
than others in sunlight and stuff that. You know, My
work was almost entirely remote for the most part, So
I've been developing from Boston during and after college and
now in Chicago, so I have kind of a virtual
view on what the visuals look like and what the
(10:12):
sounds are. But it's so different out there in person,
when you're really moving air, like real air, like you know,
the three elements that are ten pixels away from each
other on my screen and that I hear all the
same volume are ten twenty feet away from each other,
and they really sound different. Yeah, And so that's been
definitely a real just somewhere where we need to focus
(10:34):
a lot of energy and be adaptable to know that
what works great on the computer can feel very different
in person.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, And that actually speaks to I think something important
that has been a part of a number of discussions
for me recently around the value of, you know, in
person kind of collaboration and prototyping versus online and remote work.
And I think there's obviously pros and cons to both,
and a lot that you can accomplish now online and
(11:01):
also through stimulation tools and three D modeling tools and
all this that are incredible and have gotten you know,
so far even I feel like in the last ten
years or so even better. But also that at the
end of the day, you do kind of got it,
you know, check on it in person, because there's gonna
be those differences, those that nuance. And and also I
(11:23):
think just it speaks to even that relationship I think
between the maybe the design and development team and then
the actual user and realizing that. I think also having
people test it that are outside of the we made
it bubbable. You know, it's important too because there's some
things you're not as aware of or you're almost too
aware of that you're kind of compensating for something subliminally.
(11:45):
You know you have this bias or something that you
know it's supposed to go off at that time, or
you know you're going to see this, so you're not
as you know, fresh of course approaching it. And I'd
love to hear a little bit more about as much
as you can share the technology that you all are
working with, as far as as again whatever you can
share that you feel comfortable with, as far as the
hardware stack and how you're operating things with the software
(12:09):
and what you're working on now is kind of the
software upgrades and things. Yeah, and also like optimizing everything
for this reproducibility totally.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So the software platform that we use mainly for our
audio and visual system is and it's kind of like
people are sometimes surprised when I mentioned this is just
because it's such a large scale project. Is max MSP
which is, you know, a visual programming software platform that
musicians really love because you connect together different objects with
(12:41):
patch cables as if you're connecting together pieces of music here,
and so we've created these really complex chains of objects
that you like probably could implement in a text based
programming language. But it's so fast a prototype, it's really
hands on, it's very visual, and the documentation is incredible.
I mean, I could go on about that round. But
(13:02):
it runs on two macmini's in a closet in the hospital,
and then we run audio over Dante to each of
the individual installation so they have their own speakers and amps.
But we're not actually passing like audio signals under the
ground because I guess for I mean, i I'm not
sure the decision why, but my presumption is just so
(13:23):
that you don't have like signal degradation, whereas if you
keep the signal digital with Dante, you don't have any
loss of fidelity. And it's really easy to control. We
can row audio to whatever installation we want. It's really flexible.
And then each of the features themselves also has a
micro controller within it that takes in signals from the
(13:44):
kind of central computer and doesn't really do like logical
or interaction based computation. It's just it just repeats the
audio or repeats the video signals that we send to it,
and we do all also like this, the sensor data
actually goes from the installation back to the central computer
(14:07):
where we like do signal processing on it before we
kind of detect touches and hand presses and stuff like that,
because it's all the sensors are all capacitive touch.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Okay, sure is about that too, Yeah, what you were
using for the sensors.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Because there's no mechanical movement, right, so it's not like
a switch where, especially being outside after hundreds of thousands
of keypresses, something mechanically could break. And so having that
capacitive touch, I think has has been one of the
great kind of design constraints that they decided to make
it really have longevity outdoors, and it's not like it's
(14:39):
under crazy weather conditions in California or anything, but it
does get rained on, you know, it gets wet, it gets.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Powerwashed, and the heat even exposure and stuff and heat
can can play a factor some time play a role
in some of that definitely, especially if they're like closed
and plastic and that sort of thing. I'm surely interesting
to see how that lasts over the years as well.
That's a huge thing we talk about a lot of
times with different enclosures and totally, especially when we're thinking
(15:05):
about the different environmental where absolutely, and so as you
were prototyping this, I believe you were kind of on
an interdisciplinary team. Of course, and you come from computer
science background, which we'll talk about more, but I feel
like you've always been pretty interdisciplinary from what I've come
to understand. But what are some of your like pro
(15:26):
tips you would say when you're coming into a project
where some things are already established, you know, everything from
I would say interpersonal like you know, co working and
this kind of thing with your teammates, to working between
engineering and design and kind of balancing all the requirements
and needs both technically and in an organizational way, just
(15:48):
all of the things. How do you manage it? And
what kind of tips do you have for folks that
are jumping into teams in that way? Totally?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I mean, I think that the most challenging thing about
starting some like that is it's a very small team.
Like the two kind of main people are the founder
and my mentor, the founder, Jason Heath, and my mentor
in Hatwick, and it being such a small team, everybody
does everything. So I joined and they kind of let
me have a pretty narrow scope of what I could
(16:17):
work on so that I could just learn it really deeply.
And it was just I had to be comfortable knowing
that there were large swaths of this project that I
just had no understanding of that I could look at
sections of the code and like try my best to
interpret it at face value, but it probably took five
or six months for me to really have a handle
on the whole system. And that was you know, in
(16:38):
this project. It was everything from the max MSP you
know project itself, the networking that we were using to
connect the different installations together, the code that was running
on the micro controllers like at each level. So there
are many like kind of layers of information and I
found it really valuable too. Instead of trying to like
(16:58):
start really broadly in the slowly work my way in
of for a while, I was.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Just on.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You know, creating audio, creating a system to save audio presets,
and so that was kind of my angle to learn
just the audio side of Max likes as deep as
the deepest level as I could, and ended up like
basically writing a lot of the audio software that runs
on it now.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And that's something I feel like that will be amazing
for future projects and things, you know, like that's going
to serve you for a long time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
No, it was great. And then you know, all the
while to just finding the areas that were a little
bit at the edge of what I knew best and
you know, having to accept like feeling kind of dumb
and being in a new area that just felt totally unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Are you guys considering this like open source and anyway?
I mean you've talked pretty freely about it, which is awesome,
and there's that documentation online about how it came together. Sure,
or is that something you all are thinking about in
the future at all?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think the right now the code is quick closed source,
but I've been clear to talk about the specifics of
how it's.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I think you share it with those that's sweet that
the team is like, you know, cool with that. Yeah,
I know they were very supportive of it. Yeah, and
so you mentioned a few times that you got to
do some sound work for it as well, And I
would love to learn more about that side of the
things you do. So what kind of music do you
like to make and the instruments you mentioned a few times,
(18:23):
tell us more about those kind of paint a picture
for folks who you know, just so they can kind
of imagine that sort of thing, and then I want
to talk later about how this kind of all comes
together in your work between these two kind of spaces.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So as you know, my like second identity, like as
an artist, I make you know, music for myself in
like kind of indie rock lane, but I definitely have
I think more of an electronic drive or like you know,
I like electronic production a lot, and I think that
that's definitely like coming into vogue for indie music. But
(18:58):
there's a lot of just like you know, three piece
guitar band, which I did a lot of in colleges.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Is a time. How long have you been doing the
side of things?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, But I think that like being so deep on
the technology side has made it really fun to integrate
some of these more experimental sounds in like wrapped up
in kind of accessible traditional pop songwriting, which is what.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I love to do. So fun.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, So like I love co writing, I love writing,
and that's another kind of side hustle that I'm trying
to kind of bring up at the same time. You know,
I would love to like be a co writer for
like a pop singer or something like that. Working behind
the scenes.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Manifesto is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
We're putting that day right now. I would love to
work with. Naomi McPherson from Muna is my favorite producer ever.
They are like a genius genius and their production does
a lot of the stuff that I really admire of
like just mixing electronics with like cool pop and guitar production.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So they're cool awesome. Can you tell us about your
favorite instrument you've created.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I think that In undergrad I took an MIT
class where I first met I Hatwick, which consisted of
a grid of nine PlayStation two joysticks that I got
on Amazon. So just the part, not just a controller.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Who doesn't love playing with the joystick? I feel like
we I mean, it's not even a joystick really. It
was like a little tiny umb you know, thing we
had on our Hacketty badge last year for the conference,
and it was like you wouldn't believed just that little thing.
I feel like people were so stoked about.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I mean, it's it's a really expressive physical interface. Yeah,
it's like an x Y pad that it gives you
physical feedback because it's spring loaded, it wants to come
back to center. And that was I think the premise
of the instrument that I made was I wanted to
make an instrument where you could kind of reach into
a web of things that had a clear state of
(20:58):
rest and then disturb it and create music that way
that it would kind of sense the degree and the
strength and the angle at which you kind of disturbed
this system.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So are the joysticks almost like like if you like
moved your hand across them randomly. It's almost like that
where it's I don't know, I'm thinking like if you
move your hand through grass or something. Yeah, I mean
that was effect in a way as far as the
way you're parcticipating with it.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah. So each each joystick was associated with a note
in a chord, and you know, the the magnitude which
you displaced it was, how loud it was, and the
direction that you displaced it was where it was placed
in the stereo field. And so you could play and
move these notes around in space just by fiddling with
(21:43):
these joysticks and I had long like wooden dowels attached
to the end of them just to make it bigger.
And yeah, you could create larger gestures.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And that's awesome. Yeah, and so when were you breaking
on this project? And does it have a future here
inside of But like, is there a new way you
want to direction you wanted to take it, or what
are you thinking kind of about where it's going to go?
Or is it just a fun like keep it to myself.
It was justly gonna enjoy it. It was fun.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
It was a fun one shot. But I think really
the ideal version of it and the way that I
prototyped it before I tried to sensorize it was it
was just I had like a square enclosure with one
face open, and then I had a bunch of fishing
line across them. So instead of like moving these rigid
pieces of wood, you would pull and stretch pieces of.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
String like strumming almost or something.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, But it.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Turns out that it's really really hard to sensorize the
angle of a string like quickly. So like one way
to do it might have been to put a string
to put two joysticks and then a string in the
middle so that as you pull the string, the joysticks
would follow and you could like use mauth to triangulate
how far or what angle. But that was just outside
of the scope of what I could do a semester program.
(22:54):
But as I think there are new types of sensors
now that would make the calculations easier because I just
love the idea of like responsive materials that know if
they're being stretched. I just love the idea of like
disturbing equilibrium. And at the every year that Georgia Tech
(23:15):
there's the Guthman Prize for New Instrument Design, and the
winner had a pretty similar concept to their to their
instrument and they had figured it out, which I was
like very excited. Yeah that they were I don't I
think they were thicker. They were almost like have you
ever played a bass ukulele.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I can't say I have. It's like really.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Really thick rubber band strings that are kind of stretchy
but not really so that was kind of the medium
that they were manipulating. But they did this amazing performance.
It was really expressive and I could it was just
awesome to see them playing something like that.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
We have to take a quick break but when we
come back, Fred is going to tell us a little
bit about what they learned taking or non traditional approach
to education and what other music technologies could be learned
from this path. Welcome back to the Bomb Engineering a
(24:17):
path forward. When we left off, Fred was explaining to
us the possibilities of what you can do with incredibly
simple components. I want to go back a little bit
to kind of your educational background and coming from like
on paper computer science. I feel like it could be
so many things, right, So tell us a little bit
(24:39):
about how you took kind of your got from your
early studies to where you are now and kind of
entering such an interdisciplinary field. I would feel like, and
I really respect. I feel like how established you've become
very quickly as far as you know, traditional like career
trajectory out of school and stuff, being involved in these
(25:01):
projects that are kind of niche, you know, and bringing
together these different expertise in hardware, software, interactivity, audio, and
that sort of thing. So, yeah, that was kind of
a lot in one. Sorry to throw that at you,
but I guess we can start with your undergrad experience
and how you took some of those early interests and
(25:21):
made sure is a part of your learning and education
at Harvard, and then from there, how you kind of
put yourself out there for some of these other opportunities.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Totally, I think that my definitely, my undergraduate education was
like really circuitous and not straightforward, and I think that
was honestly really to my benefit. I felt like I
finished undergrad with a pretty strong, like generalist background. I
don't I don't feel like a you know, an expert
in anyone because even music technology, like it's a niche subfield,
(25:56):
and there's also so many within that. Yeah, of course,
But so I started undergrad very certain that I wanted
to major in electrical engineering. I when I was kind
of teaching myself music production in high school, I was
obsessed with digital amp modeling, and so I thought, you know,
there was a stage, you know, ten or fifteen years
ago where the virtual guitar IUMP plugins that like simulate
(26:20):
the sound of these very expensive pieces of vintage gear.
They sounded pretty good, but not perfect, And there was
one amp that I really loved, the vox Ac thirty
that and on the web forms people were like, this
is the one that's the hardest to model, and nobody's
gotten it right and whatever, so me and I do
it right.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
So I took a I.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Think two years of courses in electrical engineering where I
got most of my electronic circuits background. Is just taking
that those foundational courses, and of course every final project
I twisted very hard towards a music angle. So I
made like a pair of reactive gloves that were motion sensitive.
I made an analog synth that was really cool. But
(27:01):
you know, all of these hardware projects will often boil
down to software issues of like how are you routing
or processing your sensor data? What do you want your
instrument to sound like? I mean a lot of that
is just mediated through computers. And I became like kind
of less and less interested in guitar ent modeling. It
got better very quickly when I.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Was in the che is no longer there.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, no, it's kind of a solved problem, honestly. And
so I turned to computer science because I felt that
there were more opportunities to make like really cool physical interfaces.
But I wasn't as interested in like creating sound analog
and in the analog sphere, I thought that electronics were
really interesting to create the physical manifestation of a cool instrument,
(27:47):
but those often like boil down to creating a novel
input device.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So then then I moved to computer science, all the
while taking music classes when I could.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I was very lucky.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I got to be a songwriting student of es Bronza
Spaldings for like three semesters, so I was in these
like small, like ten or twelve person workshops and I
got to really just like satisfy that creative part of
me that because part of me also kind of like
wished that I went to Berkeley like early on Berkeley
(28:20):
College of Music, but I really got to scratch that
itch there, which I'm really thankful for. And then I
also kind of wish that they had like a music
technology major and they didn't.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Does not exist anywhere now because I feel like that's
got to be a thing.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, Georgia Tech has a great one. Cal Arts has
a great one.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I figured there's many many there's many people that want
to do that thing, of course.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
But yeah, and so I kind of built my own
like music tech major by I was able to cross
register at MIT, which has a lot of music tech
courses like within the purview of their music department. So
I got ian Howick there. I took classes from him.
Arona Gozi, who founded Harmon, which like invented rock band
and guitar Hero teaches there.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I love guitar Hero. I'm like, that's probably the thing
I'm most familiar with about anything.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
It's awesome, it's fun.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
It's just like a good design guitar hero. Yeah, and
I used to play with garage band a little bit, yeah,
when I was much younger.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But yeah, yeah, So I kind of took like every
opportunity I could to like design instruments for fun. I
did like the Mokehackathon one year, and they sent me
an awesome scent that I got to like tinker around it.
But so I think my undergrad I came away from
it not a particularly I mean, I'm not a bad
computer scientist. I'm not like a bad computer programmer. But
(29:36):
I didn't go into that major with the goal of,
like I want to work at Google. I want to
be like an excellent like genius with data structures and
you know, getting things to perform blazingly fast, Like that's cool.
But I see computer programming as a means to an
end for like a creative project.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You're like, I want to figure out how to make
this flower work. Yeah, the sculptural interactive six foot flower. Yeah, totally.
And I think that's that's awesome because that's also you know,
we need people to do those things too, of course,
so to figure those things out. And there's plenty of
people trying to be software engineers at ALE, so that's okay,
like it's that kind of solved problem out there. But yeah,
(30:15):
and so I'd love to hear kind of how you
feel like these disciplines inform one another. I mean it
does sound like, you know, you work on a lot
of projects that bring them together pretty seamlessly in a way,
I would say, but are there times where you're doing
something more on the engineering side and you really feel like,
you know, your creative street kind of comes in or
(30:36):
some experience you had in songwriting or something. You know,
maybe this is totally desparate, but you can tell me,
and you can also be like no way and vice versa,
like when you're you know, in the kind of creative
space writing music or you know, developing instruments, how your
kind of engineering brain might get activated.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I think that the biggest thing that I've learned, I
think from you know, exploring the technicals of music tech
is that there are a lot of really cool developments
in new instruments and input devices and whatever, but they're
often targeted for like a really academic audience. And so
(31:16):
I like challenging music. I like things that are like
atonal and have cool textures and are noisy and are
long and whatever. But I find that I get most
excited about really cool new projects that target traditional mainstream
musicians and producers. And I think that that's been like
a design goal for like what I want to get
(31:37):
out of my masters is to make instruments and tools
that really serve the everyday like laptop producer. I think
that's what's so fun about this project with eth Interactive,
is that the central goal of these installations is to
be accessible and fun and inclusive and let everyone express
themselves through music in a way that's like effortless and engaging.
(32:03):
So I think that, like, I don't know if I
would have that same value system if I didn't come
from a place of really also wanting to be a
musician as much as a as a designer or an engineer.
That you know, cool tech is fine, but I think
the things that really move music forward are you know,
(32:25):
if you look at the history of like like seminal
music tech products that have changed musical genres, you have
like Roger Lynn with the lendrum to the MPC sampler,
you know, the the rise of like the teenage engineering.
I think are kind of taking over that film. The
op one is this very approachable, not technical. I don't
(32:46):
think they're hardly like words in the interface. It's all
pictograms and it's not like technical at all. You're just
goofing around and making things that sound great. I think
those types of instruments can have huge waves in our
entire artistic cultures. Like new genres come up when there's
(33:07):
an exciting new product, and I think that that's been
the zone that I've been really striving for, is to
make something that does something technically interesting but is approachable
and fun enough that it inspires people to make music
they wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
That's really beautiful. I'm like mic drop right, I love that,
No totally. I mean, at the end of the day,
it comes down to wanting to kind of make that
impact and make a difference in someone's life as far
as like maybe they'll be inspired to make more music
or sounds from this, And I think that's really fun.
And I was wondering if you feel like there's something
(33:43):
like what would you say someone could learn interacting with
the playground that you helped work on that's not necessarily
like the target user that you mentioned, you know that
the project came out of the specific kids on the spectrum,
but in general, like if any one approach the playground,
what do you think would be something they would get
out of it or learn?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I think I would want them to think, like why
isn't there more of this in the world, Like why
isn't this a central part of our urban design, in
our like cultural resources to have, like you know, like
these these things should be everywhere. Everyone should be able
(34:24):
to make music. You shouldn't need to have, you know,
dexterity in your your hands and fingers to write music
and create. And there's something that Roger linz Tad in
a talk that has really stuck with me and I
think also been like a pretty just definitive goal of mine,
is that he says, the perfect instrument is one is
(34:46):
a USB cable that you can plug into the back
of your brain and all of the music that you
imagine like really comes out.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Into the air, just out.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, because I think everybody has music within them. Everybody
has developed their own tastes from the music that they like,
in the music that they listen to. And it is
a tragedy that like musical expression is inaccessible to so
many people because you need money for equipment and leisure,
(35:15):
time for lessons and to practice a community that will
support you and inspire you. I mean, all of these
things are are not available to everyone. And I think
that good products, and not necessarily products from a commercial sense,
but just development of new ways of expressing music is
like one of the most important things that I could.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Do in my life. Okay, so back to kind of
some of the process and ways that you're building things.
What are some of your favorite prototyping tools that you
work with in these such like diverse range of projects.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Sure, I think, like so many of us makers, I
definitely got my start pretty deeply in the Arduino world.
And it's awesome. It's an amazing platform. It's cheap, it's free, well,
the software is free, right, I mean, but these boards
are like just accessible and I think as i've I
(36:14):
feel like I'm kind of reaching the edges of what
that offers. But I'm also not ready to dive into
like pure ceed development and an embedded platform, because that's
a whole other can of worms and it's like textbooks
and hundreds of hours. So what I've found amazing as
a prototyping platform is micro Python on an ESP thirty two.
(36:34):
It is fast, the code is really readable. You can't
it's not quite totally compatible from desktop to the embedded version,
but there's a lot of work that you can reuse,
and it makes wireless communication really easy. It has great
like sensor inputs. The ESP thirty two boards are cheap.
(36:55):
There's even an ESP thirty two audio board. But I
think there you do maybe have to delve into the
more like high gear sea development, but I think microyth
so that you can do miro Python.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, definitely, we've definitely seen a lot of cool projects
come out of that platform. Definitely. Okay, And then last
but not least, we have some kind of questions that
are fun to just hear all the range of answers
people give, And so, what's something outside of technology that's
inspiring you these days?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Oh, that's a great question. I have always been a
furniture nerd. I love chairs and I'll never be able
to afford the ones that I really like. But the
I guess like Harvard had some deal with Herman Miller
and so all of their libraries, yeah, are decked out
in like legit Eames chairs and like vander Row like
(37:49):
the like chrome tubing chairs, and so I just love.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
A good chair. What came first the Herman Miller furniture
on campus or you already have them? Oh no.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I had definitely been like like drooling over CBET catalogs
and to just be like one and I'll never buy
one for as long as I live, but I'm just
gonna like and they're uncomfortable. I mean there there's the
the molded plywood one that doesn't have a cushion and
it is awful to sit in. But I would make
myself sit in sounds like one else.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And it's like, yeah, it's a work of art. That's
so fun. I was like, as someone who's yeah, big
fan of furniture and in the furniture world all the time,
I love to hear that. So that's fun. And last,
but not least, what would you say is on your
personal bill of materials?
Speaker 1 (38:39):
I never leave the house without my AirPods. I was
for a long time. I was like, these can't sound
that good. There's no way, because I would walk around
with like a pair of wired and fifties where my
daily driver, and they sound very good. The noise canceling
is amazing. They fit with everything. They're so small. I mean,
that's like one of the really few things that's in
(39:01):
my pocket basically like every day. Yeah, I love a
pair of Chuck Taylor's. I think that that's been like
I aspire to have like a cartoon character's uniform that
just wears the same thing every day, like not quite
the Steve Jobs but more like a shaggy kind of
like love.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
It would your cartoon character, though, Virgin be like, are
you wearing the same color all the time? Or would
you have like you know, like five, like one in
every color? If you could, it would be switch it
up or it's just the one color.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I think would be like the opening scene from the
SpongeBob movie where he opens it's a.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Hundred Okay, that's what I was wondering. I was kind
of visualizing that, but just want to check make sure
it's accurate. Accurate visualization awesome. I was gonna say on
the air pods. Note, I love air pods. I also
have them in my pocket at all times. I am
a hater. Though about the case, I'm like, we actually
had I might have. I'm trying to remember if I've
(39:55):
already complained about this on the Bomb before, because it'll
be embarrassing if I just talk about this all the time.
But just in case I didn't, I'll do it one
more time. But we had someone who works for an
engineer for Beats, so I was like, we were talking
about also how they did a good job. I'm still
keeping the branding like pretty strong so people don't necessarily
(40:18):
realize instantly that they're part of the same company. But anyways,
I was talking to him about I was like, dude,
you drop the case and the AirPods go like twenty
miles ei of their direction, Like I it's a miracle
that might haven't fallen down some crack or crevice somewhere,
because every time I'm astounded how far they bounce away.
And I'm like, I would think this is like a
(40:39):
simple fix, like just make it so they don't you know,
it doesn't open every time it falls and maybe it
was kind of a good lesson in like, you know,
design constraints and like prioritizing, like you know, feature creepy
can have everything whatever. But he was basically saying like,
you're not the first person to complain to me about this,
And he was like, not my project, but I'll still
tell you that. He was like, what would be the solution,
(41:00):
either like a stronger magnet or a latch or something
mechanical on the outside, Which, now this is my challenge.
I'm going to pose out to the world that you
can figure something better out. I'm sure. But I was like, yeah,
you know, stronger magnet, you don't need to do the latch.
I get that would not be you know, part of
their style. And he was like, well, there's been a
ton of user testing to flip up, Like people just
(41:22):
want to be able to flip open the box the
case with one thumb, like as quickly as possible, kind
of you pull it out and do it with one hand,
and they you know, got that fine tune. Yeah, so
they're like it can't be a stronger magnet. Then people
would complain about like not being able to open up
the case and stuff.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
It's like the MacBook lip I think yeah, and I'm like, well,
I'm gonna have to hack mine with a stronger magnet
because maybe I'm just too reckless with my I don't
know why I dropped them all the time, but really
frustrating you, honest, sorry, and the Brant.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
I think the solution is there. I think that the
fine mine in each of the individual headphones like solves
that for me.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I guess so, but what if it goes down a strain?
You know? Yeah, I'm not. I love that You're like,
they're trackable, it's fine, okay, whatever, But yeah, I think
I just need to get one of those like silicon
cases that goes on top that has the latch. There's
some very clearly, I'm just not I'm not smooth enough
to keep them off the ground for very long. So anyways,
(42:20):
sorry that was a total tangent. But thank you so
much for joining us today. If you want to give
any shout outs, now's the time. If you have any
like links of where to find your word or any
cool projects coming up that you want to promote, feel
free to put it out there website, Instagram, whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
So much for having this has been like really a
joy yeah. I mean, I can be found on Instagram
at Fred Kelly Music and I would love for people
to listen to my EP. Still it came out like
a few years ago now, but it really is the
piece of music that I'm most proud of and I'm
just happy that it's out.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
There in the world. Sweet. Thank you so much, Fred.
It asking to catch up and excited for the audience
to learn more about your word awesome. That was Fred Kelly,
product design engineer at Heath Interactive and their experiences designing
a new wave of interactive technology that makes music more
(43:13):
accessible to everyone. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart, and this
has been the Bomb. If you like the Bomb, don't
forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you
get your podcasts. You can follow supply Frame and Hackaday
on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn YouTube, and design Lab at supply
(43:35):
Frame Design Lab on Instagram and Twitter. The Bomb is
a supply Frame podcast produced by Me, Magenta Strongheart and
Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie Bowles and edited by Daniel Ferrara.
Theme music is by Anna Hogman. Show art by Thomas Schneider.
Special thanks to Giovanni Selinas Bruce Demingez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar,
Jordan Clark, the entire Supply Frame team, and you are
(43:55):
wonderful listeners. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. See you next week.
No
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