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Bio for publication purposes: Tod Kurt is co-founder of ThingM, a ubiquitous computing device studio based in Pasadena and San Francisco. He is creator of the popular blink(1) USB notificiation light and BlinkM, the Smart LED prototyping device for Arduino. Tod is a contributor to MAKE magazine, author of the book "Hacking Roomba", active member in the Arduino & CircuitPython communities, and co-founder of the Los Angeles hackerspace Crash Space. His past professions includes systems architect for GoTo.com, the first pay-per-click search engine, and a ML researcher at Yahoo Research Labs. Before that, Tod was a hardware and firmware engineer working on robotic camera systems for probes that went to Mars. More casual bio: I'm based out of Pasadena. I'm an Electrical Engineer by training (via Caltech) but spent most of the 90s doing web engineering at the dawn of the web. For a bit I also worked as a JPL firmware/hardware contractor for space cameras that went to Mars. Now I do various hacking things. My company ThingM is a ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) and Internet of Things (IoT) design studio. We do ubicomp/IoT research and release a few commercial retail products, most notably the blink(1) USB notification light. ThingM also produces a few hacker/prototyping tools, such as the BlinkM Smart LED product line for Arduinos. I occasionally write for the Maker demographic. I've contributed several time to MAKE magazine, like the like the Servomotor Primer in Make #19 (http://makezine.com/19/primer/). I also wrote the book "Hacking Roomba" (http://hackingroomba.com/). If you recall seeing a Roomba hack in 2006-7, it was probably mine. I've created some popular instructional material for the Arduino and CircuitPython communities. For Arduino, I taught a series of Arduino classes at Machine Project in 2006-7 called Spooky Arduino (http://todbot.com/blog/spookyarduino/) and Bionic Arduino (http://todbot.com/blog/bionicarduino/), the class notes of which became popular Arduino tutorials for many years. For CircuitPython, my "circuitpython-tricks", which started out as notes to myself on learning Python on hardware has proven very popular. Because of CircuitPython's strong musical synthesis capabilities, I've followed that up with "circuitpython-syhnthio-tricks" and a "CircuitPython Synthio Tutorial" Occasionally I work with local artists, discovering ways of melding technology into art. Two examples that got long public runs is the "Crystal Monster" I worked on with Beverly Tang (youtube video), and, with Carlyn Maw and Mark Allen of Machine Project, the Cash Machine. Personal Links:
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