88th Hardware Meetup: Robots and more @ Viam

Join us for the 88th Hardware Meetup, which will be the first one of the year!

This month we're sponsored by Viam, a robotics platform that bridges the gap between hardware and software engineers and makes it easy to turn great ideas into production-ready robots, regardless of what hardware you want to use. Viam makes robots configurable, so hardware engineers can easily test and demo their hardware to enable a wide range of software engineers to start working with their robots.

We have a great group of guest speakers, which include:

• Arielle is a founding member of the Developer Relations team at Viam. Prior to Viam, Arielle served as a STEAM Expert at The GIANT Room, a New York-based creative hub for children, where she led curriculum design and taught a wide range of courses in programming and robotics.
• Stephan von Muehlen is the CEO and co-founder of Poursteady, automatic pour over coffee machine and a longtime member of the NYC hardware and maker communities. Prior experience include Honeybee Robotics, EnergyHub, founding member of the Gowanus Studio Space as well as the boat-building art collective, Mare Liberum.
• Mike Pica is a hardware engineer and team leader. He has helped teams release a dozen products, with well over one million units shipped. Mike will discuss some of the mistakes he has seen hardware teams make during development and production, and how to avoid them.

Here’s the agenda:

• 6:30 - 7:00pm: Mix, mingle, and grab a drink
• 7:00 - 7:15pm: Welcome notes
• 7:15 - 8:30pm: Guest speakers & Q&A with the audience
• 8:30 - 9:00pm: Open Mic! Anyone can take center stage for a hardware demo or talk—lasting up to 2 minutes. It's a great opportunity to showcase your project or startup provided it's in a hardware or hardware adjacent space.
• 9:00-9:30pm: Networking
• After Hours: In keeping with IRL Hardware Meetup tradition, we'll head out for a drink or two locally.

Thanks for our partnering organizations:

Viam is a robotics platform that bridges the gap between hardware and software engineers and makes it easy to turn great ideas into production-ready robots, regardless of what hardware you want to use. Viam makes robots configurable, so hardware engineers can easily test and demo their hardware to enable a wide range of software engineers to start working with their robots.

informal is a freelance collective for the best independent professionals in hardware and manufacturing. Whether a client is looking for a single contractor, a full time employee, or an entire team of professionals to work on everything from product development to go-to-market, informal has the right collection of people for the job. With projects as varied as 3D printers to electric vehicles, informal members work with companies at every scale to design, manufacture, and ship physical products.