Mitch Altman Discusses Bringing Youth into the PCB industry

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Altman: We don't have anything formalized like that. But Noisebridge, like many hackerspaces, is used as a co-working space because it's free. The disadvantage might be someone turns on a bandsaw and makes a bunch of noise, which can be distracting. There's also lots of cool people there who are really interesting to get into conversations with, which can be distracting. But, yeah, lots of people do their startup at Noisebridge and make a living from it, and people definitely encourage each other. If someone finds a project they really love and other people are excited about it, people definitely encourage them to consider the possibility of making a living doing those things. There are a lot of people within the community who are good at various aspects of entrepreneurship, so people help each other in that way.

Occasionally, there are classes and workshops about bringing a product to market or becoming better at running a small business. We also have people give classes on how to interview well if you want to take what you're doing and help other companies do that to get a job as an employee. I am good at helping people and I mentor people through a hardware accelerator program called HAX, which is mostly in Shenzhen, China, but also in San Francisco. So, there are people who go from Noisebridge and other hackerspaces into the HAX program. I also help people go to China. I have a trip every year called the Hacker Trip to China, where we visit hackerspaces and manufacturers and schools and universities and tourist things in China for anyone who's interested. I started that to show people who are into manufacturing their project what resources are available there. China is still a great place for that, yet  more and more, there are more resources in Europe and the United States for doing that so you don't have to ship things halfway around the planet.

Matties: Shenzhen is a great place to take students and people who are interested to see manufacturing in China, that's for sure.

Altman: Yeah, there's a lot of resources available not only in Shenzhen but all over China; there are more and more resources available everywhere in the world including hackerspaces, many of which are now doing small-scale manufacturing on their own.

Matties: We see 3D printing and companies like Nano Dimension, I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they're 3D printing multilayer circuit boards. They start with an empty space and build a substrate and the board all together as one component. That's really changing rapid prototyping in the printed circuit space.

Altman: That’s got a long way to go, but the potential is pretty cool.  At Noisebridge, about once a year, we’ve been having a workshop where people go through the whole process, from coming up with an idea to making a circuit board and how to mill it out, because that's the quickest way we have available at Noisebridge, and then making a circuit work. But also show how to send your project to a place like Seed Studio in Shenzhen, or the manufacturer I have in Shanghai that manufactures things for DIY people who want a small run of their product and want to sell it. We usually cover Eagle and KiCAD, as they’re the two that are popular. Although, now people have a lot of distaste for Eagle after they started with their monthly subscription model.

Matties: I'm really interested in what you guys are doing. I think it's great and I'm sure your story is one that inspires many others. The interesting part, back to that survey, is that a lot of the people there don't even realize that there's a career path for circuit board design and manufacturing. And, as you say, sometimes what you love you don't equate with something that can really translate to a job or a career. Is there any connection that could be made to help further open up that prism, if you will, for people to realize that?

Altman: That's one of the things that hackerspaces are good at: showing that just by seeing so many people who make a living doing what they really love doing, that it's not only an option, but it's way worth going for. Again, nothing has been very formal in doing that until now. Probably it would be worthwhile to have classes, workshops, whatever, in encouraging people explicitly to do that. But just being in that environment people see by example that it's way worthwhile doing that, so more and more people have.

Matties: There are a lot of electronics industry associations, like SMTA or IPC, that have a lot of workshops and opportunities for people to learn more, and local trade shows that would be of interest. Some, like the microwave show in San Francisco last year, bring in tons of kids through the STEM program, from elementary school to high school. They introduce them and they partner them with an engineer, who gives them a tour of the trade show. They have their own keynotes. I think Joey Hudy was one of the speakers in years past.

Altman: Yeah, I know Joey well.

Matties: It was great to see these kids be so inspired by Joey, and just by being at the events. They had to go through the entire registration process and so on. It can be life-changing, and we don't even realize how impactful that can be on youth.

Altman: Oh, it's super important. That's a big part of what helped me survive and thrive—having those kind of opportunities—which was much rarer when I was a kid. But at Noisebridge, we have many groups of kids of various ages, from primary school up through university and grad school, come in for field trips and sometimes week-long programs, and that changes people's lives. And we tend to call it STEAM rather than STEM. Because the A is a catchall for the creativity, without which it's all meaningless and joyless, and it is an incredibly joyful process to be learning in this way.

Matties: Yeah, I think STEAM is really gaining steam. Mitch, I really appreciate you taking time today to talk with me. I know your schedule is incredibly busy. Thank you for the work that you're doing, like with Jonathan, who went through your program. I met him because we just started talking about the circuit design he was doing and spending a lot of time at Noisebridge. Lo and behold, it was a career path and now he's working for us and doing a great job.

Altman: It sounds like he loves it, too.

Matties: Thank you.

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