One Thousand Views

One thousand people is definitely more than I have spoken to at any one time, and likely more than the number of people I have ever spoken to in a professional context. Yet more than that many people have now viewed videos on the Magpie Embedded Youtube channel! Although only a humble milestone in the grand scheme of things, passing a thousand views has been a fun journey. It brings a sense of pride, as well as an opportunity to reflect on how we got here and where we are going.

At time of writing, the most watched video is a tutorial for installing the Arduino CLI for Windows, MacOS and Linux. This should be a simple task, but Arduino positions itself clearly as a beginner-friendly system of hardware and software. For many people the Arduin CLI could be their first taste of programming from the command line, which can be an intimidating prospect at first. There are also some slightly tricky steps to configure the system, which I found tricky to figure out the first time, so made an effort to clearly explain. Hundreds of people have now seen that video, and I hope it helped them on their journey in some small way!

As with most creative endeavours, there is a balance to be struck between making something perfect and actually putting it out into the world. Some of my videos have used animation - I have now learned that this can require a lot of time to get to the standard required! The web is full of animated, informational videos, so it is very easy to compare your own content to that which is produced by a whole team of people. When in doubt, I try to keep it simple and make sure I am getting my message across instead of adjusting every frame pixel by pixel.

In the future, I would like to make more videos focussing on interesting aspects of embedded software and the hardware surrounding it. As has been noted by others, there is a need for more material that helps people move from the beginner to intermediate stage of their development in this area. It’s the difference between making something work with just what you can find within the Arduino eco-system, to having the confidence to pick up any development board, knowing that you can learn how to make it do what is needed. I’ve struggled with this myself in the past and want to make it easier for others to get over this hurdle.

Additionally, I want to talk to people who use all the amazing tools at our disposal to make real things. Sometimes when I read a lengthy and detailed blog post or watch an awesome promotional video, it seems like the thing being presented was conjured out of thin air in an instant; that it was a clear and inevitable result of the skills and talents of the people who made it. However, that is not the case: Making something real is hard. Making something that involves wiring, soldering, PCB design, hardware peripherals, microcontrollers, communication buses, software and networking that interacts with the world and the people in it is really hard! By listening to and sharing the stories of people who have been through all those challenges, maybe the road will seem a little clearer for the rest of us.

That was the first one thousand views - let’s see how far we go!