Buzz Bites: Simple PCBs for Good Vibes

This session is about vibe motors not vibe coding!

Connecting to the tiny wires of a simple vibe motor frequently stumps both novice and experienced DIY electronics practitioners. This talk will share Buzz Bites: work-in-progress breakout boards for connecting pancake-style vibrating motors via wires, headers, bolts, conductive thread, or conductive tape.

This is not a "how to design a pcb" session but rather "here's something we've been working on and why". We'll provide a background and motivation for this project, related works, a bit about our design criteria and process, and also open it up to questions and discussion. In the discussion portion, we're also interested to hear about anyone else's experience or projects with vibration motors and haptics. If there's time we might do a quick circuit exercise.

As a follow up, Kate will host more hands-on workshop next week. Day & time TBA.

This hardware is being developed by Social Body Lab.

Social Body Lab (SBL) is an art, design, and research lab at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Kate Hartman is the SBL founder and co-director and an Associate Professor in the Digital Futures (DF) with a focus on wearable electronics and electronic textiles. Hartman is the author of “Make: Wearable Electronics”, 2nd edition (2025). Hartman’s art practice centres people and the nuances and awkward bits of their social interactions. Juan Sulca is a maker and software engineer with passion for the web, hardware, and generative art. He is a SBL collaborator who recently completed the DF graduate program with a focus on Open Hardware.