iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I am absolutely over the moon about this 😁 The #Goatmire badge (running #AtomVM) controlling the Goatmire balance bot (running #Nerves and #BeamBots, rendering display with #Emerge) via #Erlang distribution Thanks @lawik.bsky.social for the display PR 🫶

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The cat is out of the bag: we’re doing badges again for #Goatmire 2026! Each attendee will get a digital badge in their goodie bag, powered by #AtomVM and #ElixirLang. Featuring an ESP32, LCD, keyboard and some fun onboard sensors Join us for Goatmire in Varberg, SE Sept 27th - Oct 3rd to get one!

A white 3D printed plastic device with an LCD at the top, with six boxes each corresponding to a special shape button the keyboard (below the LCD).

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

It’s always a fun day when your boards arrive 😄 #Goatmire #ElixirLang

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

The Nerves Starter Kit hardware is really coming along nicely! I've recently been spending a lot of time on the case design. Just today I finally dialed in the buttons to the level of clicky-ness I wanted (and it's soooo satisfying) Here's the assembly process from start to finish:

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

A great way to kick off what is objectively the best month of the year*

Jogging through the woods. Dirt/gravel trail covered in pine needles and decomposing leaves, green leaves on the trees, blue sky above

A baby cow stares at me as I jog past. Green pasture, brown barn on the left edge of the frame, with city skyline in the background. Perfect blue sky, no clouds

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I had a blast speaking just now at @elixirconf.bsky.social! One of the things I prepped for this talk was a simulator for the Nerves Starter Kit simulator. Check it out: nsk.protolux.io #ElixirLang #Nerves

Me (blond hair white male) on stage wearing a Nerves shirt in Malaga presenting at ElixirConf EU

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I updated my #ElixirLang dither library to support RGB and custom color palettes! It comes with several built-in palettes, my favorite being the 16-color `:cga` palette This library will have a few mins of spotlight in my @elixirconf.bsky.social talk next week! github.com/protolux-ele...

Spacewalk photo dithered with the `:cga` palette. Image credit: NASA

Space shuttle photo dithered with the `:cga` palette. Image credit: NASA

Astronaut spacewalk photo dithered with `:cga` color palette. Image credit: NASA

Photo of an almost-full moon taken during the Artemis II mission, dithered with `:cga` and `:atkinson` algorithm. Image credit: NASA

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Bagels pt ??? Fun fact: bagel dough is basically the same as pizza dough, and one batch of dough could yield: - 8 bagels - 4 pizzas - 4 bagels and 2 pizzas (the best of both worlds!)

Top-down shot of four everything bagels sitting on a cooling rack against a dark countertop

Top down shot of a pizza cooling in a pan with baking paper against a dark countertop

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

I had the pleasure of revealing some of the latest updates for the Nerves Starter Kit project last night at the monthly @nervesmeetup.eu! There were some really good discussions, and I definitely woke up today really energized from the feedback we got :) #Nerves #ElixirLang

The Nerves Starter Kit prototype (right) and the Goatmire name badge (left). The starter kit screen is 50% larger, with higher resolution. They're running the same software, but the starter kit text is smaller due to the higher resolution

Nerves starter kit prototype front view. It has a black 3D printed frame

The Nerves Starter Kit prototype side view. There are two arms that can attach to the back which tilt the display up at a 15° angle. The stand can be removed, and instead the whole device can be wall mounted for a picture-frame like experience instead

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

I always appreciate Advent of Code for reminding me of functions in the #ElixirLang standard library that I either didn't know about, or just forgot existed. Some examples from the last two days: - `Integer.mod/2` vs `rem/2` - `Integer.floor_div/2` vs `div/2` - `Integer.digits/2` - `Enum.scan/3`

Screenshot of an IEx shell:

iex(1)> Integer.mod(-20, 100)
80
iex(2)> rem(-20, 100)
-20

iex(3)> Integer.floor_div(-20, 100)
-1
iex(4)> div(-20, 100)
0

iex(5)> digits = Integer.digits(1234)
[1, 2, 3, 4]

iex(6)> Enum.scan(digits, 0, &(&1 + &2))
[1, 3, 6, 10]

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

My apartment smells like bagels, and I couldn’t be happier

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Here’s my best e-ink animation to date on an SPI panel :)

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

Here’s some examples of how you would see the bitmapping in a datasheet. Values can be integers, enums, booleans, signed, unsigned, etc etc. That’s where elixirs binary pattern matching is really powerful! In the end, your code just looks how it is defined in the manufacturers documentation

Except of a datasheet from MCP7940M, an RTC chip. It shows the RTCHOUR register definition

Except of a datasheet from MCP7940M, an RTC chip. It shows the RTCSEC register definition

Except of a datasheet from LSM6DSV, an IMU chip. It shows the WAKE_UP_THS register definition

Except of a datasheet from LSM6DSV, an IMU chip. It shows the CTRL_2 register definition

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

Oh man I got called out in this one 😂 But this is actually a perfect example. Chip designers love putting random config bits in unrelated registers. Adding additional registers requires more transistors, more processing, more verification, etc so they cram it all into as few as possible.

A screenshot of Peter’s blog post which calls me out specifically 😂

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Here’s the answer for the 5th one

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

I was soldering a new board design yesterday on what is quite possibly the worst possible table to use for the job - off white with black and grey speckles. There’s five 0402 resistors (1mm x 0.5mm) in this photo. See if you can find them 😅

A photo of a table which is largely grey base with black and grey speckles everywhere. Among the speckles somewhere are 5 tiny resistors, which guess what, are black and grey and about the size of a speckle. They might as well be invisible

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

The name badges have been a hit, but I realized that a lot of folks don't know that I'm doing a workshop using them at @codebeam.bsky.social in November! The workshop is gonna be lots of fun - includes assembling the hardware, set up a Nerves project, write some drivers, and personalize your badge

A view of two name badges, with the e-ink screen showing "hello my name is Gus Workman" and the other one on the home screen, showing "name badge". One is partially behind the other, at an angle

A picture showing the guts of the name badge. There's a big chip in the bottom right, with an orange ribbon cable connecting the screen in the bottom center. To the left of that there is the wifi module with a gold PCB antenna, and the USB-C connector. On the top left edge there are two buttons and the power switch sticking out the side. And in the top half of the board, the battery is attached via double sided foam tape. The battery is silver and takes up most of the space up there.

#ElixirLang #Erlang #CodeBEAM #WeBEAMTogether

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

What a WILD day at #Goatmire! I finally unveiled the surprise that @lawik.bsky.social and I have been cooking up for the last few months - every attendee received a Nerves-powered e-ink name badge! I had a blast on stage presenting the project and the process of how to design hardware for Nerves

A selfie of me on stage with about 100 attendees in the historic Varberg theater holding up their ElixirLang/Nerves powered name badges.

An up close view of the conference name badge. The badge has the screen “schedule” on it, with labels for the buttons on the side of the device. The labels are “next page” and “back”

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

The guts of the first prototype. Had to solder on a few bodge wires to make it work. The final version has these issues fixed, and the order has been placed! #Nerves #Hardware #Electronics

A green circuit board with some colorful wires soldered to a breakout module, and a battery taped to the empty area of the board. The board has a processor in the bottom right corner, a flex cable connector (not plugged in) in the middle, and USB + some switches on the left

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

A little more context for the goal of this project… coming very soon 👀 feat. the official Nerves shirt by @lawik.bsky.social, from oswag.org!

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Recipe: - 1 e-ink display - one rev of custom PCB - 1500 mAh of battery - a splash of #ElixirLang (infused with Nerves) - a dash of rust(ler)

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Chilling at the library today. It’s too hot for my brain to function in office or apartment

A picture of the bookshelves in a public library. White bookshelves with under self led lights, and a dark blue carpet. The books are multiple colors

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Here's a video of what that looks like. Starts with floating window to run my compile/upload command for Nerves (though that's not necessary, just wanted to show the floating window). Then `Space +d` for warnings in current file, and `Space + D` for warnings in the workspace

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Booting into an IEx shell on Trellis 🌱 A huge thank you to @fhunleth.bsky.social for putting in a ton of time with debugging! #ElixirLang #Nerves

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Here’s what the guts look like. There’s a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with a Soleil board on top for power management. The eink display came with an SPI driver board, so there’s a bunch of wires soldered directly to connect them Mechanically it is held together with tape and superglue 😅

The device consists of a circuit board with wires connecting to other parts. Including a battery, ribbon cable to camera, wires to the SPI eink driver board. Red yellow black and green wires. Looks a little sketchy to bring through the airport

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

I had a ton of fun exploring Kraków with this device after the conference. A few pics from the city :)

A picture on the eink display of the main conference stage

A picture on the eink display of a church steeple in kraków

A picture of the eink showing a statue of a dragon holding a camera. Found in a park in Kraków

A photo of the train platform on the eink display

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

If you saw me last week at ElixirConf, you might have seen my Nerves-powered eink name badge It can show a couple of static images and take a picture with the camera to display on the screen Working on putting everything in a GitHub repo this week in case anyone wants to make one of their own!

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Every time google tries to shove AI down my throat by offering to "polish" my emails, I keep reading it as the noun "Polish", as in the language of Poland. Which maybe actually would have made a bit of sense for the last couple of days here in Kraków for #ElixirConf?

A screenshot of Gmail prompting me to "polish" my email. Nice try, Google. Someone let me know how do I disable this?

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Here's a higher-quality still frame of the board up close. Seriously, the matte solder mask looks great and this might be the sharpest silkscreen I've seen on a PCB 😍

A screenshot from the video. It shows a green circuit board in my hands with the text "SOLEIL" in the lower right corner. The board consists of several connectors on the edges, lots of small components (resistors, capacitors, chips, etc) on the left side of the board, and it is raspberry pi zero shaped (with the 40-pin connector for raspberry pi)

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Really excited to share this one - I arranged the PCB factory tour in China because I ordered the first production batch of Soleil boards there. This clip shows me unboxing the boards in the shipping room of the factory. They turned out absolutely great, really impressed with the quality

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Okay this was a really cool machine that I hadn't seen before. For certain through hole components, there is a machine which will dip the through hole legs into a small well of solder. It's better in some cases because it doesn't require tooling to create a mask for wave soldering

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

This one is called wave soldering, and it is used to solder through hole components (which have "legs" that poke through the PCB) Basically, the PCB is loaded on a conveyor and slowly moves over a bath of melted solder. The legs drag through the liquid metal, and get soldered to exposed copper pads

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

New clip from my factory tour of a PCB assembly shop in China this past week - showing a pick and place (PNP) machine. The toolhead on this machine has multiple vacuum nozzles which pick up the tiny components, move them to the correct spot on the PCB, then place and release them

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Automated optical inspection (AOI) of a circuit board in a PCBA assembly line This machine detects bad solder joints and flag boards for rework. Critical for quality assurance in PCB assembly

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

After a bunch of debugging, I determined the issue was due to a bad ground connection `sunxi-fel --list` now outputs the chip ID. @nerves-project.org bringup via uboot and buildroot is next!

A screenshot of my terminal, where the command run is sunxi-fel --list

The output is:
USB device 020:001 Allwinner R528 93407200:5c004814:01044f24:2c731e96

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

The fix here is to rip out the reset controller, and use the charging of the RC circuit to drive the reset pin. Based on the calculator linked, I want: 140k resistor 1uF capacitor We'll see what I have on hand, but I'll try the already-mounted 10k / 1uF to start ladyada.net/library/rcca...

Screenshot of the reset circuit. It uses an APX803S-31SA to drive the RESET line low for 240ms. There's a 10k pull up resistor and a 1u capacitor between RESET and ground to stabilize the output. The fix proposed will un-solder the reset controller chip and just use the resistor/capacitor circuit to cause the required delay

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

It looks like it is option 1 - reset is steady at 0.393V The reset timing is a little complicated, but it essentially needs to hit 3.3V after at least 64ms after the other power rails have stabilized. I designed for 240ms of delay. But looks like that's not working, so time for some solder surgery

Timing diagram for the chip. 0.9V should have a 2ms delay after all of the other power rails, and RESET should have a 64ms delay after 0.9V

Some bodge wires soldered to the board, specifically the reset controllers

A screenshot of a timing analysis tool. It shows that the 0.9V delay pin goes high after 29ms, but the RESET pin stays low and never goes high. The 0 second mark is when the 3.3V pin goes high

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Fortunately there are no issues: 5.11V on the 5V output 3.32V on the 3.3V output 0.904V on the 0.9V output And the power LED lights up! In total, with the board powered but no code running we are consuming 27mA @ 6V input, or about 150mW

My desk setup for testing the PCB. Power supply, monitor mouse and blue ESD mat

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Meetings are almost done for the day, which means it's time to start @nerves-project.org bring-up ⚡️🌱 Will be documenting progress here

Car salesman meme which says:
*slaps roof of board*
This bad boy can fit so much Nerves in it

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Love the new autocomplete! Any chance it could support prefixes/suffixes in the near future? I'd love to add a '@' as an inner suffix to this input

A screenshot of an autocomplete form input titled "BlueSky Handle". The input shows a dropdown of multiple Bluesky profiles

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Ever wanted to build a custom embedded device but felt stuck with off-the-shelf boards? Meet Trellis! 🌱 A Nerves-first, open-source hardware platform that gives you a solid starting point for your custom hardware projects I'm beyond excited to speak about it at @elixirconf.bsky.social EU in May!

A graphic with a rendering of a custom single board computer with the form factor of a Raspberry Pi, but with different connectors. The text says "Coming soon to a GitHub repo near you"

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

⚡another sneak peek - open source hardware designed for @nerves-project.org

Screenshot of a 3D render of a PCB designed with KiCad. The board features a number of chips, and some green screw terminal connectors on the edge. They are labeled "NeoPixel", "RS485", and "CAN"

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

I've been working heads down this week using @kicad.org to finish up the layout on my next open source hardware project - designed to run Elixir via @nerves-project.org Here's a sneak peek from the 3D render, more info coming very soon! ⚡

3D rendering of a green circuit board designed in KiCAD. The board features a 128 pin LQFN chip at the center, with surrounding components and traces on the surface of the board

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Gus Workman @gworkman.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

They hide it in the "advanced options" section of the PCBA quote page. I think they'll do them by default for a subset of boards if you have BGA or other fine pitch components - for this batch I just asked since I had one bad solder joint on a BGA component

A screenshot of the PCBWay quote page with a red box highlighting the "Number of X-ray test" option in the advanced services section

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