Elixir Wizards

Creating a Terrestrial Telescope using Nerves & LiveView with Lucas Sifoni

Nov 7, 2024

49:56

Today on Elixir Wizards, indie developer Lucas Sifoni shares his experience prototyping a remote-controlled terrestrial telescope using Elixir, Nerves, Rust, and various hardware components.

Lucas explains the basic components of a telescope, the challenges he faced during the development process, and the benefits of using Elixir and Nerves for hardware projects. Lucas emphasizes the importance of simulating hardware components and testing assumptions before working with physical devices, as well as the value of literate programming and executable blog posts for documenting and sharing the process.

Lucas encourages listeners to explore Nerves and build their own hardware projects. He also gives a shout-out to the Nerves core team for their incredible work.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Challenges in optimizing wiring and PCB design for the prototype
Benefits of Elixir and Nerves for hardware projects
Communicating with Arduinos using serial connections and pattern matching
Leveraging binary pattern matching and construction in Elixir for hardware
Balancing educational value and real-world usability
Learning CID software and parametric design for 3D printing components
Growing interest in Nerves and hardware projects within the Elixir community
Simulating hardware components and testing assumptions before physical implementation
Literate programming and executable blog posts for documenting hardware projects
Using Elixir's interoperability with Rust for performance-critical tasks
Elixir's low fragmentation and high-quality libraries for various domains
Potential for using Livebook in hardware projects, with some limitations
Encouraging listeners to explore Nerves and build their own hardware projects