Pinball Wizard, Race Car Driver, Self-Taught Engineer: Jeri Ellsworth

Technology
Pinball Wizard, Race Car Driver, Self-Taught Engineer: Jeri Ellsworth

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Jeri Ellsworth showing off her castAR augmented reality glasses.
Jeri Ellsworth showing off her castAR augmented reality glasses.

Jeri Ellsworth is a truly impressive individual. She dropped out of high school and went into business for herself. An early commercial success was the creation of a complete Commodore 64 emulator in a joystick that could play 30 classic C64 games.

Not a one hit wonder by any stretch, the multi-talented, self-taught hardware engineer also restores vintage pinball machines for fun, built and raced her own stock car, enjoys roller skating, hacked her own Commadore 64 keytar, has a huge following for her YouTube Channel and is a frequent and welcome attendee of Maker Faire.

Jeri worked as a hardware developer for the game platform company Valve Software, before leaving to co-found her own company Technical Illusions. She and co-founder Rick Johnson are developing an augmented reality system called castAR, which debuted last year at the Bay Area Maker Faire. The castAR system is looking to be, quite literally, a game-changer. Developers have been hungrily awaiting its release since it was announced.

Jeri is an amazing person, who any aspiring engineer or technical entrepreneur can look up to.

6 thoughts on “Pinball Wizard, Race Car Driver, Self-Taught Engineer: Jeri Ellsworth

  1. Pinball Wizard, Race Car Driver, Self-Taught Engineer: Jeri Ellsworth | Salute says:

    […] Read more on MAKE […]

  2. RobotGrrl  says:

    Jeri is such a great role model for making amazing projects and inspiring others to do so as well. Her video on failure is nice too. Really cool person! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhQ7d3BK3KQ

  3. Pinball Wizard, Course automobile, ingénieur autodidacte: Jeri Ellsworth | TechLab LR says:

    […] Jeri est une personne vraiment incroyable, qui tout ingénieur ou entrepreneur en herbe technique peuvent se tourner. Un concepteur de matériel autodidacte, Jeri a créé des produits, du matériel piraté, et partagé ses connaissances avec la communauté de café pendant des années. Son dernier projet est co-fondateur de Illusions technique, … lire la suite (en anglais) […]

  4. George Rutkay says:

    It’s very good to finally see an intelligent female role model for youth which has nothing to do with the status quo (Miley Cyrus and her ilk).

  5. Julian Rawlinson says:

    Brains the original and still = SEXY….

  6. https://goo.gl/WGI1NG says:

    Jeri Ellsworth is a truly impressive individual. She dropped out of high school and went into business for herself. An early commercial success was the creation of a complete Commodore 64 emulator in a joystick that could play 30 classic C64 games.

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Andrew Terranova is an electrical engineer, writer and author of How Things Are Made: From Automobiles to Zippers. Andrew is also an electronics and robotics enthusiast and has created and curated robotics exhibits for the Children's Museum of Somerset County, NJ and taught robotics classes for the Kaleidoscope Enrichment in Blairstown, NJ and for a public primary school. Andrew is always looking for ways to engage makers and educators.

View more articles by Andrew Terranova

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