Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, here I am at… MAKE Labs?
This week marks the beginning of summer, and that means more daylight hours and more time for making. With so many exciting projects always littered across every horizontal surface of our offices (currently from the new School’s Out special issue and many Weekend Project prototypes) the spirit of making is everywhere. So, it was only a matter of time before those of us in the Sales & Marketing team wanted to get in on the action. In fact, we all marched into MAKE Labs and issued a challenge: “Teach us to make!”
Well, MAKE Labs engineering interns Nick Raymond and Tyler never back down from a challenge (especially if it involves Arduino).
And thus, the idea for Sales Maker Camp was born. Every week this summer, the MAKE Sales & Marketing team (almost all programming/electronics neophytes) will descend upon the Labs for a different lesson in making.
Week 1: Arduino
We were all incredibly excited for our first week of “Camp.” Most of us had never worked with Arduino before, despite the fact that we talk about it, write about it, and build campaigns around it on a daily basis.
We strolled into the Labs, settled down at our workbenches, and unwrapped fresh, shiny Arduino Unos. Some of us were intimidated by the tiny complex-looking printed circuit boards; some of us were unfazed. We were all excited that they came with stickers (marketing professionals love swag!).
After a brief introductory lesson by Nick, we were off and running, writing our own complex lines of code (well, OK, copying and pasting lines of code from the examples on the Arduino website).
Within a few minutes, Arduino boards were blinking all over the Labs. Hello, World! The team had lots of questions about making the LEDs do all kinds of other things; in fact, we may have been far quicker studies than the interns were prepared for. All in all, it was a very promising start to an exciting new venture. I love my job!
What will happen next week? Will Marketing Director Vickie Welch blow out an ATmega chip? Will Sales Manager Cecily Benzon get so amped up on combat robots that she gives up her desk job forever? Check back next week to find out…
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See our Intern’s Corner columns for more goings on at the MAKE offices
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