History

I started getting into the microcontroller scene about 5 or 6 years ago with the Parallax Boe-Bot kit. This was a wonderful starting kit for me as I had some programming exposure from the few college classes I had taken and wanted to get my hands on the hardware. I remember during my microcontroller class in one of my first years of college wondering what the heck I would need to know the insides of a processor for.  If I only knew. Back then I was more focused on learning programming and didn’t care about the hardware.  I was going to make a game and that was that.

As I was taking classes and learning how to program and get the core classes out of the way (as I saw it then) I started to get a feeling that programming alone wouldn’t satisfy whatever it was I was feeling.  I wanted to build. I loved LEGOs when I was young along with robotic and RC toys.  I played computer games since I was 8 for better or worse. I built models as well … which at a later date ended up being destroyed by slingshot marbles or set ablaze for more realistic enactments to planes being shot down.

Both parents are electrical engineers and in hindsight, that is the path I should have chosen. But the rebellious teen wanted only to do with computers not quite understanding the desire to build within. I remember wanting to make computers do what I want.  That was empowering so programming was the way to go … I didn’t take that the step further to make the computer move a motorized arm to pick things up or any number of things that could be done. Better late than never I suppose.