
Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012 - weld
http://instagram.com/p/TWVkW-Jbtt/
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weld
I first met Ada at the Boston 2600 meetup in Harvard Sq in 1992. I think she
was 14. Deth Veggie from Cult of the Dead Cow introduced her to me. He said he
could tell she was going to amount to something big. Heh. Congrats Ada!

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tptacek
You've got me beat by 3 years. I think I met her for the first time at
Pumpcon. She's also one of the nicest people. I tell my daughter about her all
the time (it's no use, she still wants to be an author instead of an
engineer).

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meaty
Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There
are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and
movement crap.

This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed
to produce such a ton of noise.

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jamesbritt
What do you mean by "same stuff"?

Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously
thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get
started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.

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meaty
Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started
shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap.

Everyone sold the tools, kits and parts already. All that had been achieved is
the application of hype and turning a bunch of prepackaged modules into a way
of excusing the user from having to know what the hell they are doing.

It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

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danilocampos
> Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started
> shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap.

Sounds like you're actually embarrassed that she succeeded where you did not.

> It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

Like the iPad is "just" a big iPhone.

Most people who benefit from these sorts of products don't have a firm grasp
of math and engineering to start with. Our education sucks in the US. Giving
them a helping hand is a terrific way to swell the ranks of STEM professionals
and introduce people to solving problems they would never have considered
otherwise.

To shit on this is the most deplorable, counterproductive elitism.

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meaty
_Most people who benefit from these sorts of products don't have a firm grasp
of math and engineering to start with. Our education sucks in the US. Giving
them a helping hand is a terrific way to swell the ranks of STEM professionals
and introduce people to solving problems they would never have considered
otherwise._

Just teach them engineering! Not pussy foot around and molly coddle them.

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pyre
Your approach to this comes across as the equivalent of lamenting the state of
'kids these days' because 'back in the day,' if you did something wrong the
priest would 'beat some sense into you.'

Some people find the idea of engineering and/or mathematics intimidating. If
approached in the right way, it will 'click' for them, or at the very least
their fears can be assuaged (allowing them to pursue higher learning). I take
two issues with your posts here:

1) From your posts here, your approach sounds like you want to 'beat some
engineering fundamentals into them.' You say that you've mentored others, so I
can't believe that this is _actually_ your approach, but your posts come
across this way. This may be at lease some of the reason that people are
reacting the way they are to you.

2) You seem to be lamenting the fact that some people will work on these kits,
and never go further with the 'higher learning' aspect. This is to be
expected. There will never be a way to convert 100% of those curious into the
One True Path of Engineering Enlightenment(tm). At the very least, the people
that only dabble will get past the idea that all of this 'technology stuff' is
some sort of voodoo magic that the majority of the population seems to
believe.

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meaty
You are correct. I don't "beat" it into them - I spent literally years doing
1:1 with people and providing learning material, defining tasks and milestones
and days in the lab.

I want people to react to this because I think the issue requires some
consideration. We're losing and compartmentalising knowledge to the point that
people have no idea what they're really doing any more.

There is no one true path of engineering enlightenment but there is some magic
when someone actually really understands what they're doing.

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vaxdigitalnh
I love the idea behind this company. I wish her every success. We need more
entrepreneurs with this type of vision.

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Codhisattva
Exactly. (Frustrating that the other thread hi-jacked the attitude.)

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MichaelAO
Well done! I've enjoyed putting together a few of the kits from Adafruit. My
favorite (not the most technically challenging) is definitely the "tv-b-gone".
Taking that thing into a bar in my college town has provided a lot of laughs.
There maybe some room to be critical towards the fan fare of the maker
movement, but all in all it's a positive step towards individuals becoming
interested in science/technology.

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AceJohnny2
While sold by Adafruit (among others), the TV-B-Gone was designed by Mitch
Altman [1], who's as cool a frood as can be.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman>

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davidrudder
The DIY electronics movement is entering an incredible phase, similar to what
happened to the Internet during the post-boom decade. Companies like Amazon,
Google, Twilio, WordPress and others made it easy for non-techies to build
awesome applications. Now projects like Arduino, Electric Imp, Little Bits,
and Raspberry Pi are doing the same for electronics. You can make a great
project without needing to be an electrical engineer. The Internet gave the
masses the power of communication and information. DIY electronics are giving
the masses the power to build the world around them. Adafruit (and sparkfun!)
are bringing that incredible tech to the world.

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chopsueyar
Congrats Limor!

I still want a Wave Bubble.

