You might recognize Chris Anderson as a world renowned journalist. Former editor-in-chief atWired, author of The Long Tail, and recent author of Makers, he has traded in his pen to become CEO of 3D Robotics, a manufacturer of unnmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
So when I saw he was speaking at the annual Hardware Innovation Workshop, I was intrigued. Just how does someone go from being an editor to CEO of a robotics company? I knew he was an awesome writer, but seriously, a CEO?
Chris’s story starts five years before he quit his job at Wired. Passionate about hardware, Chris was spending his weekends building products with his kids, hoping they would gain his same affinity for science and technology. Like any Dad he wanted to impress his kids, but unfortunately most of his projects ended with them saying, “Is that all it can do?”
Wanting to step up his game, Chris decided it was time to build a robot that could fly!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
