Ever since John Edgar Park can remember, he’s been taking things apart to understand how they work. His earliest memory was dismantling a broken walkie-talkie set, putting it back together, only to discover it worked again. It made him feel like he had special powers. That was his epiphany moment, and his destiny as a maker was sealed.
John’s passion for dismembering and rebuilding things has taken him into the worlds of computer graphics and film animation for companies like White Wolf Studios, NovaLogic, and Disney Animation Studios where he worked as a Rigging Lead, CG Supervisor, and Director of Digital Production & Technology on films Meet The Robinsons, Bolt, Planes and Tinker Bell. His book, Understanding 3D Animation Using Maya, was written based on his experience teaching Maya at Sony Imageworks during the production of Spider-Man 2, The Polar Express, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
John is a prominent force within the maker movement. He hosted the public television series Make: television, he’s a regular writer for Make Magazine and presenter atMaker Faire events. He currently works for Adafruit Industries and hosts a weekly YouTube broadcast called John Park’s Workshop, you can check it out here.
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.
