February 20, 2012

SPARKFUN ELECTRONICS TO LEAD AN ARDUINO PROGRAMMING WORKSHOP AT THE 6th ANNUAL TEI CONFERENCE

SparkFun will also help lead a beginner hacking session for attendees that want to repurpose various technologies

WHO:             Pete Dokter

Director of Engineering

SparkFun Electronics

(www.sparkfun.com)

Pete Dokter is the Director of Engineering at SparkFun Electronics, a position he has held since 2005. Prior to joining SparkFun, Pete was a technician at HID Corporation.

Lindsay Craig

Education Outreach Coordinator

SparkFun Electronics

(www.sparkfun.com)

Lindsay Craig is an education outreach coordinator at SparkFun Electronics, a position he has held since 2010. Prior to joining SparkFun, Lindsay was an after school teacher at Creekside Elementary and a Site Leader at OpenWorld Learning.

Founded in 2003, SparkFun shares its passion by providing parts, knowledge, and innovation for those looking to explore the world of embedded electronics. The company helps anyone discover their inner inventor and enables individuals to create their own electronics projects. SparkFun currently offers more than 1,800 products, ranging from simple components, like capacitors and resistors, to GPS units and Bluetooth modules. The company employs 130 people and is based in Boulder, Colorado.

WHAT:           “SparkFun Studio: ProtoSnap and Repurposed Electronics”

The ProtoSnap is an Arduino-compatible development platform aimed at teaching the basics of Arduino programming as efficiently as possible. It requires zero assembly, wiring or soldering, so people can jump right into programming the ProtoSnap to control LEDs, buzzers, light sensors and more. There’s even a small prototyping space so attendees can add their own parts!

Participants in the SparkFun Studio at TEI will learn how to couple real life sensors on the ProtoSnap with Processing sketches. These Processing sketches are user generated and can be anything from a game to a data logging tool, limited only by the programming capabilities and imagination of the user. Participants will also learn how to send data back out to an external output from the Processing sketch, thus completing the connection from real world to computer and back again.

Afterwards, SparkFun will help lead a beginner hacking session where participants are provided with some simple examples of how to repurpose various technologies. In addition, SparkFun will help participants hack their own technologies, which they are invited to bring to the session.                     

The 2012 International Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) Conference addresses design challenges, theories, experiences, systems and new developments, with specific emphasis on all the physical aspects of human interaction with computing technology. Studios at TEI are participatory events that offer novel and practical experiences to conference attendees with an emphasis on making, building, creating and hacking.

WHERE:        TEI 2012 (http://tei-conf.org/12/Main/Home)
Feb. 19 – 22, 2012

                        Human Media Lab – Queen’s University

                        99 University Avenue

                        Kingston, Ontario

                        Canada

WHEN:          SparkFun Studio – Tuesday, February 21 from 12:15 pm – 6:30 pm ET

CONTACT:   For more information on SparkFun Electronics, or to set up an interview with Pete and Lindsay, please contact Jeremy Douglas at (303) 581-7760, ext.16 or jdouglas@catapultpr-ir.com.

Also connect with SparkFun on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/SparkFun), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/SparkFun),

Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/SparkFun),

YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/SparkFun),

Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/SparkFun), and

Google+ (https://plus.google.com/106084846822083498483/posts)