On Intense Creativity & Building Things... Week 8 of Hackbright!

Curious. Driven. Thoughtful. Inquisitive. Funny. Irreverent. Brave.

I find myself repeating these words when asked about my colleagues at Hackbright Academy. Everyone is intense about something: traveling, tinkering, dancing, cooking; intensely critical, intensely ambitious, intensely focused.  We must be intense, otherwise we wouldn't thrive in this environment, where we set aside our insecurities to plunge headfirst into pursuing a dream once thought inconceivable.

Programming gives us an entirely new way to control our environments, in super-creative capacities. Suddenly, we all have new tools at our disposal. Suddenly, we can talk to machines in their languages and make them DO things we want them to -- and the ramifications of this newfound power are almost unlimited.

Arduino micro-controller, able to
communicate with lights,
cameras, motors & more! 

We've discovered that robotics isn't just for high-level scientists in research labs, and programming isn't just for tech-wizards who started in grade school. Today, affordable technologies like Raspberry Pi and Arduino, along with vast repositories of open-source software & project guides, enable anyone with a basic knowledge of programming and a knack for problem-solving to build nearly any practical computerized gadget they can imagine.

Raspberry Pi, the brains behind
the automatic pet feeder

So while I'm not about to construct an automatic cat feeder this weekend, I *am* already reading the instructions, checking out the code on github, and talking to my partner about how he can help with each step of the project. It feels amazing to know I can take control of my surroundings by building things that make life easier, more interesting and ultimately, more functional.

Leap motion controller

And in the past week, I've seen my classmates demonstrate 3D motion sensors, devise their own algorithms, instruct our teachers on new technologies, and encounter more "A-HA!" victory moments than I can count. What an amazing transformation from when we started! As intense people, we can be pretty hard on ourselves -- but it's clear to me that we've all acquired a new superpower. From "Hello, world" to "Watch out, world" in just 10 weeks!