My name is Jeff Branson and these pages are centered around my personal experiences in the world, both my job and the rest of my life, because there seems to be little separation.
I work for SparkFun Electronics in Boulder CO in the Education Department. I do a lot of traveling to teach topics around DIY and embedded computing. Much of what we do is centered on the Arduino microcontroller and it’s uses in education. I tell people we are a “K-NASA” company, we teach everything from Squishy Circuits(conductive and insulating playdough) to systems that drive satellites and UAVs.
My traditional education is in welding, fabrication, machining and automation. I also have a life long interest in STEM topics and, in particular, robotics. I view robotics as the opera of math, science and technology. There are a wealth of high level topics rolled together in robotics- physics, math, mechanics, computer science, physiology, psychology, manufacturing…the list goes on and on. this makes it an ideal playground for the migration of humans into the iterative digital world created by recent advances in technology.
This website is an attempt to document and disseminate the learning, knowledge and ideas that come through my travels and experiences on a daily basis.
Related articles
- A 12-Year-Old’s Quest To Remake Education, One Arduino At A Time (oddonion.com)
- Spark by Southwest (sparkfun.com)
- Geek Profile – Mike Grusin and SPACE! (sparkfun.com)