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  • Author Author: e14megan
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Happy Birthday, element14!

The Best Thing to Ever Happen to June 14th. image

So, in the style of our Raspberry Pi celebration, I was going to kick-off this post talking about other really cool things that happened on June 14th. However, after looking at the Wikipedia Page dedicated to this date... I was honestly coming up a bit short. Yes, things happened, but a lot of them weren't great. For example, Albert II became the first monkey in space... before dying on impact. Yikes. So instead, myself and decided that element14 is probably the best thing to ever happen on June 14th. Go us!

 

Happy "First" Birthday!

And while this is the eighth birthday for the community, this is a "first" for a couple members of the element14 team, so wanted to give a quick shout out to , Mindi and of course... yours truly (though it's a bit depressing to wish "happy birthday" to oneself). But I digress. Here's to a happy "first birthday" to the newest members of the element14 team, and what will hopefully be many more years to come.

 

Birthday Presents! image

To help commemorate the occasion, every member who logs in between now and June 28th, 12PM CDT will receive the "element14 8th Birthday Badge". This is a limited time only badge, and once the day and time has passed you will no longer be able to receive it (even if you ask really, really nicely). In addition to this, we'll be giving away eight birthday presents to various members of the community. You heard (read) that correctly - we'll be giving presents to you!

 

How to Win

Comment below with where you were or what you were doing when the element14 community launched. While some of you were probably diligently working to ensure a smooth and successful launch (looking at you, ), many of us didn't join until weeks, months or years later. We'll choose eight members who reply, and send them their choice of the following presents:

 

For example: On June 14th, 2009 I was likely celebrating the finish of Finals Week at my University. Since DePaul is on a quarter system, we generally went a bit latter into the year than other schools, with Finals Week usually the first or second week of June. And by celebrating, I was probably catching up after a few all nighters and trying really, really, really hard to not stress about my pending grades (I graduated with a 3.445, so I think I did fairly well, even if I missed *** Laude by .005).

 

You have until June 30th, 11:59AM (noon) CDT to enter.

 

Going Green

Looking for another cool way to celebrate June 14th and potentially win some prizes? Be sure to check out Going Green, the newest Project14 competition that's launching today! This is the first theme that was chosen by members of the community, so we're all very excited to see what cool projects you come up with.

  • Happy birthday image

     

    Well, that was a Sunday, so on that particular day I wasn't working. I've managed to get my email from back then, I was working temporarily for a company in Rennes, France. I had just come out of a very rough period; I had started my own company, it fell apart, I lost everything, homeless, etc etc. Anyway, details. I was back on track, working for a company that needed hardware knowledge, but working exclusively in software. I was doing some low-level development on x86 and ARM chips, getting Linux to run on devices that didn't have Linux support (PDAs, phones, etc). That was kind of fun, but it was around this time that they also said that they didn't need C/assembly developers, and that if I wanted to stay, it would be as a Java dev. Nope, I need to be at a much lower level.

     

    So, I was a software engineer, missing out on all the hardware, but still dreaming of oscilloscopes, components and all the fun stuff. A few years later, things have changed a lot!

  • I don't remember what I was doing on June 14, 2009, but I was probably spending time with relatives.

  • I was building a house extension in summer 2009 so I looked back through my photos and work diary to see what stage I was at. The weekend of 14th June I was pulling heavy timbers up to make the roof and doing the basic fixing of them. During the week afterwards, I did my paid day job, came home and continued working on the roof - making some wooden 'droppers' so I could fix the soffit boards to. Athough I don't have a photo from the weekend of hard work on 14th, I do have one taken at the end of the week.

     

    image

     

    I enjoyed building work as it was worlds away from my usual work of SMT/electronics/RF - but I had great difficultly adjusting to the lower level of precision required. I'd often cut to the exact mm only to find I'd need to trim some more as the wood was slightly twisted/not even and didn't quite fit. However a large hammer often helped :-)

  • Looking back to when I joined here I realize that in the same week I changed my work place and went to a new company. So I'm a E14 member for about the same time I'm working at my current company - more than 4 years now. The reason for joining was a design challenge for an Energy Harvesting kit. But it took another year to get accepted for the first time...

  • Congrats on completing 8 years and running strong.

    I keep a log of activities and I just looked up 2009. I had just started a new job as an Engineer and was hard at work writing some Verilog Code for an FPGA-based system. Yes, it was a Sunday but I liked what I do and new to the city and really did not have many plans for weekends. I even have a CVS commit log for the day image which unlike git means I had to be connected to our server.

     

    It's funny how things have evolved over time and how those Sundays paid off. I wish I had heard of the community sooner but it I am glad I eventually landed here. Warm hugs to the entire team.

    Thanks guys! You are awesome.!

  • On June 14th, 2009 I was at Corona Del Mar beach in Southern California.  My family was visiting from Phoenix, AZ and it was the first time my family and I had been to a beach.

    My little cousins and I hung out in the tide pool and looked at the various creatures living inside.

     

    Happy Birthday Element 14!

  • On June 14, 2009 I would have been celebrating my 24th wedding anniversary.  My wife and I got married on June 14, 1985 in anticipation of the formation of Element14.

  • On June 14th 2009 I was celebrating my first weekend as a employee, recent graduated from university.

     

    Happy birthday, element14!

  • I must say I have a terrible memory for names and dates but I think by this time I was finishing another year of my degree in electronic engineering. Unfortunately, I had to repeat in the following year some of the disciplines that I failed.

     

    Happy Birthday, element14!