IFI Field Trip

No, I am not dead; just having some trouble getting forward motion on the Arduino project. Work has kept me underwater for some time- I haven't been able to post to TheNonProfitDirector.blogspot.com for a few weeks. There will be posts there soon as there has been a lot of activity at work.

What happened today was an absolutely wonderful field trip to Innovation First International (IFI) in Greenville, Texas. IFI has multiple product lines at the World Headquarters in Greenville: Rack Solutions that designs and produces custom solutions for rack mount problems, HEXBUG and the VEX robotics platform. As a member of the DPRG field trip to IFI, we were most interested in the VEX line, but I would be remiss if I did not mention that they apply rapid prototyping to their development; extremely rapid prototyping that can shut down production equipment for a special run on the prototype for development. They also produce toys in the HEXBUG line that they conceive and develop in a month or so and then send the product overseas for tooling setup.

The VEX line is primarily focused on education; robotics education, that is. It's a terrific teaching tool that has roots in E-Systems and Erector sets. What has come out is an extremely flexible system of engineering a robot (or robots) that can be developed by a middle-school student.

IFI was extremely generous with their time and their products during our visit. They took the time to answer all of our questions and provided us with a guided tour of the entire facility. Before we left, those that were interested were allowed to take home Cortex and ProtoBot bundles.

I will be blogging here on the use of the Arduino with the ProtoBot. IFI has asked that we provide feedback to them if we take a VEX product with us. That's a deal that is hard to beat.

So, hats off to Bob and the gang at IFI- thank you for hosting us and providing a tour of your facility! It is my hope that IFI and DPRG will have a long history together.