Michael Gasperi

When I was growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s it made sense to build things, such as a computer, from component parts. In fact, you could build all kinds of electronic products, including television sets, this way. Not only does this not make any economic sense now, it is also physically impossible to deal with the tiny electronic components. Back then, magazines such as Popular Electronics provided all kinds of projects for the electronic hobbyist to experiment with. One of the regular columns was written by Forrest Mims, and I eagerly anticipated reading his latest monthly installment. I always thought, “What a cool job this guy has; someday I’m going to do something like that.”

I went to Purdue University, earned an engineering degree, and ended up doing industrial research at Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee, WI. However, a part of me still yearned for the dream job of cooking up interesting projects and telling people how to do them. Back in 1998 LEGO introduced the MINDSTORMS Robotic Invention System. I naively bought a kit for my 10 year old daughter Audrey, but quickly got swept up in the network of adult hackers trying to unlock the product’s real potential. Through a simple personal web page I started publishing how the LEGO sensors worked and how to build new ones. This led to being invited to appear at MIT’s MindFest and eventually to authoring and coauthoring several books on the subject.