Learn About the Latest Tools and Resources for the Maker Community
Microchip MakerZone, a webinar series created exclusively for the maker community, is here.
Meet Microchip's Wizard of Make, Bob Martin
An avid maker before it was a recognized vocation, Bob Martin has been tearing things apart to see how they work for his entire life. After obtaining a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, he spent his early career installing specialized instruments into arctic weather stations, designing industrial control systems and supporting upper atmospheric research campaigns.
He moved to the Bay Area 26 years ago and has continued to concentrate on embedded systems design. After a decade at National Semiconductor, which also exposed him to the wonderful world of analog, Bob ended up working at a few startups. He then joined Atmel®, where he managed a microcontroller (MCU) applications team. In this role, he became deeply involved with the maker movement and the open-source Arduino® platform that supports 8- and 32-bit MCUs.
With 30+ years of embedded system experience, Bob now serves as the “Wizard of Make” for Microchip to keep the maker spirit alive. In this role, he educates aspiring makers and continues to create, experiment and explore as much as he can. He lives in Sunnyvale, CA with his wife, twin daughters, a cat with no teeth and a garage full of surplus wire and boxes of vintage electronics that really need to be recycled.
MakerZone Webinar Series
This exciting new webinar series focuses on the maker community and what we are doing to continue to support this vibrant and creative community. This series will cover topics such as our new evaluation boards, Arduino® support in our MCU development ecosystems and other topics of interest to all the makers out there. Hosted by Microchip's Wizard of Make, Bob Martin, this series will bring insight into all the projects, resources and product portfolios that we offer to support the maker community. Each episode will be presented live and will be filled with cool maker content, leaving time for audience Q&A.
MakerZone Gatherings
Gathering #1: Series Kick-Off
In the first gathering, Bob will be introducing the resources that we currently offer to the maker community and strategy changes he’s been noticing in the maker space over the past few years, especially in the area of microcontroller (MCU) evaluation boards and the hardware and software ecosystems around them. Bob will also introduce the new family of AVR® MCU devices and some of the new features of these parts.
Gathering #2: Maker Space Hardware Part 1
Gathering #2 will start with a quick rundown of the more popular Arduino® and Arduino-compatible boards and the upgrades and functional trends that have appeared over the past few years. Bob will then move on to the Curiosity Nano platforms and how they will fit in the maker space with direct Arduino IDE support.
Gathering #3: Maker Space Software Part 1
Gathering #3 will introduce the new Arduino® IDE 2.0. Bob will dive directly into the Arduino support packages for our Curiosity Nano boards and the Arduino sketch import functionality available in Microchip Studio and MPLAB® X IDE. Importing sketches into formal C++ projects opens up a whole new world of debugging power.
Gathering #4: Maker Space Hardware Part 2
Gathering #4 will pick up from where Bob left off in Gathering #2 and will introduce the new mini cellular IoT board in a completely new form factor for Microchip. This is the first board specifically targeted for the maker space and it deserves a close look at all the features.
Other Microchip Events
We have more exciting opportunities for you to meet with our experts to learn about our products and technologies and get answers to your design questions.