Thursday, May 22, 2014

Banana Piano and Becoming a Real Monkey

Fruity Music

First thing's first: I set up a banana piano at work on Monday. There is an empty desk behind me and I had just bought a Makey Makey from the Maker Faire last weekend and it just seemed natural for me to do this. For those unfamiliar with Makey Makey, it is a kit built on top of an arduino that allows you to create simple circuits with anything conductive (such as a human, a banana, or a bowl of water). You plug the Makey Makey into your computer and the circuits are programmed to activate your space bar and your arrow keys. So if you had a game of tetris open on your computer and you had the Makey Makey hooked up to a bunch of carrots, you could play tetris by touching the carrot that corresponds to the key you want to press.

Anyway, they suggested a banana piano, and they have a sweet little webpage that allows you to play five notes on a piano using the space bar and the arrow keys. So it is basically ready to go. I taped down a big strip of tin foil and hooked that up to the Makey Makey, and then I hooked up five bananas to the Makey Makey. So by putting one hand on the tin foil and using the other hand to tap the bananas, you complete the circuit and it plays a note.


I sent out an email saying that I had set up a piano made of bananas and that anyone who wanted to try it should stop by my desk. That was a really fun way to meet some people I hadn't talked to before. One person came over and said, "I'm going to have to start taking your emails at face value." I asked him to clarify and he added, "I thought you were using some lingo that I wasn't familiar with. I didn't realize you meant an actual piano made of actual bananas."

There are other things I want to do with the Makey Makey (at home, not at work), like play Adventure Ponies with bowls of water and make a piano out of five separate humans (each one being a different note). I heard one guy had his dogs sit on tin foil and he petted them to make music, but I haven't been able to make that work with our dogs yet. I have to play around a bit with their conductivity - like get them slightly wet or something. I'm a terrible dog mom.

An Offer I Couldn't Refuse

In other news, and almost as important as the banana piano, I got a full time offer from SurveyMonkey this week and I just signed my offer letter yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a real Monkey now!!!!!!!!! It was a match made in heaven. SurveyMonkey has been a really great place for me and I was really really really hoping for a full time offer.

This really is a dream come true. So I was very surprised that, much like when I got my acceptance letter to Hackbright, I felt a wave of inexplicable panic when I got my offer from SurveyMonkey. It doesn't make any sense at all. I have gotten very positive feedback from everyone I work with, I've accomplished a lot on my project in the last two months, and I love working there. But still, I keep getting hit with rushes of panic that I can't do this, that I am going to fail. The weirdest part is that this is by far the most panic I have felt since I started at SurveyMonkey, largely to the credit of my manager, my mentor, and my teammates who have been really supportive from the beginning. The good news is that I know this nonsensical panic is temporary because I have experienced it before and because I know I am right where I am supposed to be.

1 comment:

  1. So happy for you! May your monkeys multiply and go forth.
    Remember I wanted you to help me make things do things...?

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