My (Short) Autobiography

Last Updated
Sunday, 21-Apr-2002 16:29:54 EDT


After reading an article about netiquitte that stated "studies in 1994 showed that users want to know the people behind information on the Web," I decided it would be an interesting project to find something in my life worthy of wasting the time of others.

I was surprised when I thought about it, at the magnitude of the crap that I was willing to pass on to the masses. Like my father before me, there's a story to everything that is vitally important that ordinary people like yourself hear.

So here it is, abridged only because I haven't gotten to all the details yet, My Story.

Needless to say I was born at a young age, and grew up as I got older. I've always been curious about electro-mechanical devices and have had them as a recurring theme to my existence.

I started early in a basement in British Columbia, sneaking into my father's workshop and finding the soldering gun plugged in. All I knew at the time was that it poured forth smoke when dad touched a wire to it. He always looked very intent when using it, and this meant that it did something very important. So I proceeded to "fix" my Fisher-Price camper with it melting a hole in one side, noting how the camper smoked so much more than the wire (more's better right?) and getting my father in a lot of trouble from Mom in the process. After that the soldering gun never worked when I wanted to use it.



At age 7, dad started to bring home a computer from the office every once in a while, eventually building his own Apple ][+ clone. This was pure magic to me and I spent hours upon hours trying to write clever programs that would do things like simulate the command-line and just beep then print "SYNTAX ERROR" for any command entered. I always had a strange sense of humor.

When I was 11 or 12 we built our first real robot. It was controlled by the joystick port of the Apple, and did nothing but scuttle around. By classic definitions it wasn't really even a robot as it had no sensors (always meant to add those) so it couldn't adapt to its surroundings in any way (ie. turn away from a wall). I was impressed as all heck, and the school board even send someone out to get video of it. I never saw a finished video, but I have the raw footage somewhere!

In Grade 8 it was mandatory for us to participate in the Science Fair, so I pulled what I thought was a cop-out and built some model bridges from balsa wood and crushed them under stacks of National Geographics. Everyone else seemed to be growing beans in the dark, or testing the life of various brands of batteries. All those just sat there and needed to be tended for days or weeks. I had my hands busy cutting, and gluing and then doing "failure point analysis" of the models for two weekends. The results were dramatic and messy as 3' stacks of magazines skidded across the floor. Won 1st prize in the Engineering Division and an honorable mention overall as well as two invitations to exhibit at other larger fairs at the local high-school and university.

In high school a friend and I started to play with lasers. We pooled some $800 (1991 dollars) for an order from Meredith Instruments buying laser tubes, power supplies, optics, x-y scanners and tonnes of other stuff. My father phoned in the order, and the lady (Mary) on the other end was so impressed with our ambition that she through in a bunch of "optics grab bags" for the budding researchers. Puneet's (my buddy) interest was holography. Mine was computer controlled light shows. I never did get the proper equipment for that to work, but I had a unit that responded to music in my bedroom a year before those "LaserFX" machines hit the market.

By this time my interest in electronics was curing if not completely hardened. I began tinkering with building a "sound sampler" (A-D converter) for my Amiga 2000, and hooking up LEDs to anything I could.

No great surprise I signed up for the Electronics Technology program at Humber College and worked at that for 3 years. I managed to stay on the Dean's Honor roll for about 7 minutes, and managed to almost complete the 2 year course.

Towards the end of my third year I was offered a job at Comptrol Computer Control through a buddy of mine. This was the best experience I could have asked for right out of an incomplete school career. After a couple months of in-house training, I hit the ground running and for the next two years spent nearly 4 out of every 5 weeks on the road traveling all over North America with a few trips to South and Central America (Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras), the Caribbean (Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic) and one fascinating trip to Manila via Hong Kong. At Comptrol we built in-process scales for the food industry (ie. grain handling and flour milling). It was a small operation at roughly 15 people, but as a field service rep, I could walk down the hall and speak to the software or mechanical engineers and they listened to what I had to say. It was an empowering feeling to be included in discussions and debates over new products with the owners and engineers, and asked for my input. I know at this time being right out of school and full of my self I was a little more than idealistic, but it's all a part of the game.

Just over two years at Comptrol elapsed and I was offered a position at MDS AutoLab in Toronto. Here we automate specimen tracking and handling in laboratories. I now have the title "Hardware Integration Specialist", which means I do anything that doesn't fall into a particular category. I get to test and evaluate new systems and designs, make recommendations on the behaviors of software and generally muck about with hardware. I get to put out a lot of fires and can head in unexpected directions on any given day. I don't travel nearly as much, but generally will go away for roughly a week every month. I've had to pick up a lot along the way including understanding the laboratory industry and our roll within it, robotics, mechanical design and material usage, manufacturing, and of course always practicing the troubleshooting skills I like to think I've become known for.

In general I like anything I can tinker with, and have had a wide range of projects. Most of them are incomplete and doomed to remain so, but I'm trying to take anything new as far as I can. A few years ago I was given a model airplane kit for Christmas. I think my parents were almost more excited than I was when I opened it... almost. I spent many hours that holiday assembling the wing, and promptly failed to complete it. Fortunately my buddy (and roommate at the time) Cory got the 'plane building bug and took it upon himself to go out and buy the exact same kit so that we could complete them together and go flyin'. It took me a good chunk of the fall of 2000 to do and by the time I finished, October had rolled around. Oh well, there's always next year. Everything's been bought, the engine run-in, the radio installed, and even adjusted the control surfaces a few times. So what's the hold-up? Well firstly Cory's 'plane was in need of a wing covering. He's nervous about doing that surface, but I'm maintaining that he has to do that himself, or he'll never do it. We also both need to take the flying lessons, but we're gonna do the whole thing together. He tells me he finally has the money to buy his engine and radio (again identical to mine). When we're done the only difference between the two should be the colour... oh... and the fact that his is going to be several inches flatter than mine when he pancakes ;-P ...hehe

I'm also trying to learn the art of shaping metal and other materials. I've just bought my first lathe and am having a great time doing all the things I've never been able to do before with a hand drill. I'm pretty happy with what I've been able to turn out so far and always have my eyes open for stock to chuck-up and reduce to steel (or aluminum) wool. So far my only project has been to built a CNC machine with which to make small parts and machine circuit boards. A great deal is being learned here I can assure you and even if my girl friend doesn't fully understand, she tolerates it admirably. My parents too are being amazingly sympathetic to my cause as I've just moved home to save money (I'm in the paying-off-loans stage) in order to buy a house in the not-too-distant future. They don't seem to mind me sitting in my bedroom wearing hearing protection with a 5A cutout-tool and shopvac running at all hours and eating their food.



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Scott Holmes