Seeed Hack-A-Thon S0E0 (season0 episode 0)
Our engineers are too busy building stuff, while our customers and partners keep giving us feedback (thank you!). But we should try out our own products in depth to keep them evolving in the right direction. Also, as our RnD team enlarges and products get more and more complex, we need more efficient collaboration with limited time frame. A great cure for these is Hack-A-thon! We will hold it every month and publish the result and open source the applications. This hackathon starts from needs from our material inventory: SMT component counter!
Time: July 10, 2012
Place: Seeed Studio
Participants: Seeed staff, led by three engineers (Simon, LG and Albert)
Preparations: 1.Teamed up (Six members in each team including the leader)
2. Named the team (Crazy Snail, Hairy Iron Man, Muddle-headed Counting)
3. Customers (staff from SCM) described the requirements of the product.
4. Jasen(founder of Makeblock)introduced features of Makeblock.
Then it was time for the excited participants to get their hands dirty. They had to deal with many challenges, including mechanical design, writing codes, and so on. 
The materials they used included Makeblock, SMT reels, Grove series and Seeeduino etc. Each team could get the materials from the depot, without limitation on the quantity. 
After hours of designing, constructing, developing and improving their projects, each team was elated to show their prototypes. It was amazing that they managed it in just a few hours. The team leaders also shared their experiences in the process.
However, that’s not the end yet. The prototype will be improved and when it meets practical needs, we will publish the recipe. Let’s stay tuned and see how things go in the next episode.
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