Here at SparkFun, we love visitors. We are generally friendly people and we definitely enjoy a good chat about electronics with our customers. In fact, nothing tickles our fancy more than when people see Bert and Ernie (our pick-n-place machines) going full throttle for the first time. Really, it still excites us to see them whizzing along.
Because of our crazy growth, we've decided to start getting serious about our tours. We've trained a handful of SparkFun gurus and we've polished and set out as many of our tutorials and projects as possible. We're excited to show you our home!
So you now have a standing invitation - every Friday at 3PM - to come check out SparkFun. We will take this time to show you our production area, shipping floor, testing cabinets, our classroom (you know we teach classes, right?), the breakroom, anything you'd like to see! Please note that we have a lot of dogs in the building - so if you have serious allergies you may not want to go on a tour. The dogs are all friendly though, and love nothing more than a good pet. Also know that we occasionally (well, usually) have beer on Fridays - so if you see us walking around with a pint, you'll know why!
The tour lasts about an hour to and hour and a half. We really enjoy answering questions and sharing what we've learned over the past few years, as well as learning some new things from you.
If you think you want to join us for our Friday tour, we'd love to have you. We can usually handle up to 20 guests so please give us a call ahead of time (303.284.0979) and let us know how many to expect in your group. We hope to see many of you here soon!
I can't believe you refer to 2 of your hard working employees as "pick-n-place machines"?
No, you misunderstood. Those ARE machines. They just gave them nicknames.
Yeah right. Heck, I get tweets from them all the time.
Just wath the machines working: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNYNZZ_N1xI
you guys need a beer garden or a spark fun tap room serving the likes of "energized pale ale", "autonomous wheat" and others...maybe you guys should try and team up with the new brewery down the street!
-scott
We already appear to be giving them a certain amount of business...
That pick and place machine looks so much prettier than the one at my work.
On a related note, what sort of ESD protection measures does SF employ?
My 11-year old son and my father and I took the tour during AVC, it was great! I recommend to everyone to take the tour if you get a chance. Everyone was super nice!!!!!!
small nit pick but I couldn't help but notice your staff hoodies have the wrong logo, lightning bolt instead of the SF Flame.
Ah, those are the AVC Staff "Shoodies" (shirt+hoodie). Though there are lightning bolts on the back there's also a prominent flame on the chest of a jet-pack-powered robot on the front (the same logo that appears on this AVC shirt).
SparkFun has a youtube guys! See Bert and/or Ernie here: http://www.youtube.com/user/sparkfun#p/u/27/tn0EKtLOVx4
I'd like to see pics and videos of Bert and Ernie working hard.
I live in Brazil and its too far to make the guided tour... maybe next year. :)
Nice work SparkFun.
On tour day, the SFE pick-and-place machines...
should be programmed...
to make deli sandwiches!
Man... I am jealous of all you guys that are close enough to actually check this place out.
COOL!
Have you tought about making a virtual tour?
Virtual Toor on youtube would be great for the ones that are far away and can't take a fly to there.
This is the plan...once everyone moves to their new locations in the building. We took over the rest of the building a while ago and since then everyone has slowly been shifting into their new places.
Did they get to call dibs on their new spot or was it pre-planned? ;)
Some of us may or may not have been angling for particular rooms for a year or two...
Sparkfun street view!