I am in the middle of my sixth season coaching a FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team. Each year has furthered my belief that FLL is valuable for all those that are involved. Recently, on December 5th, my team participated in the Cedar Falls Regional Qualifier.
While reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done, I connected the ideas that Allen suggests for time allocation to that of a real-time operating system with which I am familiar. Upon further thought, I wondered if there is a way to act more deterministic and accomplish tasks at higher efficiency, similar to how a microprocessor performs within a real-time operating system.
While I was attending the Embedded Systems Conference this year in San Jose, there was one session that peaked my interest. The session was “Design Patterns for Embedded Systems in C” from Bruce Powel Douglass, Ph.D., Chief Evangelist from IBM IoT(Internet of Things).
It was 8 years ago that my wife, Julie and I moved from Minnesota to Iowa, when I became the IT Manager for DISTek.
Despite growing up in the grain belt and then starting a career heavily influenced by agriculture, I’ve never actually been inside a tractor or been on a working farm.
In college, I had a physics class called Modeling and Simulation of Physics Systems in which students wrote code to model the physical behavior of various systems. The final project of the class involved choosing a system of interest, developing a model for it, and presenting the results with some sensatory aid.
DISTek formed a Wellness Committee that is responsible for encouraging wellness and healthy lifestyles for everyone throughout the company. The wellness committee sponsors different events, such as lunch and learns or challenges that promote healthy living.
With the ever increasing demands of the economy and to show a good return on investment, companies are continually looking for ways to cut back on spending. Unfortunately, one area that can easily end up being targeted for cost reduction is testing.
The ISOBUS Fall 2015 Plugfest wrapped up a couple weeks ago in Wörth am Main, Germany. If you do not know what ISOBUS or its Plugfest are, you can look at my previous blogs for a tutorial.
Designing an HiL test system, need to modernize your laboratory, or do you just dabble in LabVIEW in your spare time? Meet DISTek’s system designers and LabVIEW architects at NI Days Chicago October 15. DISTek engineers will be at booth 19 to answer any questions you may have, maybe even that tough engineering question that has been eluding you. Put them to the challenge and see what they can do for you.
It was another great week of the Farm Progress Show this year. Just like in so many years past, the weather stayed hot and the booths stayed packed. This was my first appearance at the Farm Progress Show for DISTek Integration and I doubt that it will be my last.
DISTek Integration, Inc. has been awarded a 2015 Top Workplaces honor by the Des Moines Register. The Top Workplaces lists are based solely on the results of an employee feedback survey administered by WorkplaceDynamics, LLC, a leading research firm that specializes in organizational health and workplace improvement.
