Getting into hardware

Mario G Bee — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been in software for over ten years now, and I absolutely love what I do. But lately I’ve had an itch to build more tangible things. Things I can pick up and hold.

It isn’t a new itch. Long before I became a software engineer I was interested in building things. I remember my first robotics class in high school. The teacher would give us a task, something simple like sorting marbles, and we would build a small robot and write the code to get it done. We built some really cool things in that class. That was also the full extent of my experience with the mechanical and electrical side of engineering, but it gave me a good breadth of everything that goes into building a product. I was hands-on in all of it.

Software is the part that stuck, and I ran with it. Years ago, at the start of my career, I worked at a really cool startup. Most of the guys I worked with were hands-on, lower level hardware and software people. I never got into that side of things, and to be honest I never really understood it. Writing low level code took too much time, and I was never one for C or C++.

I love that what I do is both a hobby and a job. By day I code, by night I code. I build random things, mostly.

So I picked up a Raspberry Pi Pico starter kit. It’s a hobby, for now. In the box there is a breadboard, bags of sensors and jumper wires, a small LED matrix, a ring of lights, and a card with the pinout on it.

Right now I have the time, and this is something I’m looking forward to. I don’t know what I’ll build yet, and that’s part of it. I’m excited to learn the hardware side, build something cool with it, and then use what I learn to build bigger and better things.

That’s the goal right now. That’s what I’m up to these days.

Back for the second Motivation Rally

Mario G Bee — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

This was my second year on the Motivation Rally, and after the first one there was never any question about going back. That first year I met a lot of good people, made friends I still talk to, and did more networking than I ever planned on. That alone was reason enough.

The rally is put on by Will Motivation. I’d been following him on YouTube in the car community for a long time before I ever met him. Meeting him at the first rally and then being part of the second one is a good feeling. I was happy to be a part of it again.

The route ran five days at the end of August: Atlanta, then Tampa, Orlando, and two nights in Miami Beach. People joined at stops along the way and dropped off wherever suited them, so the pack grew and shrank between cities. There was a lot of driving.

One thing was different for me this year. I usually drive my own car on these trips, and this time I rented. It felt strange, and it took nothing away from the week.

My favorite part of the drive was the last day. We had spent a few days in Miami, and on the Sunday we drove down to the Keys. It had rained earlier in the day. Then the weather turned, and the run back up was some of the best driving of the whole trip. Good weather, good roads, good company.

We had a few incidents this year, and one of the cars got hit. That is part of a rally with this many cars over this many miles. The important thing is that everyone was safe.

I can’t stress enough how much the car community has changed my life. The people I’ve met through it are the reason I keep going to these events. This rally is the biggest one on my calendar. I’m already looking forward to next year.