I clearly remember that day, 08 May ’18. It was almost 9:00 pm when I finally spotted the office of Fluxgen after passing right in front of it numerous times and wondering how on earth could Google maps betray me. Because the humble work-space is camouflaged as any other house in the area, with just a tiny board on the top corner stating it’s not one. But what surprised me more was the ambience of the place. There are prototypes installed almost everywhere, a TT (table-tennis) table turned into a workbench and boards on the walls scribbled with business plans and product designs. It took me back to my dorm rooms during the project days. And I was all excited with that first look and expression.
The internship started on 14 May ’18. The first week was packed with a lot of fun activities, in fact some of the best ice-breakers one can have, and the weekend concluded with an amazing trek to Savandurga, in the outskirts of Bangalore. The next week we chose projects of our interests and started working on them. I was also allowed to experiment on things that interested me and juggle around with different topics. New ideas were always encouraged and supported, very sportively. In this phase I got to learn a lot, which could have not been possible if they had opted for the traditional teaching methods.
Not to forget, we were entitled with a very flexible working atmosphere, which I exploited to the core. We used to start a bit late in the mornings and worked late nights (very much like the college life), with a couple of causal breaks and TT games in between. It was always like work hard, play harder sort of thing.
The 3rd week brought in a bit of surprise and off the grid task for us, as we had to conduct a workshop for a bunch of underprivileged students, which was absolutely exciting. Albeit I was a novice at this, I relished the experience of organising the event, from procuring equipments to creating content and framing a layout of everything. I also had the privilege of leading the workshop, and giving a presentation on the fundamentals of electronics and electricity to the kids.
I’m indebted to the fluxgen foundation team for this opportunity, and also for sowing a sense of communal obligation towards the society in me.
The next two weeks I was back to my technical work. I had to come up with new experiments and project ideas related to embedded systems. Only then I realised that coming up with a new problem might sometimes be more tedious and difficult than solving the existing problem. But somehow, I and my fellow intern Mr. Joshua came up with few problem statements after a thorough discussion. We did a smart password prototype and a smart switch box.
Though these weren’t out of the blue breakthroughs, they gave me a deep insight into the concepts of interfacing an Arduino with a WiFi module, and Android App building.
Regrettably, I had to conclude my internship after one month. Yet I cherish the time spent there; it was a lot more than a short term training spell, all credits to Mr. Ganesh, for weaving in multiple divergent weekly assignments on diverse topics. I wish to extend my gratitude to the entire fluxgen team for providing me this opportunity, especially to my mentors Mr. Jaggu and Mr. Nikhil, for bearing my umpteen number of imbecile questions and queries.
This experience will always be special and I would definitely fancy going back, again, to take away even better memories.
-S Sachin Goud
