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Writer's pictureEllie Wilson

Giving a New Meaning to "Office Drones"

It's that time of year again!


Every quarter, Breakthrough Technologies hosts a company-wide Tech Event. These events consist of a catered lunch from some of our favorite restaurants, presentations and updates from team members who attended conferences within the previous few months, and we always leave room for a little bit of fun! With Summer just around the corner, the end of Quarter 2 at BT was upon us.


This quarter, we decided to shake things up a little bit. And yes, it did involve drones!


We kicked off the afternoon with some delicious food from Cozy Noodles, a local, Evanston favorite, and Jimmy Johns, a not-so-local favorite! Warm pad thai and sandwiches (delivered incredibly quickly) set the tone for our Spring 2019 Tech Event.


First, we heard from Doug Wilson about attending the Slack Frontiers conference on behalf of Loco Innovations. His presentation highlighted the growing superpower that is Slack and its increasing ability to find and penetrate almost every market out there! In addition, Doug was able to convey to us the immense amount of diversity that was present at the conference, demonstrating that innovation knows no bounds.


Next, we heard from our developers Jack and Eric about their endeavors to DrupalCon, Seattle!


Jack and Eric gave us insight into the various talks they attended, all ranging from 30 to 90 minutes each! With the new connections made and information learned, Eric and Jack are ready to keep delivering quality, Drupal-powered technology.



Then along came Brant MacDuff (he's the one on the left)... History buff, teacher, and taxidermist extraordinaire! He told us some fascinating and exciting stories about the history of taxidermy as well as some background on the animals on display at our very own Chicago Field Museum! Not only was Brant a fantastic and engaging speaker, but he was incredibly knowledgeable and fun to get to know. We hope to hear from him again some day!


Once Brant's presentation was complete, we had the pleasure of hearing from Jack Franks once again! This time, on the subject of balancing "perfect" and "complete" in terms of finishing a project. With a strong insight into his values of getting things done quickly while having his projects be adaptable and easy to use by others, the presentation offered a lot of insight and invitation to reflect on when we consider something to be "done"!


Okay, okay, I know what you're all really here for... you want to hear about the drones!! Well, here you go:


Our final in-office Tech Event activity was definitely one for the books. It involved Doug setting up hoops and targets at different heights around the office throughout the week and even a practice session during lunch the day before!


After a week of hearing about this mysterious "Drone-Flying competition", we were anxious to see what Doug had come up with and, more importantly, would there be a prize??



Once split into teams, each team member was placed at a flying station where we had to fly a bluetooth-connected drone through one orange hoop, turn it around, and fly it back to our feet through a different hoop as quickly as we could! After many crashes, battery changes, and finally some successful course completions, Team 3 came out on top, beating Team 1 by 2 seconds and winning Amazon gift cards!


Congrats to Katrina, Eric, Jack, and Eddie on being the big winners!


To top the day off, our team visited Temperance Beer Co, a local brewery for a tour, some samples, and a fun happy hour to start the weekend off right! We'll definitely be back again soon.


We can't wait to see what Quarter 3 has in store! And again, who said that office drones were a bad thing?

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