Breathe

By: Ammar Abdelwahed

What a hell of a first two weeks we have gone through here at MetaMorph. The constant work; learning to use all the tools, debugging non-stop, and everything else that goes into the everyday workflow; all of it, makes it really hard to take a breath.  The never ending schedule gives us little room for breathing; to just sit down and think and reflect is too time consuming. I honestly did not think I had a moment like that until about two hours ago: I was just driving to work one day, nonchalantly passing the AT&T building and the Nashville Music Center that left me speechless the first time I saw them up close. Now they are simply background noise on my daily commute. Even though I struggled immensely the first week- being behind quite a bit, it is all part of the experience here that has become a precious time for me. At one point I was re-evaluating everything about my decision to come here, but then I told myself I would not give up until I figured it out. And so I didn't, pushed through with my first task. This past week, I have been working on reviewing subcircuits to make sure they pass certain web tools provided for us.

The subcircuits that I have been in charge of reviewing for this week are an Acceleration, a Tilt motion, a Gesture, and a Temperature Sensor. The instant I saw my first green light for my circuit passing all the required tests, it was the closest I had come to shedding a tear in a while because (get ready) it just came in like a wreeeecckkinngg ball (that's from this song if you didn't get the reference). I came out of the intellectual drought and good valley Ammar starting seeing rainfall again. Everything ran in harmony with each other and I was confident in the next task.

I was on top of amending all the wiring and connections that went into our subcircuits , which included reviewing the GME schematic model, and the Eagle files that ran along with it. This is what my Accelerometer looked like when I was reviewing these two tests.

This is where all the components we acquired get all wired up and connected into their appropriate place holders:

This is where we had to pre-route and make sure all the connections had enough space to fit on a board with a set width and height.

Essentially, we analyze all the different files and run tests to ensure everything is placed correctly and operating smoothly. Furthermore, we observe these tests to confirm nothing is here that should not be.

I know I can make a difference at MetaMorph, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here today. And no matter how chaotic things might seem at first, everything will sort itself out And the one thing I've learned above all else while I've been here, is that the only reason we fall is so we can learn to pick ourselves back up.

Whoa, that's a lot of words. You can breathe now.