I ran into one of Adafruit’s community members, the talented Nick DeJesus, near the Make: Live tent where he and five other Young Maker superstars were featured on a panel earlier today. While he may be young in age, he has years and years of electronics experimentation under his belt. The second he was curious about electronics, he had the opportunity to grab Arduino kits and experience basic principles and tackle interactive projects first hand.

This is a sign in my opinion that the Maker movement is working: now that he’s thinking to go to college, he has a tremendous background to draw on for his studies and future Maker projects. Not to mention very accomplished work at HTHINK, MakerBot, and The Makery to point to. (He should be the TA for his freshmen EE class.)

It has been a meaningful part of my Adafruit initiation this weekend to talk to Nick, Joey Hudy, and Super Awesome Sylvia not only as Makers — but also as regular customers telling me what they’d like to see or buy from Adafruit. It’s nice to see where those thousands of products go to out in the world.