Well, hello everyone! It’s been far too long since I (Lindsay) posted here on our website. But, as you may have heard, things got pretty hectic in 2014 after the Maker Faire in San Mateo. When I got home, there was an email from the White House, and long story, a VERY long story short, we ended up on the White House Lawn with the President of the United States petting our Electric Giraffe.
And I say “our” because this project is drawing in lots of people around it. From one time helpers to people consistently being around to help work on him, I find myself saying “our project” and “we are working on” quite a lot. And so I want to thank everyone who’s ever turned a bolt, welded a piece, soldered a connection, or wrote code and designs for this machine, for getting “us” to the White House lawn, something I could have never imagined when I started this project in late 2004.
To Louise, Sherry and Dale and everyone else at Maker Media and my good friend Alan Murphy of Murphy Surplus in San Diego, I thank you so very much! That Giraffe would never have made it without your huge efforts to get him across the country on such short notice.
But most of all, I want to thank my friend and programmer, Russell Pinnington. As of this writing, I fully acknowledge his part ownership of this project, from the massive efforts he’s made in both writing the code for his operation, and in taking his own personal time to fly out here once a year to be here for the Maker Faire in San Mateo. Without Russell, we would not have “Russell” the giraffe, speaking to everyone who pets him, including, most surprisingly of all, President Barack Obama, in his own back yard. Russell has been amazing in his abilities and I cannot ever thank him enough for what he’s put into this project, one that is still on its way to becoming even more of a “Techno-beast” than we ever imagined. Yes, the “Rave-Raffe” has come a _long_ way indeed.
In the meantime, please feel free to search out the net for items related to “Obama Giraffe”. From Google Images to Youtube, you’ll find some pretty humorous stuff including the giraffe being dissed by a well known political dissident with his own talk show. When I saw that, I simply smiled, and one good friend of mine summed it up perfectly. “You sir, have arrived!”
Yes, we did.
Russell, and Russell, and I, on the White House grounds, June 18th, 2014.