Charles Collins

I have been starting things before anyone said I could since 1999.

It began at a nonprofit on Martin Luther King Drive in Milwaukee, teaching teenagers to build websites, and then letting them build real ones for real organizations. The kids ran the business, inside a place that believed they could.

At a university I built the student information system and the first intranet, and ran the student radio station, with a request line that lived on the web before that was a normal thing to do. Two advertising agencies hired me to build their digital practices.

Then eleven years at an experiential agency: digital strategist, creative technologist, creative director. Ten Super Bowls. Four Olympic and Paralympic Games. A World Cup, an NBA All-Star Game, SXSW, music festivals, mobile tours, product launches. I was usually the person in the room who knew what was possible, and often the one who built it.

Nights and weekends, I built the shop. Five 3D printers, including one I designed to print in clay. A CNC router. A metal shop. Robots that draw. A humanoid that moves. A wall and a field of flowers that move on their own. A pay phone that collects strangers' stories. A grip tester that takes your photo. A pop-a-shot the size of a garage door.

I'm old enough to remember the arcade and young enough to have built the website. Analog kid, digital adult. I know what each one is for, which is most of the job.

Almost every job I have had was built around me, or I was the first one in the seat. TinyRobot is the same move. This time the seat is mine.

I am not afraid of being wrong. Finding out I was wrong is good news: it means I learned something. Getting it right the first time means I already knew it, and that is boring.

There is always music on in the shop. Mos Def, Talib Kweli, RVSHVD, Willie Jones. Hip hop and Black country, usually in the same hour.