One person. Lots of big brains. A few forklifts.
TinyRobot is Charles Collins and the people he has trusted for years: fabricators, engineers, artists, developers, producers and specialists who know things nobody else does. Charles leads every project, from the first idea to the night it goes in, and builds a lot of it with his own hands. When a project outgrows the bench, the right partner comes in.
Hi, I'm Charles.
I have been starting things before anyone said I could since 1993. I skipped gym to hang out in the computer lab, running cables, and I was online before most people knew what the internet was.
By 1999 I was 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 often the one with the idea, and just as often the one who built it.
Nights and weekends, I built the shop. All of that building is why the ideas are different. When you know how things get made, you see ideas other people don't.
Analog kid, digital adult. I know what each one is for. I'm made for this.
Most of the jobs I've had didn't exist before I took them, so I've always figured it out as I went. TinyRobot is one more of those, and this time I get to build it with the people I most like working with.
I love finding out what doesn't work, on my own bench, long before it's anywhere near your guests. The button that sticks. The sensor that misses. The game that's too hard on the first try. I want to meet every one of them first, so your guests never do. By opening night, the only surprises left are the good ones.
Six rules for the shop floor.
The person playing comes first.
They matter more than the brand behind it.
It explains itself.
Nobody needs instructions, and it answers the second you touch it.
Nobody looks foolish.
Not the first player, not the shy one, not the person running it.
Make them wonder how it works.
Hide the mechanism, keep the magic. That is usually the harder build.
Playful beats polished.
A lever that clicks beats a screen that fades.
The people running it should have a good day too.
It never looks broken to them, and they can fix it with the tools they have.