💡 Arduino at IFSP – 4th Meetup

Back in March 2011, I joined my first Arduino group meeting at IFSP – Campus São Paulo. It was the 4th meetup of the group, and for me, it was where a lot clicked—electronics, community, hands-on learning, and a good dose of inspiration.

There were people from all over: students from different levels (technical, tech degrees, engineering), professors from IFSP and SENAI, and a bunch of enthusiasts. Everyone brought projects, ideas, boards, and questions. Some were soldering, others debugging, others just chatting about hardware.

One of the coolest parts was seeing different boards in action—not just Severinos, but also Duemilanove, Brasileirino, and even someone messing with an MSP430 dev kit from Texas Instruments.

The highlight for me was meeting Adilson Akashi, the creator of the Severino board. He’s a former IFSP student and had been active on the group’s mailing list, but this was the first time he managed to join in person. Super generous with his time, answered everyone's questions, and even brought his original Severino prototype.

I’ll admit it: I was the first to ask him to sign my board. People laughed at the idea... then they all lined up and did the same.

We also had some practical stuff going on—bootloaders being flashed, project demos (like motion tracking with accelerometers and ZigBee, and an Arduino-controlled washing machine interface), and just a lot of idea-swapping. Felt like a real community.

It wasn’t just about Arduino—it was about building stuff together, learning from each other, and not being afraid to ask questions, whether you were just starting or had been doing this for years.

More on the event on
Rodrigo Ribeiro's blog post