LEGO Technic: Where My Engineering Journey Began

Looking back, LEGO Technic wasn’t just a toy—it was where my interest in engineering really started.

Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, it introduced me to gears, mechanisms, and the satisfaction of building something that actually worked.

Discovering LEGO Technic

Like many children, I started my LEGO journey with the classic sets, constructing buildings and vehicles from a mishmash of colorful bricks. But it was when I reached double digits that my fascination with LEGO took a new turn—enter LEGO Technic. This advanced LEGO system introduced me to a world of gears, suspension, rivets, and axles, paving the way for countless hours of building mechanical marvels.

My initial foray into LEGO Technic was marked by two special Christmas presents. The first was a small go-kart set that could be transformed into two distinct vehicles. It was a taste of the versatility and ingenuity that LEGO Technic offered. The second was a red tractor with massive wheels and a functioning Power Take Off (PTO). As I delved into the world of LEGO Technic, my imagination soared, and the possibilities seemed limitless.

With each passing year, LEGO released new catalogs, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the the one I really wanted—the LEGO Technic car chassis 8860. This kit was the epitome of engineering brilliance. It featured a working engine, gearbox, differential, steering mechanism, and even independent rear suspension. It became the ultimate must-have for any LEGO Technic enthusiast, igniting my desire to create intricate mechanical structures.

Learning How Things Work

LEGO Technic became my teacher, offering valuable lessons in construction and visualization. I began to understand the fundamentals of gears, learning how the combination of small and large cogs could alter speed and torque. Building and experimenting with various mechanisms fostered a deep appreciation for the intricate workings of machines. Little did I know then that my childhood LEGO sets were quietly shaping my future as an engineer.

It wasn’t just about building models—it was about understanding how things worked and why.

Then vs Now: LEGO Has Changed

As time passed, I observed the evolution of LEGO Technic. The kits became increasingly intricate, featuring specialized parts designed for specific purposes. While these modern sets are undeniably impressive, they often follow predetermined instructions and leave little room for open-ended creativity. Assembling a modern kit can feel like solving a Tetris puzzle, with pieces meticulously designed using CAD and simulations. Once assembled, the kits are often admired as intended, leaving little incentive to disassemble and build something entirely new—a far cry from the limitless exploration of my childhood LEGO Technic.

Modern kits are impressive, but they often feel more like assembling a finished design than exploring how things work. The creativity and experimentation that came naturally with older sets feels less central.

What It Taught Me

Looking back, LEGO Technic taught me more than I realised at the time. It built the foundation for how I think about systems today—breaking problems down, understanding how parts connect, and keeping things as simple as possible.

That way of thinking still shows up in the work I do now.

Conclusion

LEGO Technic holds a special place in my heart as the catalyst that fueled my passion for engineering. Those seemingly simple interlocking bricks laid the foundation for a lifelong fascination with mechanical devices. While modern LEGO Technic sets offer remarkable complexity, there is something nostalgic about the simplicity and versatility of the kits from my childhood. As I gaze upon my well-worn LEGO collection, I am reminded of the countless shapes and forms it has taken over the years—a testament to the enduring power of LEGO and the impact it had on my journey to becoming an

Simple building blocks—whether physical or digital—often lead to the best systems.

I spend a lot of time helping simplify systems and make them easier to understand and maintain.

You can take a look at my TechFix service if that resonates.

Why I Keep Coming Back to Arduino Projects

I’ve always enjoyed projects that combine software, electronics, and problem solving.

That’s probably why I keep finding myself buying Arduino kits, even when I already have unfinished projects sitting in drawers.

But when "The Most Complete Arduino Starter Kit" appears on Amazon prime at more than 50% off, Hey it would be rude not to. I looked at all the accessories and found myself clicking the buy with one click button and less than 24 hrs later it arrived.

Tech Christmas Day... The box was full of all sorts of colored bits.

This is the 3rd Arduino I've bought over a number of years. The first was a simple learn-to program an Arduino kit and came with some basic electronic components.

Why Arduino Interested Me

An Arduino is a solid-state microcomputer with onboard input and output pins exposed. It's basically a circuit board with a controller about the size of a playing card. It's blue, not that it matters. It's like a mini PLC or Programmable Logic Controller. It can sense the outside world with connected sensors and be programmed to do something that can affect that world. 

What fascinated me was the connection between software and the physical world. Code could suddenly control motors, lights, sensors, and real objects rather than just things on a screen.

So you could connect a light sensor and measure when it gets dark. When it does it can switch on a light. It can be so much cleverer than that though. It can measure how dark it is and can be programmed to adjust how bright the light is.

That was about as far as my projects got with the first one. Although I did make a bubble machine for the boys. It used a servo to dip a bubble eye in a bowl of fairy liquid, raise it up rotate it and a fan would turn on and blow bubbles. It would then lower back into the liquid and repeat. It wrecked the servo eventually as the fairy liquid dripped into its gears of the servo. It was fun when it lasted and the boys enjoyed it.

Projects That Never Quite Finished

The second one I bought a few years later was an Arduino Yun (posh model with Wifi) it was bought with a plan to solve my leaving the garage door opener problem. I can't see the door from the house so would forget and go to bed and wake in the morning to the realization that the door had been open all night.

The door is electric so the plan is to add a couple of limit switches and feed them to the Arduino. It would be programmed to tell me past a certain time that the door was still open. It would tell me via wifi and I would be able to press a button and it would close. This project will still happen someday. I've probably had the Yun for 3 years now.

And on to the third Arduino. It's an R3. I have no idea what's this means. I guess it's probably revision 3 but I still have to read the manual. Out of the box, it looked the same, it plugged into my Mac with a USB cable that provided power and the ability to download programs. I skimmed through the 3 pages of windows installation to get to the Mac installation. Which was 1. download the zip. File 2. extract and run the programming package.

So what came in the box besides the Arduino? Lots of things.

Learning Through Experimentation

The manual comes with 100 or so tutorials on things to make.

Building Things Together

Why did I buy another Arduino? Here comes the excuse... I would like Jamie (age 9) to get involved and what better way to get some son Dad time with Tech than to build things together.

We have done the first couple of projects and so far so good. Jamie has learned a resistor can change the brightness of an LED... The bigger the resistor the less bright the LED gets.

There’s something satisfying about learning these concepts physically rather than just reading about them. Changing a resistor and immediately seeing the LED dim makes electronics feel real very quickly.

I'm looking forward to getting into the more complicated projects and hopefully, as I/we will learn more about the Arduino programming language Also hopefully the Yun will be pulled from my desk drawer and be put into action for its original purpose of telling me when I have left the garage door open. Who knows I might get Jamie to build this project.

Looking back, Arduino projects were never really about finishing perfect products.

They were about experimenting, learning, solving small problems, and understanding how software and hardware interact with the real world.

That curiosity has never really gone away.

This also connects closely to my reflections on LEGO Technic and engineering mindset, where my fascination with mechanisms and systems probably began.

It links naturally to my thoughts on early computing and programming and how experimentation shaped the way I learned technology.

A lot of the same mindset also appears in my post about fixing things instead of replacing them.

I’ve always enjoyed experimenting with technology, understanding how systems work, and solving practical problems.

A lot of that same thinking now goes into helping simplify technical issues and improve digital systems.

You can take a look at my TechFix service if that sounds useful.

The Bus Conversation That Introduced Me to Gold Nanowires

So this week I met someone on the bus. I have met her before and this time we started chatting. She is a chemistry teacher in a high school.

Looking back, this wasn’t really about chemistry. It was about curiosity, engineering, and how fascinating ideas can appear in unexpected conversations.

Why Chemistry Never Clicked for Me

I liked the idea of learning chemistry when I went to secondary school. It sounded exciting, mixing and burning things.

I was however completely put off by my chemistry teacher. "Dr. Pockets", he wore a tweed jacket and a black gown. He wasn't very good but worst of all would come up behind you and poke you in the sides with two fingers. I didn't like that or him so I completely switched off from chemistry and dropped it as soon as I could. Perhaps that is why I became an engineer.

The Conversation That Changed My Perspective

Anyway, my new friend the chemistry teacher was telling me about what she did her Ph.D. in.

I may get some of the terms wrong but she was researching making mirrors by dissolving silver in a solution. This would form a thin atom-thick layer of silver that she would bounce lasers off. (How cool!)

She described how her lab would be dark as she set up a beam that was split and would go on different paths. One beam would take a longer path than the other to reach a detector and the difference in time would be measured along with their intensity. It would give interesting facts about the mirror, some of the light would be lost or absorbed.

Discovering Gold Nanowires

The standard practice was to use silver and she pondered what would happen if you were to use gold? So she mixed up a solution of gold to find out. Under an electron microscope, the gold behaved differently. No longer an atom-thick layer or sheet of silver, the gold had formed into atom chains. Like tiny little snakes or wires. Bizarre! She didn't do anything with these wires and just put them down as a cool anomaly.

Moving on a few years later, what she had created were gold nanowires. I've googled it and it's a real thing. Gold conducts electricity and the nanowires made from it can also conduct electricity.

At the moment they are being used in medical procedures. They are grown much like a snowflake, in an additive process building out from an electrode spike.

To give them some scale and put them into perspective they are 1,000 times smaller than human hair. That's tiny. Smaller than human cells.

In my googling I also came across the cost and if I were to buy some gold nanowires. I wasn't expecting them to be cheap but a handful (literal) of wires 30nm wide by 6000nm long delivered in a 10ml tub is £384.50. (June 2017)

I guess the bulk of the cost is in the manufacture rather than the raw material. They make gold more expensive than gold!

I have been pondering where else gold nanowires could be used, more googling found them used in flexible solar panels and batteries. Being so thin lots of them can give a larger surface area.

The Scale Is Hard to Imagine

I still can't fathom the scale and how you manipulate things so small. It’s difficult to visualise something thousands of times smaller than a human hair actually being engineered, measured, and deliberately created in a lab. 

As an engineer, I’m used to physical things you can hold, machine, weld, or bolt together. Nanotechnology feels like a completely different world where physics, chemistry, and materials behave in ways that almost seem unreal. 

What fascinated me most was the idea that structures this tiny can still have useful electrical, optical, and mechanical properties that can be used in real-world technology. It also made me realise how much innovation happens quietly in research labs long before most people ever hear about it.

What This Made Me Think About

I always remember a story my dad told me. I think it was pre-war, and the Germans in a show of engineering skill took a sewing needle drilled a hole down its center, and sent it to the British. The British, not to be outdone took a cast of the hole in the needle drilled a hole down its center, and sent it back to the Germans. Many facts here may also be wrong but it was a good story about something tiny, and as a kid, I could imagine the tiny drills doing the job.

So that's my new friend the chemistry teacher. Have to say much better than 'Dr. Pockets' and I actually learned something interesting.

What stayed with me wasn’t really the chemistry itself — it was the reminder that there are entire worlds of science, engineering, and discovery happening far beyond what we normally see.

Sometimes all it takes is one interesting conversation to completely change how you think about something.

A lot of this also connects to how I process and visualise complex ideas in my post about visual thinking.

It also reminded me of my reflections on seeing the hidden simplicity inside complex engineering systems during a space shuttle launch.

The same fascination with how things work also appears in my reflections on LEGO Technic and engineering mindset.

I’ve always been fascinated by how systems, engineering, and technology work beneath the surface.

A lot of the same curiosity now shapes the technical and problem-solving work I still enjoy today.

You can find out more here.

What Video Games and Technology Are Really Teaching Kids

So yeah, I read this week that picking your nose and eating it is good for you. It boosts your immune system.

I took great pleasure in telling my boys this. 

I had been told for the past 46 years it was bad for you and I have been dutifully passing on this message. I won't take up this habit but the boys will be boys and it will save me from telling them off for it.

Looking back, this post wasn’t really about nose picking at all. It was about how quickly technology was becoming part of childhood learning, creativity, and problem solving.

It got me thinking what else have we been told when growing up is bad for you but might be good. Living in our nanny state maybe boogies are not alone.

Questioning What We’re Told

Tv is bad for you? Son 2 (age 6) has a massive vocabulary. He got up the other morning and I asked him how he was and he responded with "fantastic" While helping me make my packed lunch he asked are the roots on the spring onions were "edible". I don't recall teaching him these words so can only assume it was the TV. He likes his TV. Pepa Pig has even taught him a bit of French... he announced one day "Bonjour Delphine donkey!". (I only know it was Peppa Pig as I have seen that episode) We have 3 TVs in the house and something is normally on. Mostly on demand these days, be it Netflix, Amazon, or YouTube.

Why Simulators Fascinated Me

My other son Son 1 (age 9) is a tractor daft. He asked for Farming Simulator 17 for his Christmas. It's a game that runs on the computer. Santa snuck in on Christmas Eve and installed it on the Mac in my study. Son 1 likes nothing better than doing a bit of farming. It's a very realistic 3D simulator. He has taught himself how to manage an entire farm. Buying the equipment, budgeting, sowing crops, and reaping the rewards from his harvest.

Children Growing Up With Technology

The tech in this game is brilliant. The 3D rendering and fully explorable maps are "awesome" (to quote Son 1. It even has a mud mod pack that simulates real mud across the farm so at the end of the day you have to wash your machinery with your 3D jet wash. It's certainly more realistic than any game I had growing up. I'm sure by the time Son 1 is old enough to work he will probably be able to run a profitable farm with little or no training. He has taught himself with this game how to farm and also gained a wealth of knowledge on tractors, combines, and other machinery, even to the point when we are out in the car we have to take the back roads if there is a chance of spotting some farm machinery.

So we are told computer games are bad for you!

All this farming doesn't really matter as Son 1 wants to be an Architect. Possibly inspired by Minecraft, another 3D simulator. Actually, if I remember right he wants to be a successful architect designing big buildings, and then when he is "rich" buys a farm and just does all the "cool tractor-type jobs".

So are these games a kind of training? A way of self-teaching. They seem to go hand in hand with YouTube too, where you watch a clip on how to do something on your farm and then recreate it.

Technology as a Learning Tool

Kids using iPads is also supposed to be bad for them. Mine both have iPads. Both with Military spec Griffin Defender covers. These are supposed to be tuff. Despite this, I have changed the screen on Son 1's three times. Not an easy job. Getting the glass off without destroying the wifi antenna is almost impossible. And those tiny screws I can nearly see them let alone pick them up. Thankfully parts are cheap on eBay. There are also many YouTube videos on how to change the screen.

Son1 and 2 are a dab hand at using the iPad it's almost second nature to them, in fact, it is. They don't remember a time before them. They learn so much from the apps. They can be driving trains, or identifying animals. playing with numbers, spelling, farming (more farming), being a doctor or dentist, there is even one app where you give Santa a shave.

As an aside, they are learning to install their own apps (free ones) and configure them, manage their memory space, and understand the need to recharge the battery.

Son 2 has Bluetooth headphones he uses with his iPad. He repeats the "Your Bluetooth device is connected" message every time they are turned on. He has destroyed many corded headphones by chewing the cable so wireless and Tech solve this problem.

I did try to introduce Son 2 to the flight simulator on the Mac. A step too far! It didn't go well. He likes pressing buttons. Perhaps he won't be a pilot.

Technology as a Learning Tool

So yeah I might not encourage eating bogies but I will let my kids embrace technology. If they are learning something it can only be good for them and set them up with valuable life skills.

What This Made Me Realise

A couple of coding books for kids arrived in the post this week. One for the new Raspberry Pi and one for Scratch. They are colourful with lots of pictures, so here's hoping I can take the boys back a step and show them what goes into their games, iPads, and YouTube. I'll let you know how I get on...

Looking back now, it feels obvious that games and simulators were becoming educational tools as much as entertainment.

Minecraft, farming simulators, YouTube tutorials, and creative apps were quietly teaching problem solving, systems thinking, planning, and creativity.

In many ways, kids were teaching themselves using technology long before schools fully adapted to it.

A lot of this also connects to my reflections on visual thinking and different learning styles.

The same fascination with interactive learning and systems also influenced projects like my browser-based text adventure game Redcastle.

Many of the same ideas around creativity, systems, and engineering also appear in my reflections on LEGO Technic and engineering mindset.

I’ve always been fascinated by how people learn through technology, creativity, and problem solving.

A lot of the same thinking now shapes the technical, systems, and digital work I still enjoy today.

You can find out more here.

The Year I Took Back Control and Changed Career at 46

Last week CodeClan contacted me and asked if I would write them an article for their website. Of course, I would be delighted to. Apparently, someone had been in touch and was looking to change careers, they hated their job and would like to study coding. However, they thought at 46 they were too old. Well I am 46 (old?) and I did it (I actually started at CodeClan when I was 45, but that's splitting hairs)

When Everything Changed

So almost a year ago my work life took a turn for the worse and came crashing down. My "position was put at risk". Redundancy was inevitable. I was caught up in a failing Oil and Gas industry, failing department, and failing management.

Looking back now, this was one of the biggest turning points in my life. At the time it felt frightening, uncertain, and financially risky. But it also became the start of an entirely new career, new friendships, and a completely different direction in life.

The situation gradually became unhealthy and unsustainable, and eventually I decided it was time to leave.

There I was 46, had a wife and kids to support, had a poor job market (Aberdeen), and had lots of free time. I was tired of having busted a gut for the same company for the past 22. I needed a change.

Discovering CodeClan

A few chance meetings and a conversation led me to look up CodeClan. A small education facility in Edinburgh offering a software coding boot camp. It sounded interesting. I'd heard about boot camps, it's all about coding, pizza, and table tennis.

The CodeClan course was 16 weeks of full-time study and when (if) you finish you will have a new qualification in software development. A chance for me to get out of Oil and Gas, change an industry and get into Tech.

I love Tech, and 30 years ago I learned some coding at university (Pascal and assembly language) as part of my BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. However, I have never had any proper code training. Things have moved on a lot. Being able to retrain would great and possibly a chance for a rest (I wish!).

I applied and was asked down for an interview at the CodeClan office in Edinburgh. I found a super friendly bunch of people, a real buzz, and the atmosphere was exciting. There were discussions of employee partners doing new things with code. As I looked about I could imagine I was in Silicon Valley.

I was offered a place in cohort 7 and I was lucky to be granted funding from the Transition Training Fund (woohoo! Go me). This is a fund set up to help oil and gas workers retrain having been made redundant. That's me so I applied. It paid for the bulk of my course fees.

I discussed it with my family if they would survive without me during the week for the next 16. Happily, we all agreed, and if there was a chance to improve my prospects in Aberdeen why not.

Starting Again at 46

So I accepted the place and my start date was set at a few months away. I had the whole summer school holidays with my boys to enjoy first (how many people can do that?).

Of course, summer rushed by, and before I knew it I was on a train to Edinburgh to meet the rest of my cohort and pick up my Mac Book Pro (you get one to borrow for the duration of the course). There I met 20 other cohorts all eager to get started. It was a half-day warmup session to make sure your Mac is working and meet each other. Back on the train home, I had my first chance to work on the 3 weeks of homework before the real start (that takes the course to 19 weeks in total, plus I had two two-week breaks at Christmas... So I guess it was 21 weeks for us).

The three weeks whizzed by and I was back down to Edinburgh to start for real. This time I was a commuter, up at 4am on a Monday morning, driving or train to Edinburgh and heading home to Aberdeen on a Friday afternoon. It was hard. I stayed with friends, some weeks in Edinburgh and some weeks in Stirling. I was now a student so keeping costs down was super important, I had no income.

I met up again with my cohorts and we had a day of induction and team building before we were thrown headlong into code.

Life Inside the Bootcamp

16 weeks of intense study took over my life. I had to eat sleep and breathe code. The commuting was a pain but I got comfortable in my new routine.

Coding is also hard! It's mentally exhausting. It's a journey of peaks and troughs. Peaks when you spend ages trying to get something working and it finally clicks. Troughs when you spend ages trying to get something working.

But I gradually became familiar with the format of the boot camp and coding became easier.

Lectures and code along in the morning then paired programming in the afternoon, and finally the joy of joys more coding as homework. Thursday nights were a chance to cry into your beer with your cohorts or to discuss how brilliant your code was. Thursday night was social night and homework-free.

The rest is a bit of a blur and thankfully I did a weekly blog (encouraged by CodeClan) to record my time.

Week 1 - Code Clan

Week 2 - and we are putting the band back together

Week 3 - Program like Efen Reys

Week 4 - Frank Sinatra

Week 5 - Training the Dragons

Week 6 - They put Java in my Ferrari!

Week 7 - Java + Android = Cool Apps

Week 8 - Android - Like putting your pants on two legs at a time!

Week 9 - Happy 1st Birthday CodeClan!

Week 10 - JavaScript... use a semicolon if you want!

Week 11 - Meeting the DOM...

Week 12 - Worshiping at the Cathedral of code

Week 13 - Group Project Week

Week 14 - Speed Dating with potential Employers

Week 15 - This baby corners like it's on Rails

Week 16 - The Gladiators have been thrown into the pit!

Before I knew it I was graduating and had a new SQA qualification in software development. More important than that I'd had a ball and I'd gained 20 brilliant new friends. This was a surprise but so glad, and it alone made it all worthwhile.

What surprised me most was how energising learning something completely new could be.

Back home in Aberdeen at the end of January, it was all over and I was back to having lots of free time and spending time with my family.

I had my new bit of paper with my SQA on it.

It was time to start thinking about working again. I was refreshed and ready to get back to it.

From Oil and Gas to Web Development

I was keen on web development so applied for some jobs in Aberdeen and at the same time started putting myself forward for some freelance work under the guise of www.udnysolutions.co.uk

I'd say my friends in Edinburgh had it easier (don't tell them) as there is a tech boom down there and plenty of CodeClan employer partners to choose from.

Aberdeen doesn't yet, but it's trying. I expected a long wait and many rejections.

While I applied for a few jobs I received a freelance contract to update and refresh a local business website. That kept me busy. Udny Solutions had its first job.

I was then thrilled to be invited for an interview with Aberdeen City Council as a Web Developer (perfect!). Suit and tie on I went for an interview with some super nice people and it must have gone well as I was offered the position the following day.

I was chuffed to bits to accept. I am now a Web Developer and I have a shiny new badge with my picture and big bold letters "Web Developer" on it.

I'm loving my new job.

Looking Back on the Decision

So do I miss my old job? Not really, I miss some of the people. It ended up being more about faff than engineering.

Was being made redundant a bad thing? For me I'd have to say in hindsight, No, I needed a change. I was stuck in a rut. I had spent too long with one company and got little back for it.

Was going to CodeClan worth it? Definitely. Well worth it in fact. I now have a qualification, I had a great experience and gained lots of new friends, and now a new job in tech.

Looking back now, it’s strange to realise how much of my later career started from that single decision to retrain. The path eventually led into web development, accessibility, digital services, automation, civic technology, AI, and many of the systems and projects I still work on today.

So yeah I'm a Web Developer with a newfound passion for tech.

Big thanks to CodeClan and my fellow cohorts. I miss you guys.

A lot of the same themes around learning differently and problem solving also appear in my reflections on visual thinking.

Changing career also eventually reshaped how I think about work, flexibility, and balance in posts like working from home.

The same curiosity that pushed me into coding also led to personal projects like my browser-based text adventure game Redcastle.

Looking back, many of the same ideas around creativity, systems, and building things also connect closely to my posts about the maker mindset.

Changing career at 46 felt risky at the time, but looking back it completely changed the direction of my life.

A lot of the same curiosity, problem solving, and love of technology that started during this period still shapes the systems, projects, and digital work I do today.

If you'd like to explore more of my work and projects, you can find out more here.

When Two CodeClan Graduates Crossed Paths in Civic Tech

Looking back now, this post captures one of my first real introductions to civic technology platforms, digital services, and the wider public sector tech world. At the time it just felt like another training course. In hindsight, it became the beginning of a much larger journey into forms, workflows, automation, and digital transformation.

Training Felt Different After CodeClan

So this week I was in training for a couple of days. In the old days, this would have been a game of listening and trying to stay awake. However after 16 weeks of intensive teaching at CodeClan a couple of days was a breeze.

Discovering Firmstep and Digital Services

The training was in the customer experience platform CEP of a product by a company called FirmStep. It goes hand in hand with their Content Management System CMS. You can think of CMS as the website and CEP as the application for forms, processes, and workflows for customers visiting the website.

The guy training (Mathew) had travelled up from Edinburgh for a couple of days. The training was very hands-on and we were quickly creating processes, designing forms, making data, and integrations.

When Two Cohorts Collided

Mathew spotted my cohort 7 sticker proudly displayed on my laptop and queried what it was from. It's the class sticker for my cohort when I studied at CodeClan. It turns out that Mathew is also a CodeClan graduate from cohort 3. He graduated in April 2016 and joined FirmStep.

Looking back now, this post captures one of my first real introductions to civic technology platforms, digital services, and the wider public sector tech world.

At the time it just felt like another training course. In hindsight, it became the beginning of a much larger journey into forms, workflows, automation, and digital transformation.

The Small World of Tech

Small world, or is it a small tech industry? It was really good to chat about our time at CodeClan and how we found the whole experience. I had done a week of Ruby on Rails but Mathew had not. The course must have evolved between Cohort 3 and Cohort 7. It's cool to think that two completely different businesses or workplaces that have employees that came from the same coding school can help each other out.

Later in the week, I had another short overview of the CMS platform via video call with a guy based in Canada. It all looks very straightforward and not unlike the Jimdo product I use to do my own websites and this blog. The CMS is very much fill in the blanks with your content and the product takes care of all the code and configuration. I guess this is a good thing in terms of speed and reliability. Probably not so good if you like to code.

Early Thoughts on Civic Technology

In other news, the CivTech challenges were published this week. Seven in total (I thought there was to be 8).

There is quite a range in there. Quite a few if not all could be solved by tech and software. I have been mulling them over this week thinking of possible solutions. I will need to see if Udny Solutions can come up with a viable entry. Who knows. It's worth a try. Watch this space...

Oh and news from cohort 7. There have been 2 more of us who have secured jobs (edited actually 3) this week. Both on the same day. That must be the majority of us are now gainfully employed in the tech industry. Well done guys! Hopefully, our paths may cross in the future.

Looking Back at Where It Led

I have been asked by CodeClan to do a blog post for them on my journey over the past year. I will either post it here or provide a link. Depends on what exciting things happen next week.

It’s strange looking back at this now because so much of my later career ended up revolving around exactly these kinds of systems.

Forms, workflows, automation, accessibility, digital services, integrations, and civic technology all gradually became a major part of the work I would go on to do.

At the time though, this just felt like another interesting week of learning something new.

Oh and below is why I'm not a happy Windows user. My laptop did this yesterday, and this morning it took it upon itself to perform an update without asking me!!!

This all happened shortly after my decision to retrain and attend CodeClan and change career at 46.

Looking back, many of the same themes around workflows, automation, governance, and digital systems still appear in a lot of the technology reflections I write about today.

A lot of this also connects closely to my fascination with understanding and improving systems in posts like why I like fixing things.

Looking back, this was one of my first real steps into the world of digital services, workflows, and civic technology.

A lot of the same curiosity around systems, automation, accessibility, and user experience still shapes the technical work I enjoy today.

You can find out more here.

Starting My New Life as a Web Developer at Aberdeen City Council

Looking back now, this was one of the moments where my entire career direction genuinely started to change.

After years in engineering and oil and gas, walking into a completely new environment as a web developer felt both exciting and slightly surreal.

At the time, I had no idea how much this role would eventually shape the next decade of my life.

I started on Tuesday at the Marischal College office in the center of Aberdeen. Wow, what a nice place to be. I thought working at the new AIBP office in Dyce would be hard to beat. But I think Marischal College has it by a nose. Super new, clean, open, wired for tech, has great architecture, and is right in the center of town.

The First Morning Felt Like the First Day of School

My first day was a quick drive into the park and ride in Bridge of Don and jump on a bus. I had to laugh as on the bus was a mate from Udny also off to his first morning in his new job. We both had a report time of 9:30, we both had our smart new clothes on, and had our packed lunches and play pieces in our school bags. It was good to pass the time on the first bus ride for a while.

Starting Again in a New Career

It's official, I'm a Web Developer I have signed a year's contract and it says it on my shiny new badge.

I use it to swipe in and out every day and the system automatically tracks my time. Hooray, no more time sheets! no more chasing someone for a cost code! No more having my cost code shut down mid-job! No more justifying to a PM that I need to book a couple of hours on their project having done the work they asked for. It's like a shackle has been removed.

Discovering a Different Working Culture

So what does Web Developer mean in reality? The first couple of days were getting settled in reading and working through presentations, core values, HSE, and the eLearning tutorials. I met hundreds of new people in the department. (all super nice). It's a Hot Desking environment (working from home is encouraged) so it's sitting where you fancy that is free when you come in. Plugin your laptop, log into your phone (I have a real phone again… no more stupid Madonna headphones!). So far so good as you can be sitting with a group of different people every day.

Learning New Technology and Systems

I had been given a new Windows laptop and was quickly readjusting to a different environment after spending a lot of time using Macs during CodeClan.  I need to get the hang of the mouse scrolling in the wrong direction and have the @ symbol in a different location on the keyboard again.

I also have a few interesting applications installed as default which I am keen to see if I get to use. These include Visual Studio 2015, Android SDK tools, and Java Development Kit.

Oh, and one more that made me chuckle is PaintShop Pro... Oh, PaintShop Pro how I have missed you. It was key to drawing graphics for Master Control Station screens many many moons ago. Many an hour I would be there drawing lines in a .BMP files frustrated knowing there were vector graphics packages out there. But hey I may laugh, I have used it already to resize a graphic file.

I have also noticed quite a few of my new colleagues are Trello converts and have a number of Trello boards on the go to manage their tasks and workflows.

So I'm back to using Outlook to organize my work email and calendar.

It's quite refreshing to start with an empty, inbox, empty calendar, and no overdue tasks. I was hoping to set up the same rules linked to developer buttons that I had set up in my last job to manage my inbox. So far I've failed and I think it's because some of Outlook has been locked down. I like a button that runs a rule that moves any read mail that I have not specifically flagged into my archive folder. That way all that is in my inbox is something that is unread or flagged and I need to do something about it. All the rest can go to the archive. I will have another try to set up the rule.

From Engineering Into Web Development

I can’t give specifics on what I'm going to be doing (I'm still figuring it out myself) but I will be helping develop a new website in a team of about 6.

It will be based on Drupal, which is similar to WordPress. I had some experience with WordPress when I created the Hill of Fiddes website a few years ago. It is a CMS which is one of my new TLA or buzzwords I need to remember… Content Management System. It is based on the language PHP (another TLA… Three Letter Acronym), and it will be hosted on Amazon Web services.

I have run through the Code Academy Tutorial on PHP which is a scripting language with similarities to HTML. It runs on the server side of the web interface rather than being in the browser like JavaScript. Oh, and it needs a semicolon at the end of every line. Don’t forget that semicolon!

The new website seems quite a big ask with lots of parts that need to be done. It does however have an MVP for its first release. Thanks, CodeClan if I don’t use the languages you taught me at least you made me aware of the Minimal Viable Product.

Looking Back at the Beginning

Reading this back now is strange because so many of the systems, technologies, and ideas mentioned here eventually became a huge part of my later career.

At the time though, I was simply excited to be learning again, building things again, and working in technology for the first time professionally.

What started as a one-year contract gradually became the foundation for years of work around digital services, accessibility, workflows, automation, and civic technology.

This all came shortly after my decision to retrain and completely change career through CodeClan.

A few weeks later I also reflected on how refreshing it felt to be hands-on and building things again.

Looking back, many of the same themes around digital services, workflows, automation, and civic technology still shape much of the work I do today.

Looking back, this was the beginning of a completely new chapter in my life and career.

What started as excitement about web development gradually evolved into years of work around digital services, workflows, accessibility, automation, and civic technology.

You can explore more of that journey and the projects that followed here.