the book: Code Name Ginger by Steve Kemper

[Elgin Clock]

Got it on E-Bay in hardcover form for like 5 bucks. Haven't read it yet though.

[MattK]

Yup the paperback wont be out for another 12months

[Pierson]

Wow... now that school is out... I really have no excuse not to read it.
OK... I just have to un-earth it. My room is a mess and it is hiding somewhere

[MattK]

I got it on friday and as of tonight I am 1/2 way through it... so far its been a good read.

[Madison]

I recently borrowed this book and finished reading it last night. It was a quick read, though I didn't find it to be particularly compelling. It seemed that, after awhile, it started to repeat itself in content. Get money, calm egos, build prototype, make changes. Rinse, repeat.

At the start of the book, when Kemper described how people felt about going to work for DEKA, it was inspiring and made me really anxious to get back to my engineering degree. By the end, I was left with the same impression that caused me to look away from engineering in the first place -- that it's a profession that's pessimistic, repetitive and frustrating.

[Erin Rapacki]

I read that book before my interviews at DEKA last year. I couldn't ask for a better source of information about what it's like to work for a specific company.

I've been intending to read it again now that I have completed a six month internship there earlier this year, I want see how the things that Kemper said vary with my actual experience.

I do predict one thing though and I learned this when the Buzz Robotics team was written up in YM Magazine: authors over and under emphasize certain things, they write to sell, and the truth is only in the eye of the beholder.

[Michael R. Lee]

You stole my line. :-P

Anyway, its a good read. Read in like two days.

It shows the engineering design cycle for a start up. Definitely read it if you're into entrepreneurship.

[MrB]

I bought this book over a year ago, and after reading it I knew I had to share it, so I assigned it to my Engineering class last year. The entire class liked the book. They weren't to happy about the $19 cost or the venture capital information, but seeing the design process from the inside was well received by the class.

I recommend it to all FIRST teams and technology teachers looking to giev insight to the design process.

[KelliV]

I got it last year for christmas... I asked for a segway from my grandma (I knew I wouldnt get one i just thought it would be fun to ask) and she ended up buying it for me. It was a really good book! If anyone wants to borrow it just ask... I can find a way to hook you up with it.

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

I read that book before my interviews at DEKA last year. I couldn't ask for a better source of information about what it's like to work for a specific company.

I was fascinated by how Kemper, part way through his story, seems to start thinking and acting as if he were a DEKA employee himself. He records conversations in which he makes suggestions to DEKA employees--even to Dean Kamen!

I'm hoping to get my copy back from my mother-in-law soon. She began reading it when she was down here visiting, and took it home with her, but hadn't finished it when we visited her a few months later. She probably got bogged down in the venture capital stuff. In my opinion, that is the tedious part of the book, and may be the part that provoked one critic to call it "voyeuristic."

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by KarenH

I was fascinated by how Kemper, part way through his story, seems to start thinking and acting as if he were a DEKA employee himself. He records conversations in which he makes suggestions to DEKA employees--even to Dean Kamen!

Dean Kamen does have this very mysterious aura where you want to admire him and follow him around and participate in his adventures and help him change the world. The fact that Dean Kamen has the same magnetism as Steve Jobs or Patton is absolutely stunning, and a little inspiring when you consider that he's soft-spoken, a little awkward and not always right. I remember watching him as he received an honorary degree. He stumbled during the ceremony as the stodgy old deans had to hint at him to stand up at the right times. He gave his speech rolling back and forth across the stage on his segway, half the time not facing the audience. Anybody who thought about it for five minutes could see that the Segway wasn't the right invention to cure problems of pollution caused by traffic congestion in cities in the third world, or to do half the other things Dean thought would happen, but we never thought along those lines, my whole FIRST team came away from the experience re-energized in our faith in Dean to change the world. I haven't read the book yet myself, its been sitting on my Amazon wishlist for a long time, but I want to read it to understand (in addition to the product design stuff which is fascinating) how Dean can have that kind of effect on people.

[Gabriel]

Sorry for being a little off-topic but has anyone read the new book on the history of Xerox? I just saw it in my college's library and it looked really good.

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I recently borrowed this book

Yeah don't forget to bring it back when you come home.

Obviously I own the book, and I've read it. It's really good in my opinion but Kemper doesn't just step on toes, he dances on them. It really shows engineering in it's true form without all the glamor. We only get a glimpse of that in FIRST. This book pushed me off my teeter totter between mechanical engineering and business degree. I choose engineering.

[team222badbrad]

I also read and bought the book since it was on sale a while back for $11.18.
I thought it was a good book, since you do not find me often reading books. However, I thought it had way to many chapters on $$$$$$$$. Yes money is important, but I would have thought this book would have described the process of building the Segway, since that was really the story Kemper was supposed to be writing about!

[MrB]

hehehe, I agree, as does almost every student of mine, that the middle chapters contained a bit too much venture capital issues.

But it did add to the story about how much energy and effort Dean and the financial backers put into Segway.

Also some of the facts like how it cost $70,000 for an advetising company to come up with a Company Name. $70k and they didn't even come up with Segway :-)

The book is still a must read for all future engineers. Even if the $$$ stuff gets a bit redundant.