Community profile – Zach Igielman

You may recognise the name Zachary Igielman from issue #38, where he was mentioned during our review of the exciting Pimoroni Piano HAT. The Piano HAT, for those unaware, was inspired by Zach’s own creation, the PiPiano, a successful crowdfunded add-on board that hit 184% of funding two years ago. At age 14, Zach had decided to incorporate his passions for making, engineering and music, building himself a PCB that could use physical keys to control electronic sound files and Sonic Pi code. The PCB, he explains, is a great classroom tool, educating students on the fundamentals of physically building digital tech and soldering, through to understanding sound generation through PWM frequencies.

Zach began to teach himself code at age 11, soon discovering the Raspberry Pi and, later, the Cambridge Raspberry Jams. It was through this collective of like-minded individuals that Zach was inspired to broaden his making skills, moving on to create line-following robots that avoided objects through sensors.

Moving forward, Zach visited the Raspberry Pi offices for work experience, continuing to work on and study robots and robotic guides, working alongside our engineers to build upon his knowledge.

It was around this same time, in October 2014, that Zach met Frank Thomas-Hockey via Twitter. Frank was looking for help in creating the first London Raspberry Jam and Zach was more than willing to lend a hand. Between them, they set up the Covent Garden Jam, welcoming over 100 visitors to their first event. Their most recent Jam – now with the additional help of volunteers Ben, Paul, and Joseph – allowed them to simultaneously run workshops on soldering, Sonic Pi and Minecraft, while also highlighting maker projects through show-and-tell and talks.

Finally finished with his GCSE exams and about to begin his sixth-form studies in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Computing, Zach now has the time to continue his recent collaboration with friend Jake Blumenow. Zach met Jake and built a fast friendship online, lovingly referring to him as a fellow “computer geek”. The two have worked on projects together, including several websites, and spent time travelling, bouncing ideas off one another with the aim to create something important. It’s their most recent venture that is worthy of recognition.

“At Google Campus, we developed our business model – we believe people of all ages have the right to understand how the technological world around us works so they can modify and create their own technology.”

Between the two of them, they aim to create complete Raspberry Pi education kits, inviting beginners in making and coding to create functional projects, such as an alarm system, thus cementing the pair’s desire to highlight the day-to-day importance of tech in our lives.