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Max, currently a student at Katharine Lady Berkeley School (KLB) in Wotton under Edge, joined us for a week in July. This is his diary for the week.

Every year, here in Xor Systems we welcome a student for a week of work experience. The students spend their time in the office among employees of the company and work on small tasks, which combine software and hardware to solve a set problem. This year, we welcomed Max into our office. The experience for Max was different from the experience students from previous years would get. Max had the opportunity to experience how our team works and collaborates virtually and in person as some of our employees work from home. We think this gave Max a good insight into what a dynamic work environment involves and how our company adapted to the changes from the past year.

Something that our team enjoys is playing table tennis during the lunch break and Max was very enthusiastic to join us for the challenge! He showed his skills by winning a game against James with 12-10!

During the last day of his week, we asked Max a few questions about his experience with us.

What did you do during the week?
I worked with a Mbed board, I wrote a program to make LEDs flash and change their brightness, I worked with an accelerometer, PMW and with a Pycom board.

What did you like the most at Xor Systems?
I enjoyed playing table tennis during the breaks. I found the process of working through a problem very interesting and seeing the results at the end was very satisfying!

What programming languages did you use?
I used C which had an abundance of semicolons and braces that I had to get used to. In contrast to that, I used Python, as well, which had barely any syntax and mostly just indent for everything. I preferred Python as you can use variables without having to declare their type which can have downsides sometimes too.

Did you encounter any hardware problems?
Yes, the Pycom board did not work all the time and an update was required to make it work. With the Mbed board, I had difficulties getting the pins right. What was your favourite moment outside the work in the office?
Beating James at table tennis 12-10! Also, strolls to the shops to get lunch, especially after I figured out I don't have to cross every single roundabout to get there.

Did you receive help when you were struggling with a problem?
Yes from James, he was probably humbled about it after being defeated at table tennis. He helped me with the accelerometer pins.

Did you develop any soft skills?
I can't tell right off the bat yes I did. I feel like I definitely picked up new skills about time management and asking for help in places when I am stuck because I would normally just try and figure it out on my own and don't ask for help

Did you prefer working on your own or when you worked with someone?
When I work with someone I feel like I just let them do it all but it's also good to know you are not alone when you are stuck with a problem. If I know what I am doing I like to just sit by myself but also have people able to come over and have a look.

Did you learn something new about the work environment in real life?
I like how you get a problem and you will be given a task for a certain time. For certain things, you would work with other people so it's not like being stuck in a cubicle where everyone just does their own thing for 7 hours.

Do you think the stay with us has given you any insight about what career path you want to take in the future?
I'm going to be a professional table tennis athlete! Yes, I will definitely consider doing something software related. I definitely lean more towards software than hardware. I do like some bits of hardware as well, it is nice what you are writing to happen on something like LEDs turning on instead of just text windows returning back.

We asked Max to keep a diary during his week with us about his tasks and thoughts about the work experience.

Day 1- Shown around the office by Jeff, then got to work on a Mbed board running C, getting the lights to flash, then activate on command, then adjust the brightness by having them flash at incredibly small intervals.

Day 2- Finished work on the Mbed by having it use an external library to create a smoother blinking effect, then got to work on the Pycom board, which required some software that only ran on windows 10, so I had to upgrade my computer, which was previously running in windows 7.

Day 3- Continued with struggling to get the Pycom board working, was able to get it to turn on the LED, as well as read its sensors, but not do anything with that information, after trying to hook it up to a monitor on a breadboard and using an outdated version of VSC to run it.

Day 4- Started by continuing with the Pycom, however midway through the day the board just stopped working, so went back to the Mbed to try using the accelerometer attached. It took a while getting it to work, as I won a game of table tennis against James after lunch, and then it turned out the pins were soldered the wrong way round, allowing me to use the code I had written after they were switched around.

Day 5- Final day, started by finishing the accelerometer code and getting that working, then Jeff set me on the Mbed expansion board, which had a led screen, which I used to attempt to program a low-graphics game. I succeeded as far as getting the character to move within the boundaries of the space but couldn’t get much further before I had to leave. Overall, my time at Xors was really fun and helpful in highlighting what kinds of problems they’d face working for actual companies.

If you or your child wants to spend a week of work experience with us, please contact us by email at ask@xors.com.