Federal University of Alfenas, Brazil
I collect video game consoles from the ’70s and ’80s. I was always fascinated by the hardware that was used by early video game companies. I try to understand how these early games were programmed and the limitations of the machine, and try to get in the mindset of the programmers of the time. I think today we overlook the potential of our machines because we are so used to just clicking on stuff without realizing what is behind it. For me, it’s not like that. I want to know the machine and the system. I want to see the pixels of the game I’m playing. The more bleeps the music makes, the better. It’s a hobby, but it gives me insight into what I do every day. I come from a simulation background, but I came to Fermilab as an intensity frontier fellow to enhance my skills working on hardware and instrumentation. I’m changing the focus of my research so I can be more hands-on when the time comes for DUNE. This allows me to go back to Brazil and work on the formation of my next generation of students that will inherit this expertise and be useful for DUNE and come here to Fermilab for similar tasks.