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THE BEGINNING
Amazon is the heart of my city Seattle so we wanted to explore the company a little. Recently in 2018 Amazon introduced the Amazon Go which is a cashier-less grocery store. It is right next to the main building within Amazon Headquarters, Day 1. We wanted to visit it for a long time. So we started out our trip by doing some research to find that Amazon actually has a self guided audio tour to explore their headquarters. Find more here: http://www.amazonhqtours.com/take-an-audio-tour/. So we headed by bus to the Day 1 building. When we reached we walked for about ten minutes to see the marvelous Amazon spheres next to the Day 1 building.
AMAZON GO
We found out that the tour actually ended quite far from the first building and since the Amazon go store was just next door we decided to head there first. We needed to install the Amazon Go app which we had already done. When we entered through the doors of the building there were gates for us to enter in when we scanned the barcode in the app. Since me and my mom were both entering as a family we had to scan our barcode twice, once for me and once for my mom. Then we proceeded to shop and we could just grab the items from the shelf and put it in our bag. We also brought wraps for us to eat for lunch. We even tested the feature where we could place back items which we did not want and when we arrived home later it did not count it as an item we were purchasing. Pretty good! After we had all of our items we could just walk out. Before the exit there was a small area with seats and microwaves to heat our food. There was also a variety of sauces and cutlery. We heated up the wraps that we bought and proceeded to eat them. Then we went out the exit and we found a nice little relaxing area where there were beanbags and games. We lied down on the bean bags for a while and then played Connect4. I beat my mom every time! Then we tried out the bean bag toss game that was nearby. We kept trying and we made it in a couple of times!
DAY 1
Then we wanted to start the tour so we headed into the Day 1 building. On the first floor was a neat diagram of the Kindle devices evolution in a bumble bee format. Then we headed up the escalator to the second floor where only a part was accessible to the public. We told a lady at the receptionist desk we are following the self-guided audio tour and she provided us with two sets of earphones and two maps of the Amazon campus. Then we headed off through the doors to start our tour. As we listened, the narrator spoke about the Day 1 building and the spheres right next to the building. Jeff Bezos the founder and CEO of Amazon wants his employees to believe everyday is a fresh start and for that belief named the building Day 1.
THE SPHERES
Afterwards we headed into the understory section of the Spheres due to the other sections given access only to employees. We went inside and explored the different exhibits. We learned about the infrastructure and how it was built.
SPHERES FACTS:
It took 2.5 years to complete the spheres
They had four nodes repeated multiple times to complete the sphere shape
The four nodes were made up of binomial pentagons.
The glass is very durable and weighs over 4.5 tons
Continuing the tour
We continued listening to the audible tour and went over to a building called Doppler. Also next to it is the meeting center for Amazon. In between both the Doppler building and the Meeting Center building is a courtyard where there are benches and cool crystal-like structures which benefit the scenery. Inside of doppler there is large quantities of literature on the wall and the wall is formerly called "The Great Literature Wall". It has large pieces of literature in columns which together make up a barcode. That very barcode spells out Amazon. Then we listened a bit more and heard that we must go to the other side of the city to the Cricket building.
To Cricket
We started the long journey to the Cricket Amazon building. On the way we saw dock-less bicycles scattered along the roads. We wanted to try as we have heard about the pilot going on and decided to choose ofo bikes. We downloaded the app and both me and my mom downloaded the app. We logged in and I rented a bike. Unfortunately there was only one bike available at the moment so I started riding. After one or two streets we found another bike and repeated the process. We both continued riding to the cricket building where we parked at a bike stall. We found there were multiple amazon buildings in the surrounding area and even a free banana stand. We got some bananas and listened to the live music playing.
We went to cricket and entered the building but there wasn't much except a small wall mural about some history of Amazon. We left and decided we could end the adventures for the day. We took the OFO bikes back and rode the bus stop and left them there. We entered the bus and departed home.
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