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BBC producer John Das (from left), camera operator Mike Robinson, and sound recordist Peter Eason visited the farm of Dr. Ron Hauser to film shots of his pigs for a documentary about Robert Noyce ’49. Noyce was suspended from the college for a term for the theft of a pig from a local farmer.

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Eason recorded a variety of sounds, from pigs squealing to trains rolling through campus, to lend atmosphere to the documentary.

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The crew took lots of shots of the rural landscape to set the scene for Noyce’s Iowa upbringing, including the windmill at the Grinnell Heritage Farm.

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John Das interviewed George Drake ’56 about his experiences working with Noyce when they were on the Board of Trustees together as well as when Drake served as president of the College. Drake shared a story about Noyce bringing Apple’s Steve Jobs onto the Board in the 1980s and talked about Noyce’s passion for flying.

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Mike Robinson shot a great deal of footage of the town of Grinnell as well as the campus.

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In addition to individual interviews, the College arranged a lecture by physics professor Bill Case on the development and function of the integrated circuit. The presentation drew more than 30 physics students.

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Case described how vacuum tubes were developed in order to regulate and amplify the flow of electricity in appliances. The pea-sized transistor began to edge out the larger and more expensive tubes in the late 1940s.

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The transistor uses a piece of semiconductor material and can be used as an amplifier in electronics. Noyce’s knowledge of transistors was integral to the development of the integrated circuit, which consists of millions of tiny transistors in one silicon chip.

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Noyce first learned about transistors when his professor and mentor Grant Gale showed him one of the first built at Bell Labs. The BBC team hoped to illustrate how Noyce’s introduction to the transistor while at Grinnell laid the groundwork for his later development of the integrated circuit.

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