SparkFun Electronics - Recent News Posts

Meet Nicolas - possibly the youngest SparkFun customer

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0600

On our trips out to various Maker Faires, we've seen some pretty young kids go through our soldering classes. It is always a bit heartwarming to see a child take an interest in the things we are so passionate about. It's also amazing to see youngsters under the age of five assemble an electronics kit - I'm pretty sure at five I was busy eating Play-Doh and throwing sand at girls, not learning the basics of embedded electronics

What is the point of this rambling monologue? Well, meet Nicolas, 3.5 years old - possibly SparkFun's youngest customer.

Nicolas' father, Santiago, started by soldering some cables to three basic components (an LED, a switch, and a battery holder). After explaining that each part had two cables, Santiago asked Nicolas to draw a diagram of how to connect the parts - his first "schematic."Check it out!

The first schematic - a right of passage in any young man's life.

Then, Nicolas used scotch tape to piece the components together. When he flipped the switch and the light didn't power on, he debugged the problem with a simple proclamation - "Dada, there are no batteries!"Forgetting batteries? This kid is an engineer in the making.

This kid's future is bright (pun intended).

And there you have it - Nicolas with his very own flashlight inside a very spiffy "custom enclosure."Awesome work Nicolas! While we're at it, we should also mention his father's project - the Bluetooth Ericofon.

50s design work is awesome, even if it is a little strange.

Check out that nifty piece of retro hardware! This is Santiago's Bluetooth Ericofon. It works very similarly to our Bluetooth Port-O-Rotary phone that allows you to connect an old-school handset to your cellphone. This one, however, is built inside the resoundingly cool 1950s Ericofon. For more information about his project (or to buy one of your own), visit Santiago's website.

We heard you like new products!

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Hello again! We have even more products that we hope will help you do whatever it is you do. This week it seems to be all about utilitarian need. From soldering iron tips, batteries, chargers to breakouts, hopefully you'll find these products useful!

We have two new soldering tips for our 70W Analog and Digital soldering stations. The bevel tip (or hoof tip as we call it in production) is great for larger soldering jobs. It has very good heat transfer and is even great for cleaning up IC pin jumpers. The chisel tip is a great general purpose tip which most people prefer for everyday soldering.

If you're looking for a simple way to power your next project, AAs are always a good option. This charger is a good basic charger for your AAs, AAAs, and 9V cells. It plugs directly into the wall, can hold 4 batteries (or two 9Vs), and has status lights. It's nothing fancy, but gets the job done.

After you're done prototyping, you always need a good way to power whatever it is you made. A 9V can be a great way to power a portable Arduino-based project. This one is rated for 350 mAh which should be enough juice for many applications.

We have a new version of the UberBoard. This is a development board based on the LPC2148 which provides access to cellular, GPS, an accelerometer, data logging, Bluetooth, and USB development. Yeah, it has a LOT of possibilities. Basically, if you are looking to do some serious development, you might want to look at this. The new version is just a slight rework/update and now has the red PCB you've grown to love (we hope).

Are we selling magic metal cubes? Kinda. Everyone loves magnets, it's a fact. Here we have some little 0.187"cube NdFeB magnets. They are surprisingly strong for their size. You can embed a reed switch inside your next project and amaze your friends with your powers of magnetism. Reed switches can add some cool 'wow factor' to your project, l earn more about them here.

If you have one of the GS407 GPS modules, you may want one (or three) of these. It's just a simple breakout board that allows you access to the 10 pins coming from the GPS module. The GS407 uses a tight-pitch connector which is difficult to solder. Use the breakout and save yourself some stress.

And last but not least, we have the new WiFly GSX module. Sure, we've carried this before, but this model is newer and cheaper. The only difference is a reduced operating temperature range. View the comparison here. But with a lower price, it allows more people access to WiFi for various applications. We are out of stock currently, but are working on a breakout board and a shield, so check back soon, or get your backorder in now!

That's all for this week. Have a great weekend and let your geek shine!

Ponoko Competition Revisited

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0600

A few weeks back, we made a homepage post about the Ponoko/GeekDad/SparkFun design competition. The goal of this competition is to see who can design the coolest project that can be made using SparkFun parts and Ponoko's fabrication services and materials. The prize? The person who has the best design (as judged by a panel from Ponoko and GeekDad) will have their project produced by Ponoko and SparkFun - for free!

As you can see on this Flickr Pool, there are some very cool entries already - but can you beat them? There's still time left - the deadline is this Saturday, July 31st. So get designing or enter your already-designed project! To enter, post your sketches, product photos or the final designs on GeekDad's flickr pool by July 31st and tag them 'Ponoko'. It doesn't have to be a totally completed design - even the seedling of an amazing idea can take home the prize!

For more information, check out GeekDad's post about the competition. Good luck!

Ski Season Is Over But This Project Is Worth Posting Any Time

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Dwight Eppinger is the Interactive Marketing Manager at Colorado's Copper Mountain Ski Resort. Essentially, he has the coolest job ever, as he gets to float between working on Copper's cool marketing campaigns, playing with electronics, and hitting the slopes. Dwight figured out a great way to fuse electronics with his job, creating a unique system to keep ski patrol and the folks on the slopes updated on the condition of ski runs. During the beginning stages, it looked a little something like this:

That's a lot of wires! Dwight is using some LED Matrices, an Arduino board, XBee, and a host of other parts to build his system. Dwight installed his system into signs to create a status board and map of the ski resort.

We liked Dwight's project so much, we put him in one of our ads! We packed up our gear and headed to Copper Mountain to shoot the photo which you may have seen in your favorite magazine (or even in the electronic version of Wired - check out around the 2:57 mark of this video). Here's a little "behind-the-scenes"footage of the photoshoot and an interview with Dwight!

Awesome work Dwight! Read more about Dwight and his project at his blog.

Snake Stomp Pad Tutorial

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Today we just want to let you know about our Snake Stomp Pad Tutorial. Perhaps you saw them in action at Maker Faire? If not, check out the video above demo-ing the game in the beta testing stages. A few of you have been asking for more information about these and here it is!. The tutorial takes you through step-by-step how we designed and assembled the housing for the pads. It also has details on the code and electrical hardware running these bad boys. The pads can be re-purposed as well. The set of four is designed to be driven by a single Arduino Pro Mini which sends serial commands indicating which pad has been stomped on back to Processing on the computer.

Also, if you were planning on entering the contest hosted by GeekDad with SparkFun and Ponoko this tutorial has a few tips to help you design for laser cutting. We can't wait to see what you all create!