SparkFun Visits the Windy City
We’ve been on the road on the National Tour for a few months now, and we’re constantly amazed at the enthusiasm and determination we see in the locations and class participants we’ve visited. We’ve taught in museums, schools and hackerspaces, and we’re always excited to…
New Product Friday: The RedBot
For everyone who likes new products, the next two weeks will be pretty special. We have a lot of new stuff this week, and even more coming up next week. This week we’ve got our regular new product video, as well as a supplemental video giving a demonstration of the RedBot Kit. Be sure to watch…
Engineering Thursday - 3D Challenge
A while ago, SparkFun released the S.H.O.V.E.L. If you missed it, the S.H.O.V.E.L. is an open source eating utensil. For the most part, it was just a fun way to prove that you could open source ANYTHING. The S.H.O.V.E.L. Below is a paraphrase of something Mel Gibson once said: “We created our…
Geek Week at SparkFun
August 4-10 is Geek Week on YouTube. All week, they’re hosting video content celebrating all things geeky, with a different theme every day. As bona fide geeks, when we caught wind of Geek Week we decided to join in. We thought it would be cool to make some videos on a few resident…
The National Tour continues!
In July, SparkFun’s RV pointed east and headed out to do five workshops at four different museums in the Oklahoma Museum Network. We had talked to Sherry from the network and everyone was excited to teach basic programming and sensor concepts to a bunch of little dudes all over Oklahoma. Video…
According to Pete: August edition!
On this month’s ATP, Pete opens with some light to moderate existentialism and discusses his adventures in glider piloting! He decided to build a data logger and some modified instruments to track more and better data from his flights than typical instruments do. Many acronyms are thrown…
New Product Friday: Books and Boards
Welcome back to another Friday at SparkFun. It’s like Christmas every week! This week we have some books o' knowledge and some electricity boards. Check ‘em out. The Internet has a wealth of information, but sometimes a book is a great resource too. Structured learning (like working…
Enginursday: RockON!
Despite the budget problems that plague NASA, there are more opportunities than ever before to get your projects into space. Motivated amateurs are building high-altitude balloons, high-powered rockets, and even miniature satellites called CubeSats that can hitch a ride on commercial launches. A…
Open-source hardware community survey
We’re big fans of open source, and we try to be as active in the community as possible - we attend conferences, give talks, write articles, and generally do everything we can to embody an open way of doing things. We’re proud to be a player in an amazing, supportive (and growing!)…
Calling All Colorado Makers - NoCo Mini Maker Faire
On October 5th, 2013, Maker Faire is coming to Colorado! SparkFun is proud to announce that we are sponsoring the NoCo (Northern Colorado) Mini Maker Faire in Loveland, Colo. If you’ve never been to a Maker Faire and you live in the greater Rocky Mountain region, this is a great opportunity to…
Super Awesome Sylvia's WaterColorBot
In the past, we’ve posted about Sylvia, the host of Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show. Today, we want to promote Sylvia’s latest project - a joint effort with Evil Mad Scientist Labs - called “Super Awesome Sylvia’s WaterColorBot.” The WaterColorBot is essentially…
New Product Friday: Get Under Control
Welcome back everyone! Exactly seven planetary rotations have occurred, and we have new products. We have a little something for everyone this week, so check it out. The new camera module for the Raspberry Pi was pretty interesting to play with. We’re still working on a few demos, but…
Engineering Thursday - E-textiles Magic!
Have you ever had that moment, after you’ve sweated every detail, solved and re-solved every problem, and the project is finally done, when someone pushes the button, and - as far as they’re concerned - what they’re looking at is magic? They don’t see the hours you put into…
July Caption Contest Winner
Last week, we ran this month’s caption contest - where we invited all SparkFunions to test their humor skills in a no-holds-barred competition for writing a moderately funny caption. You can check out the original post here. Today, it’s time to announce our champion. (In Australian…
Where does the Pro Mini 5V come from?
The Pro Mini: A miniaturized and minimized version of the Arduino Pro 328, with five fewer components than its big brother. As the sustainability coordinator and part of the green team (known as the Wildcats!) here at SparkFun, I decided to check out the carbon footprint of this tiny board. So where…
SparkFun's 3 Millionth Widgetpalooza
At the end of last week, Matt Bolton (SparkFun’s Director of Production) sent out an exciting email - his team in production had just put the finishing touches on SparkFun’s 3 millionth widget! This is a pretty exciting milestone for us as a company and we have to take a moment to say…
New Product Friday: SIK Products
I know why you’re here. You want to see what new stuff we have this week. Thankfully, we have new stuff for you to check out, so let’s see the video and then the products. The SIK is one of our most popular products here at SparkFun and we oftentimes forget that not everyone is as…
Engineering Thursday: LED Light Boxes
Way back when, I worked on a project to create smart phone controlled LED cubes. Although the project never really got past the prototyping stage, it was a great learning experience. Since then I’ve created dozens of LED light cubes and bars all with different methods of control. The process…
Help Support the Open Hardware Summit
Today, we have a call to action for all makers, hackers, hobbyists and electronics enthusiasts who value the ideology and/or benefits of open source technology - Help Support the Open Hardware Summit! Speaking at the 2012 OHS. One of the key tenets of SparkFun Electronics' philosophy is our belief…
July Caption Contest
July is officially halfway over, so before we run out of days, it’s time for this month’s caption contest. The rules are simple: Leave your funniest clean caption in the comments section below. We reserve the right to delete captions that we deem inappropriate. Stick to PG-13 content.…
Recent Comments
Member #134773 / 7 hours ago 1
This isn’t really relevant to Friday’s post, but the thing about the Hater-matic “live build” is saying Mar. 11 at 3:00 PM Mountain STANDARD…Member #528713 / 12 hours ago 1
A website must be user-friendly for all devices, and when it comes to mobiles, the means of navigating the website need to be adaptable to…Gaver / 15 hours ago 1
Two applications come to mind… 1) A Helicopter 2) A Snow Blaster
stilldavid / 24 hours ago 1
Read up on the FAR-101 regulations. So long as you build a payload to specification there is no paperwork required, however you must avoid…einro / 1 day ago 1
My Tenergy AA-AAA charger blinks to show power on. Off when empty. Steady red when not charged. Flashing red when something is wrong. Then…
Member #528595 / 1 day ago 1
Hilarious caption! Ha-Ha
Member #134773 / 7 hours ago 1
Hey, the opening screen gets me to “dispense” an insult: “Are you not wise enough to realize when the change to Daylight Savings[sic] Time…Re: SparkFun Live: Coin-operated Insult Generator