Chelsea the Destroyer
Member Since: May 31, 2012
Country: United States
Hacker-in-Residence: Wireless Weather Station
Do you guys know what time it is? I will just tell you: It’s hacker time. We’re excited to have Matthew Burmeister here, now, at this very moment, in the cave of magic that is our Engineering department, working on an internet-enabled wireless weather station. Who isn’t interested…
SparkFun's Heading to SXSW!
Well, we warned you. Back in August we threatened to show up en masse in Austin, TX, in March 2014, in search of barbeque electronics enthusiasts, and the time has come! Starting Monday, March 3, various contingents of SparkFunions will be bringing our enthusiasm and expertise in hands-on…
SparkFun Live: Coin-operated Insult Generator
Are your days long on confidence and short on insults? Do you find that your morale is just too high? Well we’ve got the solution to your self-assurance problem: Join us on Tuesday, March 11, at 3:00 p.m. MT for the next edition of SparkFun Live, where engineer Mike Hord will help you build…
Chattanooga Public Library 4th Floor and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Studio
One of the things SparkFun’s Department of Education is most interested in is the changing role of libraries in the face of constantly-accelerating technology. We believe libraries hold a unique position as the trusted disseminators of democratized information, and they have the capacity - in…
February Caption Contest winner!
The votes are in and our resident Olympic Caption Contest judges can take a day off. Congratulations, asciirory! You’re the gold medalist of captioners. The ReelMaster 9000 Telepathic Popcorn Generator gets its first alpha test with disappointing results… $100 in SparkFun credit is headed…
Skyline Innovation Center and SparkFun
In December 2012, Colorado’s St. Vrain Valley School District was awarded a $16.6M grant as part of the national Race to the Top education program. The grant money will be used to support programs within the district’s schools that, according to a statement from US Education Secretary…
Hacker-in-Residence: Programming with miniBloq
It’s time to welcome another awesome hacker into our ranks for a couple weeks! Meet Julián da Silva Gillig, who is joining us all the way from Argentina, and whose favorite food is cannelloni de ricotta. Julián is the author of miniBloq and the main designer behind Multiplo. MiniBloq was one…
SparkFun Live!: Random Pick-up Line Generator
Today’s the day! It’s time for another rousing edition of SparkFun Live! This time around, follow along with engineers Toni and Mike as they build a Random Pick-Up Line Generator - just in time for Valentine’s Day. The live video starts at 3:00 p.m. MT here: You can learn more…
Beatty Robotics + Actobotics
You may remember back in June 2013 when we featured Beatty Robotics, the dad-and-daughters team who were commissioned to build an incredibly awesome Mars Rover for the New York Hall of Science (we also featured their homemade mechatronic tank and first Rover build in 2011). We were excited to get to…
January Caption Contest Winner!
Hello everyone. We know you’ve been waiting with bated breath for this month’s caption contest winner, and the wait is over! Congratulations Member #468914! Quickly going over the table of contents. Mysterious Member #468914 is the proud new owner of the SparkFun “Kits Kit”:…
According to Pete: Current Mirrors
It’s time again for your prescribed monthly dose of According to Pete (Dokter’s orders - tssssss), and this time around, Pete is discussing and demystifying current mirrors! Current mirrors are used to regulate the current of one component or circuit with the current of another, and Pete…
Hacker-in-Residence: BeagleBone Shields
Josh Datko is SparkFun’s newest hacker-in-residence. We’re very excited to have him here for two weeks, where he’ll be working on building a shield for the BeagleBone Black to add security to your projects! Without further ado, here he is: Josh’s favorite movie is…
Happy New Year!
It’s hard to believe, but another year has come to an end. 2013 was a great year at SparkFun, and we’re endlessly grateful, as always, to have another 365 days of this amazing community’s support behind us. Once we got past the shock of discovering the blank cardboard at the end of…
December Caption Contest winner!
Welcome back, we hope your holidays were high in both merritude and brightness! You guys remember long ago last week when we posted a caption contest? Well the votes are in and Christmas isn’t over for one of you, so let’s all raise a paper cup of leftover, room temperature holiday party…
December Caption Contest
Well, somehow 2013 is drawing to a close, which means only one thing: If one of your resolutions for the year was to win a SparkFun Caption Contest, this is your last chance before a lifetime of looking in the mirror every day and thinking, “Why, self…why?” But don’t…
Engineering Roundtable - DIY Heated Seats
Usually for our Engineering Roundtable video series, we enlist one of our industrious engineers to build a project on camera and describe their process for you. Fortunately, there are many people at SparkFun with a lot of craaaazy ideas, so every now and then we give the engineers a break and let…
SparkFun Live is here!
Two weeks ago we announced a new video series called SparkFun Live, a periodic, glorious event during which various SparkFun folks will do live hacks and answer questions about projects that we’ll announce, complete with supply list, ahead of time - and TODAY’S THE DAY. Kindly proceed…
November Caption Contest Winner!
November has come and gone, and with it, our last-minute November Caption Contest. But this means good news for one of you, because we picked a winner. And that winner is MilesTag! As predicted, a “how many lightbulbs” joke takes the crown of glory. How many lightbulbs does it take to…
Hacker-in-Residence: Flying Robots
By now, our Hacker-in-Residence program is humming right along, and we mostly stand around tapping our fingers together with glee while some excellent applications roll in. One such excellent application came from our new friend John Gillespie, and we’re happy to have him join us for the next…
November Caption Contest
With only five days left in November, we thought we’d bid farewell to National Pomegranate Month and ring in the last month of 2013 with everyone’s favorite pasttime: caption contest! You know the rules, but in case you forgot: Leave your funniest clean caption in the comments section…
SparkFun Live
We at SparkFun share because we care, and today we’re here to mitigate the Tuesday dooms with a fancy new video series called (drumroll): SPARKFUN LIVE. In this series, various talented and good-looking SparkFun folks will be doing live hacks and answering questions. Here, Nick Poole explains…
Jeff Branson at Engadget Expand
Early this week, our Educational Outreach Coordinator Jeff Branson sat on a panel called “Rethinking Education” at the Engadget Expand event in New York City. The panelists - including One Laptop Per Child creator Rodrigo Arboleda - discussed the importance of integrating computer…
Nick Poole on Tested.com
A couple months back, our resident Creative Technologist and compulsive maker-of-stuff Nick Poole applied to be Adam Savage’s #2 guy as part of Tested.com’s Inventern competition, which would fly the winner out to San Francisco for a week to work as Adam’s workshop assistant.…
Caption Contest Winner!
Whoa hey! Remember that one time we did a caption contest 10 days ago? You may have been thinking, “Self, I think SparkFun plumb forgot to announce the winner.” Well, you’re WRONG. It just took us this long to narrow it down. But narrow it down we have, and the Oscar for Best…
Q&A with Aaron Horowitz of Sproutel
A few weeks ago we were lucky to host Aaron Horowitz at SparkFun headquarters for a Lunch & Learn about his inspiring project Jerry the Bear, as well as his company Sproutel, which will create and offer interactive games to help children with chronic illnesses manage their own care. Aaron is a…
According to Pete: Transistor Biasing Configurations
It’s November, and time for another installment of According to Pete, where everyone’s favorite mustachioed engineer talks us through whatever concepts are on his mind. This month, Pete has transistor biasing configurations on the brain, and covers two of the three major configurations -…
Engineering Roundtable - Aquaponics
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Masterpiece Theater Engineering Roundtable. This time around, SparkFun engineer Joel walks us through the steps to make a nifty handheld pH sensor, which he uses to regulate his home aquaponics system. The schematic and code for the H2O pH Probe can be found…
Free Shipping!
No one loves treats more than us, so on this - our favorite holiday - we’d like to announce one for you: SparkFun now offers free economy shipping worldwide on orders $60 and up! If you’ve been with us for a while you know that we’ve offered short-term deals on shipping in the past…
Hackers-in-Residence: Sophi Kravitz & Shane Clements
As you may remember, in August we launched the trial run of our Hacker-in-Residence program. We had a great time hosting hacker super-couple Tara Tiger Brown and Sean Bonner for two weeks as they built their tethered quadcopter, and we considered the test run enough of a success that we’re…
ElectriCute: LED String Lights & You
Ever wondered how to incorporate embedded electronics into your textile projects, or why you should give products like the LilyPad line a shot? Our newest video series - ElectriCute (puns!) - covers the ins and outs of some of our favorite e-textiles products and how you can use them, with the help…
LED Robot Halloween Costume
Last fall we caught wind of graphic designer, mom and e-textiles enthusiast Stephanie Segall’s quiet book projects. She took the time to tell us about the projects and tutorials on her site, Imagine Our Life, and a few weeks ago when we saw the amazing finished product for the World’s…
Ada Lovelace Day at SparkFun
The gender gap in STEM industries has been well documented. A 2011 survey by the Department of Commerce found that although women fill close to half of US jobs, they hold less than 25 percent of jobs in science, tech, engineering and math (STEM - or STEAM, if art is included, which it increasingly…
TEDx Boulder 2013
Each year, Boulder hosts its own incarnation of the TED conferences called TEDx Boulder, featuring visionaries from across the state who come to share their insights on technology, entertainment and design based on a changing theme. Created in the spirit of TED’s mission - “ideas worth…
Engineering Roundtable - Burning Man Edition
On this edition of Engineering Roundtable, Chris Taylor shows us the steps he took to set up a solar power supply to run his LED weather balloon project at this year’s Burning Man festival. He covers the five major parts of any solar power system and explains how to choose a battery and solar…
The Summit Cometh
One of the key tenets of SparkFun Electronics' philosophy is our belief in open source technology. All of our designs are open source, and we think an open market is a healthy market. The Open Source Hardware Association is one of the most important and influential players in the open source world.…
O Ye of Great Humor
Happy Wednesday - and here we go, caption contest winner time! And the winner is… DRUMROLL PLEASE Colecago! “Where are we?” “We hit 88MPH in the Sparkfun van. I think the correct question is ‘When are we’” Congratulations, Colecago! You will be receiving a mysterious and magical…
Meet SparkFun's Hackers-in-Residence!
We’re firm believers in the power of hacking and tinkering to solve real-world issues, which is why, in June, we helped sponsor a collaborative residency program between our friends at Public Knowledge and Eyebeam. The idea behind their program is to find artists, engineers, designers,…
Spark by Southwest
In recent years, SparkFun has been increasing its presence at the South by Southwest festivals in Austin, TX. In 2012, we sponsored the GE Garages with tools and supplies, and last year we hosted our own booth at SXSW Create - a free, DIY-centric tent during SXSW Interactive, where we taught…
SparkFun and Jefferson County Libraries
Late last year, after a series of successful workshops on the road - in particular a staff training day at the Los Angeles Public Library - Jeff (one of our educational outreach coordinators) started thinking about how to bring SparkFun’s educational efforts home to Colorado. He reached out to…
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…
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…
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…
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!)…
HackEDA: Automatic circuit design
Today we want to draw your attention to a groovy new Kickstarter from FOS (friend of SparkFun) Ben Wilson, called HackEDA. HackEDA is an easy tool that can automatically design complete manufacturable circuits - you can browse their library of electronics designs, download individual bits (power…
AVC 2013 recap
Happy 2.3-week anniversary of the 2013 Autonomous Vehicle Competition! We’re still basking in the glory of the event’s biggest, best incarnation yet at the Boulder Reservoir on June 8th. We can’t believe how well it went, and we want to say thank you again to everyone who came out…
Beatty Robotics builds Mars Rover, blows our minds
Way back in September 2011, we caught wind of and featured some amazing robotics projects from a dad-and-daughters team. Their two robots - modeled after modern tanks and the Mars Rover - were impressively executed (and included a slew of SparkFun parts); turns out, we weren’t the only ones…
Engineering Roundtable - Bandsaw Coolant System
In this installment of Roundtable, Mech Engineer Paul takes us through the design and build process for a custom coolant system for machining. A lot of these same principles can be used in any custom fabrication project. Vimeo me! Comments? Questions? Hairstyle suggestions? Examples of your own…
MIT's David Sengeh visits SparkFun
Beyond the kegs, skateboards, food trucks and constant presence of dozens of friendly dogs, working for SparkFun has a lot of other perks. One of them is that we host, on average, several Lunch & Learns a week, where both internal and guest experts come and bestow their genius upon us while we…
Two Bit Circus and the STEAM Carnival
Recently, Eric Gradman, a prototyper, lifelong inventor, and friend of SparkFun, sent us an awesome new project. His company, Two Bit Circus, is running a Kickstarter to fund the creation of the STEAM Carnival, a modern traveling carnival with high tech games, robots, fire, and lasers to inspire…
Everyone's a winner!
Just kidding, only one person is a winner, and it’s SimplEEngineering. Congratulations, you’re the April Caption Contest champion - $100 in SparkFun credit is coming your way! Remember to use it for good, not for evil. ATMegatron! As a thank you to everyone else who contributed to the…
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News - Hacker-in-Residence: Beag… | about a month ago
Great point! We have been keeping an eye on our hackers' projects as they progress, and so far, our first hackers, Tara Tiger Brown and Sean Bonner, are the first to have created a completed project and tutorial. All of our hackers are awesomely ambitious and creative, and in most cases two weeks hasn’t been enough time to have a project or tutorial to share with everyone. We may end up extending the residency timeframe, but in the meantime we’ll try to do a better job of keeping you updated on their progress and results!
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News - January Caption Contest W… | about 2 months ago
We never underestimate the dangers of breath-baiting.
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News - Christmas Candy Giveaway … | about 3 months ago
Coooool - send the footage our way when all is said and done, we’d love to see it!
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News - December Caption Contest | about 3 months ago
Nope! We just pick the best of all the entries. Go crazy!
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News - November Caption Contest … | about 3 months ago
Hiya - while I can’t speak for all the upvoters out there, we do look at every submission when we’re picking a winner! And while there are always several contenders for the crown, the mysterious panel’s majority vote rules. It’s hard to predict what the judges will choose, but we try not to be swayed by the fickle world of internet stars.
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News - Ada Lovelace Day at Spark… | about 5 months ago
Not out of place at all, Brennen. I loved hearing people’s stories, and while writing this post I wished I could have had the space to ask all of SparkFun’s employees about their role models and early experiences. It’s my hope that everyone has a story and someone to thank for the encouragement that got them where they are; thank you for sharing yours!
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News - Ada Lovelace Day at Spark… | about 5 months ago
I agree completely, and I’m fortunate to also have a dad who helped me with every science fair project and to this day, encourages a rabid enthusiasm for lifelong education. I know many SparkFun women also have male role models they could thank at length, but Ada Lovelace Day is specifically devoted to honoring the female role models that have helped us - as there are comparatively few of them in the STEM fields - so that’s what we chose to focus on this time around. But, as I said in my takeaway, everyone can and should be a positive influence on the next generation of STEM geniuses, regardless of gender!
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News - New Product Friday: Fly b… | about 6 months ago
Fixed! Thanks!!
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News - Meet SparkFun's Hackers-i… | about 7 months ago
Tara and Lindsay Levkoff (our director of education) have been acquainted for a while so it was easy to float the idea by them without much structure - we’re hoping to nail down a more concrete way of applying to and organizing the program for the future. We’ll see what we learn from this trial run and go from there; as soon as we do we’ll be asking for applicants!
No public wish lists :(