Last summer during a Solarbotics Robotics for Educators session, one of the teachers noted something about many of the mainstream robotics and electronics learning platforms commonly used in classrooms. He said that those platforms suffered from the Black Box Effect. This effect was where the “black boxes,” the controllers, were plugged into the computer and […]
Everybody have a good 2010? Good...
Dave Hrynkiw
January 12, 2011
Let's start 2011 by promoting a worthwhile event sponsored by one of our suppliers, SparkFun. Tomorrow is their 2nd "Free Day". Last year's event pretty much crashed their servers (we sent flowers of condolence). This year, they're going about it a bit wiser, offering several ways to taking advantage of their $150,000 give-away.
We're big fans of SparkFun, so at the risk of making our January 13 quite slow, go over there and take part, especially since that there's opportunity for $30k to be raised for charity!
A Makerbot "Thing-o-Matic" 3D printermade it's way to Solarbotics just before the Holiday break. I took it home and turned it into a holiday project, and we've just about got all the bugs squished out. We have some ideas we're looking forward to turning from "bytes to bits", and will be posting them as soon as we can.
We've just received our first batch of new prototype PCBs of the year. What's on the slate? Let's see... We're enthusiastic about the Synapse RF module, with offers XBee functionality in a more powerful and easy-to-use manner, so we've built some adapter boards. There's also an surface-mount Ardweeny, and a test PCB for Jimmie P Rodgers' "LOL Shield" (Lots 'o LEDs).
Soldering new PCBs while listening to the 3D printer hum, while watching the SparkFun servers get attacked... This should be a fun week!
MORE POSTS
Possible Canada Post Service Disruptions
Labour negotiations between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) are currently taking place. In the event that an agreement between the two parties cannot be reached, customers could see a disruption to all Canada Post services as early as July 2, 2016. In the event of a labour disruption, Canada Post […]
SB Freeduino and Ultimate bundles
BOY it's been a busy season for us. Our pick and place has been moving at a blurring pace (while I've been baking the boards), and we're getting the SB-Freeduino 2.3 back online. What's new from the v2.2? Not too much - we've cleaned and tidied up the overlay, incorporated some new Uno-style annotations on […]
Solarbotics at PDXBot04
Grant and I have been back from PDXBot a few weeks now, and I put together a wee movie showing off some of the (limited) video I shot. You get to see Grant winning 2nd place in Mini-sumo, me NOT using a camera correctly (I got record on/off reversed during a Grant/me match), and some […]
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!
Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.
Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.