Ice Cream, ArdJet and (New) Stuff

Well, it certainly has been a busy week! Particularly for our pals over at SparkFun, who just wrapped up their third annual Free Day. This is quickly becoming a favourite spectator sport around the office, as every year we tune in to watch the available money evaporate and/or their website/servers die a horrible, horrible death. As in years past, we sent along a lil' SB lovin' for the hardworking SparkFun crew. This time around it was some complimentary ice cream to help cool down after a long day (some of us thought we should order a few sledgehammers instead, so the SF team could dispense some Solarbotics-style troubleshooting for whatever IT problems popped up). You can see SparkFun's appreciation for our delicious treat written on the inside of a box in the photo to the left.

In other news, Jetty over at Thingiverse just released a super awesome project called the ArdJet Programmer. He's made (in his words) "a cheap, easy to build ISP (In System Programmer) which you can use to write the bootloader to an Extruder or Arduino Mega or any other Arduino board with an ICSP connection." Our favourite part, of course, is that uses an Ardweeny for some of the guts. Regardless, it's a very nice build and he's done an excellent job with the resources and instructions. He's done a great job at keeping the size compact, using space very efficiently.



New Products

We won't lie. This week's collection of new products isn't the most inspiring or exciting. But that's okay, because we've included a button and a switch. And everyone loves buttons and switches.

	Infrared Sensor Jumper Wire - 3-Pin JST - $1.50 USD / $1.58 CAD Three pin JST connector with red, black, and yellow colored wire. 5 inches of wire length, perfect for interfacing SHARP analog Infrared sensors to your project.
	SPST - 6.2mm Momentary Tactile Pushbutton - $0.70 These 4-pin momentary-contact SPST (Single Pole, Single-throw) switches are great for sending reset signals.
	ARDX Arduino Mega Base Kit - $6.95 Usually when you see Mega and Bass in the same sentence it's not usually about Open source microcontroller platforms, but in this case it is! Well that's kind of a stretch cause we're really talking about the Arduino Mega Base Kit which allows you to attach your rogue Arduino Mega (or compatible board) to a ARDX experimenter's platform.
	ARDX Acrylic Base Kit - $6.95 Wrangle in your loose Arduino - you don't want them going rogue, so tie it down to an ARDX experimenter's platform!
	CR2032 3V Lithium Coincell Battery - $1.95 USD / $2.05 CAD This is a VERY common regulated 12 VDC 2000mA output power supply used for many common gadgets.
	CR2025/CR2032 Coincell Battery Holder - $0.49 USD / $0.52 CAD Here's a coin cell holder for mounting the most common types of coin cell batteries: CR2032 and CR2025. You could try other batteries but we're guessing you won't have much luck with 'AA's.
	SPDT Momentary Toggle Switch - $3.25 CAD / $3.45 CAD Check this action out - It's a panel mount toggle switch, Yay! This switch is unique in it's operation as it has a spring inside that automatically returns the switch to the center-OFF position.
	5mm Water-Clear Phototransistor - $0.45 This 5mm Water-clear Phototransistor will pick up visible and infrared light and conduct current. When light reaches this high sensitive/fast response time component it's much like current reaching the base of a transistor which allows current to flow from collector to emitter.

Yup. Look at all them mighty fine lookin' button and switches. Both of 'em. We'll leave you to bask in their warmth and glow until next week.