Adafruit Holiday Gift Guide 2012 – Kits to Make and Give

For a hacker, a maker, or a tinkerer, building the kit is the best part of the joy of having the kit — but there are those in our lives who would cherish the final result as much as we love putting these things together! This holiday season, how about making a great kit for someone you love so that she or he can benefit from all of the interesting custom projects out in the world that can’t be bought off a shelf!

Here are a few suggestions from Adafruit and beyond!


Adafruit Kits To Make and Give

MintyBoost

Minty Boost Kit v3.0: An Adafruit classic, this kit continues to evolve to meet the various needs of the phones in your lives — and remains a favorite gift for friends-of-hackers to receive. Snoop around and find out the make and model of the phone or other USB device of people you love — and then deliver them a kit to have in a backpack or purse so they will never be without power! (read more)


Monochron

MONOCHRON Clock kit: Watches and clocks have been tried-and-true gifts for hundreds of years. Part of it is the utility — it is nice to know the time or at least observe the passage of it! — but the other part is the human mind’s endless fascination with the complex mechanical and/or electronic processes for keeping time. The Monochron Clock offers something special — the classic game ancestor re-purposed as a timepiece! (read more)


FLORA_GPS_StarterPack

FLORA GPS Starter Pack: As Becky has been evangelizing through her videos and projects, nothing says “love” to someone who loves electronics, technology, and the future better than creating a unique wearables project for them that no one else in the world has ever worn. The FLORA GPS pack gets you started with a dynamic brooch, crest, or other detail — and the GPS module offers you the possibility of geo-located triggering and toggling! Embroider a cunning FLORA scarf and include a map for where the the recipient should wear it to experience a special behavior or light show or secret morse code message! (read more)


TVBGone

TV B-Gone: Sure, you can get a fully assembled TV-B-Gone Remote from Mitch’s Cornfield Electronics, but how much cooler is it to have the hand-soldered unit! Makers will relish the chance to quickly solder the thing up and test it, and those they give the unit to will then benefit from the time and care the Maker has put into testing it! (read more)


The Kits of Others

MaKeyMaKey

MaKey-MaKey from Joylabz: One of the advantages of MaKey-MaKey’s simplicity is that you can use the kit to make a touchpad or controller from almost anything. So why don’t you take a little bit of time to bundle in a fun, silly set of “controller” objects with a MaKey-MaKey to give that intimate, thoughtful touch to your gift? Conductive jell-o, fruit, cashews, tin-foil, graphite pencils … let your imagination run wild! (read more)


Googly Eye Shield for Arduino from Evil Mad Science: Here’s a kit to make for a the Arduino fanatic in your life! The Evil Mad Science Googly Eye Shield for Arduino. From the product description: “A simple ‘platform’ shield with labeled break-out points from every position on the edge connectors. Plus, googly eyes! The Googly Eye Shield is sold as a soldering kit. It includes the circuit board, stacking headers, four googly eyes (two each in two different sizes), and glue dots to mount the googly eyes. Detailed, photo heavy instructions provided online.” (read more)


BrainMachine

The Brain Machine Kit v1 by Mitch Altman: Relax and rejuvenate as your brain synchronizes to a wonderful meditative state, and enjoy as you hallucinate beautiful colors and patterns from your subconscious mind! The Brain Machine provides you with a fun, easy way to meditate, all the while being very photogenic! They work with lights and sounds that pulse at a 14-minute-long meditation sequence of brainwave frequencies. Your brain synchronizes to this meditation sequence, and you meditate. It’s that easy! And the beautiful colors and patterns you vividly imagine along the way make it fun and enjoyable. The Brain Machine works with blinking lights. Be aware that blinking lights are not good for some people, especially those prone to seizures! (read more)


Deluxe LED Menorah Kit from Evil Mad Science: Here’s a really easy through-hole soldering kit you can solder up to give to friends or family for Hanukkah — even those with no familiarity with electronics will be able to run it and advance through the days of the season. (read more)


And a Wee Gift for Yourself!

HowToSolderSkillBadge

Learn to solder – Skill badge, iron-on patch: And don’t forget something for yourself. You can solder — you’ve just proved it! Adafruit offers fun and exciting “badges” of achievement for electronics, science and engineering. We believe everyone should be able to be rewarded for learning a useful skill, a badge is just one of the many ways to show and share.


SHIPPING DEADLINES

Here are your 2012 shipping deadlines for ordering from Adafruit. Please review our shipping section if you have specific questions on how and where we ship worldwide for this holiday season.

UPS ground (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 14, 2012 – Arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

UPS 3-day (USA orders): Place orders by Wednesday 11am ET – December 19, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS 2-day (USA orders): Place orders by Thursday 11am ET – December 20, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS overnight (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 21, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS International: Place orders by Monday 11am ET – December 17, 2012. Can take up extra time due to worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

Please note: We do not offer Saturday service for UPS.
Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012, Christmas, no UPS pickup or delivery service.
Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, New Year’s Day, no UPS pickup or delivery service.

United States Postal Service, First Class and Priority (USA orders): Place orders by Friday – December 14, 2012 – Arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

USPS First class mail international (International orders): Place orders by Friday – November 23, 2012. Can take up to 30 days ore more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner, but not a trackable service cannot be guaranteed to arrive by 12/24/12.

USPS Express mail international(International orders): Place orders by Friday – December 14, 2012. Can take up to 15 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

Gift Certificates are always available at any time.

When in doubt contact us!


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