The Good Life Lab is pre-launching at Maker Faire. It comes out in stores everywhere June 5 and can be preordered on Amazon

Bios

Wendy Tremayne was a creative director in a marketing firm in New York City before moving to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where she built an off-the-grid oasis in a barren RV park with her partner, Mikey Sklar. She is the founder of the textile repurposing event Swap-O-Rama-Rama, which has spread all over the world. She has written for Craft’s webzine and Make magazine and, with Mikey Sklar, keeps the blog Holy Scrap.

Mikey Sklar is a digital homesteader, open source hardware developer and anti-griddle master. Mikey has worked for Adafruit, Hack-A-Day and Popular Science.

Wendy & Mikey are giving three presentations @ Maker Faire, San Mateo, CA

Meet the Maker Stage
Saturday May 18, 2013 03:30PM – 3:50

Homegrown Village Stage
Sunday May 19, 2013 11:30AM – 12:20

Swap-O-Rama-Rama – Talk and Book Signing
May 20, 2013 03:20PM – 3:40

Tour Schedule

Holy Scrap Blog

Note from Ladyada & pt @ Adafruit: We’ve known Wendy & Mikey for years, we’ve visited their place in Truth or Consequences and it was one of the best experiences ever. They shared a preview of the book with us and it’s inspirational tale for all makers. If you’re at Maker Faire this weekend, go see them and either way, pick up this book!

The HPC Shield consists of 16 Arduino Unos connected together in a 4-dimensional “HyperCube” topology. Interprocessor communications are accomplished via high-speed hardware SPI.

Programming the HPC Shield is supported through a new version of the standard Arduino IDE that was specially developed using the open-source ParallelProcessing language.

The memory of each individual Uno is shared across the entire Shield through Adafruit’s new “Parallel Arduino Synchronous Shared Global Address Space” (PASSGAS) technology.  This revolutionary technology breaks the Arduino memory barrier, and gives the HPC Shield programmer full access to a whopping 32K of  combined SRAM!

Adafruit’s testing shows that a single HPC Shield can achieve an astounding throughput of 17.8MBops (millions of LED blink operations per second) using standard Arduino benchmarks.  For truly mind-blowing performance, up to 128 HPC Shields can be connected in a variety of topologies via I2C.

In a prepared statement, Adafruit Founder ladyada notes that “the already modular nature of the Arduino platform made it surprisingly easy for us to bring this project together. The only real problem we had was getting the Adafruit_Hadoop library installed in the right place”.

The HPC Shield is sold as a kit, including all necessary cables. A nifty laser-cut clear acrylic case is available separately.

The Adafruit HPC Shield is now available for order directly through the Adafruit Store at a retail price of $379.95, and is scheduled to begin shipping April 1*.

*A Special Overnight shipping rate is available to anywhere in the Continental US for an additional $21.18.

NEW PRODUCT – Bare Conductive Greeting Card Kit – This is a lovely way to get started with Bare Conductive paint, with three fun electronic greeting cards. Use the included 10 mL pen to draw traces and connect components on the front of the card. Two cards have cute robots with blinkie eyes or hearts, the third card is blank and ready for your creative robot drawing (or other creature?!?)

Comes with: Three cards, one 10mL Bare Conductive pen, 3 x auto-flashing red LEDs, 1 x auto-flashing rainbow LED, 3 x 3v coin batteries.

NEW PRODUCT – Bare Conductive Paint – Bare Conductive Paint is a multipurpose electrically conductive material perfect for all of your DIY projects! Bare Paint is water based, nontoxic and dries at room temperature.

Bare Paint is the first non-toxic electrically conductive paint available to consumers today. This unique child-friendly material is designed for people of all ages to explore and learn about electronics with an inclusive, easy-to-use material.

NEW PRODUCT – Bare Conductive Paint Pen – 10mL – Bare Paint provides a dramatically different method of interacting with electronics as it can be applied to almost any surface, including cardboard, paper, wood, wallpaper, walls, textiles, and some plastics.

Bare paint can be used to replace conventional acid etching, making it a great electronics prototyping tool. Nontoxic and water-soluble, Bare Paint can be used without gloves or mask. The paint dries quickly at room temperature, and can be removed with soap and water. This means it’s also not water-proof or weather-resistant!

Application Methods Include: painting, screen printing & spray painting among others. Despite being called “Bare” conductive, it’s meant not for use on bare skin.

In stock and shipping now!

NEW PRODUCT – SpikenzieLabs Calculator Kit. The SpikenzieLabs Calculator Kit another one of a kind, 100% original SpikenzieLabs’ kit. Easy to solder with through hole parts that it is both useful and super cool! Comes as a kit of electronic and plastic parts, after it is assembled you will have a lovely battery-powered pocket calculator. If you’re feeling extra-adventurous, the chip is programmed with an Arduino-compatible bootloader so it’s very hackable as well. Some tools are required to assemble: soldering iron, solder, and wire cutters. You’ll also want some masking tape and a hex wrench (although we just used pliers assemble the screws).

Features:

• Add, subtract, multiply & divide.
• No computer is required, ships pre-programmed.
• It is easily modified using the Arduino IDE.
• Six bright red 7 segment LED modules.
• Powered by a single CR2032 battery.
• Instant-on, automatic sleep, extra long battery life.
• Layered laser cut acrylic case.

In stock and calculating.

NEW PRODUCT – Uzebox Starter Kit – v1.0 – The Uzebox is a fully open-source, DIY 8-bit game console. It is designed specifically for people who know a little bit of programming to expand into designing and creating their own video games and demos. A full-featured core runs in the background and does all the video and audio processing so that your code stays clean and easy to understand.

This electronic kit comes unassembled: it includes the PCB, pre-programmed chip, and all components including a pre-soldered video chip. All but one of the components are through-hole, so you can build it yourself without difficulty. However, it is a 1-2 hr project and its best to have used your soldering iron before this project.

Each order comes with a full Uzebox kit including all components, an SNES controller, RCA A/V cable and SD card full of awesome games you can start playing immediately. A 9V power supply is also required, you can use one you have at home or pick one up from our shop. You may also want to get an extra SNES controller or an NTSC display. The photo above shows a kit with power supply and display attached for demonstration. A video display and 9V adapter are NOT included! To program in new games directly without using the SD card loader, you’ll probably want an AVR programmer such as a USBtiny.

• Full 256 simultaneous output colors, 240×224 pixel resolution
• Tile & sprite support
• Two player ports for use with Super Nintendo controllers
• NTSC RCA composite and S-video out (PAL not supported at this time)
• 4 channel output mono audio for music and effects
• SD/MMC card support for loading in games over a card
• Built on an Atmel AVR core, 64KB flash and 4KB of RAM
• Write game code in C, using fully open source tools on any platform

Check out the Uzebox website for starting-out tutorials, writeups and more details to see how easy it is to start writing demos & games.

In stock and shipping now!

Uncle Sam Wants You! Now’s your chance to change the way our country does medical simulation and battlefield care. The 2013 microMedic National Contest is calling the best and brightest, that’s you, to help invent new medical applications using microcontrollers. With over $25,000 in cash and prizes awarded to the winners, what are you waiting for? Contestants may use any microcontroller they desire in their application. Parallax is offering two flavors of the microMedic Application Idea Kit full of tons of sensors and cool parts; one kit has the multi-core Propeller chip, the other includes the Board of Education Shield (for Arduino).

In order to help you in your quest we’ve created a special discussion forum for the microMedic contest, provided a list of project ideas and created a bunch of mini-tutorials to help you get started with the kit sensors. We’re even giving away 100 free kits to the first qualified entries. This contest is open to participants of all ages with special prizes for educational and public division winners.

Hurry, contest ends July 31st, 2013! For all the info on the contest check out http://learn.parallax.com/micromedic. Be sure to visit the Official Rules page for all the details on contest entry, including how to apply for a free kit.

Good luck from Parallax, the U.S. Army and Carnegie Mellon University!

Trammell Hudson’s time-lapse build of the TIMESQUARE Watch Kit on Flickr

TIMESQUARE DIY Watch Kit – Red Display Matrix

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

NEW PRODUCT! littleBits Teaser Kit – Curious about littleBits but don’t know where to start, or what it is? Want to offer a friend a tiny touch of magnet magic, you’ll love the teaser kit! Tiny enough to fit in your purse or pocket, but still big enough to impress. Each bit has a simple, unique function (light, sound, sensors, etc), and modules snap to make larger circuits. With a growing number of available modules, littleBits aims to put the power of engineers in the hands of artists, makers and children. Contents: coin battery (rechargeable via micro usb cable) bargraph pressure sensor.

In stock and shipping now!

See our new TIMESQUARE Watch Kit in all it’s blinky glory in this video that shows you the watch’s features, tells you how to set the time, and overviews the trickier parts of assembly. Check it out on YouTube (please subscribe!) and Vimeo.

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

Here are some great tips for making your BOMs from Screaming Circuits:

The question of the day is: “What makes a good BOM?” There are a lot of BOM formats in use. It’s one area that the standards train more or less left behind. Well, there are standards. For example, IPC-2581 covers not only BOM standards, but a replacement for Gerbers and the whole manufacturing data package. One of these days, we’ll all be using the IPC-2581 formats for our data and life will be beautiful all of the time.

And here is his list of pointers to consider:

• "BomItem" or "Item #": This is just the line number. Each type of part gets an item line, not each part. If the pat number is the same, you just put it down once and give the quantity.
• "quantity" or "Qty": How many of this specific part you need per board
• "RefDes": The reference designators used by the parts on the PCB silk screen. All of the same part number should be in the same excel spreadsheet cell: i.e., "R3, R4, R5, R6". You can also indicate a contiguous range with a dash: "R3-R6" or "R3-R6, R10, R15"
• "Manufacturer" or "Manf": The name of the component manufacturer. It's best to spell out the full name, e.g., "Texas Instruments", but common abbreviations such as "TI" generally work too. The less ambiguity, the better.
• "Mfg Part #" or "Manufacturer Part #": The part number that you would use if you were buying this exact part from the manufacturer or a distributor. All of the suffixes are important too. For example, "PIC16F88" is not enough when you really need a "PIC16F88-I/P".
• "Dist. Part #" or "Distributor Part #":Not strictly necessary, but can help in cases with a bit of ambiguity. Again, this would need to be the exact part numer as you would order it from that distributor.
• "Description"or "Desc": This is the component description as given by the manufacturer. Again, this isn't strictly required, just a good idea.
• "Package": This is the standard package type, e.g., "SOT-23", "TO-92", "0201". Again, not strictly necessary but can be a good redundant check.
• "Type": Optional indicator of the generic type. e.g., "fine pitch", "smt", "thru-hole", "Leadless". Not required but can help with assembly quoting.

Read More.

Check out the DIY-centric “Making Things” series at the experimental retail venue STORY during the month of October, in partnership with GE Garages. (Schedule for talks.)

In particular, check out Oct 21st when I will be giving demos for using 3D printers and Adafruit DIY electronic kits in tandem. (I’ll share the Skillshare link to sign up for the hands-on demo this week when it launches.)

3D Printing & DIY Electronics w/ Matthew Griffin, Adafruit

A hands-on interactive workshop where participants can learn about the design practices of 3D printing and execute wild and ambitious ideas in solid plastic. Matthew Griffin is Adafruit’s director of community support and evangelism. He has a long held passion for using technology to create art and document experiences.

Lee Hart’s 1802 “Membership Card”. James writes -

When I saw this had just been released I couldn’t help myself. It’s core processor was used on several Nasa projects

Steve on Flickr writes: “A recently acquired 1978 Heathkit dip meter, in excellent shape and tested very close to calibration. Had to replace the rotted foam that held the 9volt battery in place, but that was no hardship.”

Want to be featured on Flickr pool Friday? Add your Adafruits to the Adafruit Flickr pool.

The Adafruit ARDX – v1.3 Experimentation Kit for Arduino.  This is by far the best way to get your feet wet with Arduino.  I use this exact kit when I teach an Arduino 101 class at The Mill in Minneapolis, MN.

We also offer a great starter pack for the Arduino.  This pack includes everything you need to follow along with Ladyada’s fantastic Arduino tutorial.  Once you have completed the online tutorials you will have some great gear to get you started on your first project.  We also have a budget Arduino pack that will allow you to finish Ladyada’s tutorial as well.

If you are looking to get into robotics, or teach a robotics class, look no further than the Parallax BOEBot.  This robot is built like a tank, and has a ton of functionality to get you or your students hooked on robotics.  The best part of the whole system is Parallax’s amazing online guide for the BOEBot.  Because of the built-in breadboard, once you have completed the tutorials, you can modify the bot to do what you want.

When you are in need of a microcontroller with a lot more processing power than the Arduino, the BeagleBone is a great place to start.  We have a starter pack that will get your project up and running in no time.

mbed is another really powerful microcontroller that is also super easy to use thanks to the mbed online IDE.  We have this neat mbed RFID/NFC starter kit that will not only introduce you to the mbed, but also teach you how to incorporate RFID/NFC into your projects.

If you want to teach someone of any age (and we mean any age) about electronics, be sure to check out littleBits.  This neat kit has a bunch of electronics components that snap together with magnets to create custom circuits.  There is no wrong way to hook up your littleBits, and they have a lot of great project examples online to give you some inspiration.

Adafruit for Educators! #backtoschool

Please visit our educator’s section to learn more about:

• Adafruit volume discounts and programs for educators, discounts galore!
• Adafruit electronic kits, products, Arduino & Raspberry Pi products for education, we have’em!
• Adafruit products and Arduino for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Used in schools!
• The Adafruit System, the best way to learn electronics!
• Adafruit iron-on “skill badges” / patches and partners, celebrate skills building!
• Resources for educators, our picks for educators!
• Adafruit for educators content on Adafruit.com, daily posts for educators!
• Circuit Playground – iPad/iPhone App For Educators, volume discounts via Apple’s edu program!
• Adafruit copyright permission for educators, educators can use them, hassle-free!

Visit.

Wave JT – LED chaser with Joule Thief.

Wave JT is a multi-function LED chaser/scanner/sequencer. Wave JT incorporates Joule Thief to power the LEDs, so it operates on just a single AA battery.

Wave JT has over 16 sequence patterns, and speed can be adjusted by double/triple tapping the button. It’s the most compact yet versatile LED chaser.

Sequence patterns include many variation of the classic “Larson Scanner”, random sparks, fade in/out, flashing, etc.

On the Arduino blog:

We are happy to announce the first wearable kit on the Arduino Store . This kit has been made by Plug’n’Wear specifically for us. All fabrics in this kit are produced in Italy, and strongly related to a textile family business. If you want to get deeper into the story of this product have a look at Riccardo Marchesi presentation (still in Italian, soon to be traslated!) at World Wide Rome 2012.

Read on for Kit’s features

How about a nice game of chess? @ Lasermad via HaD. Tony writes -

This developed as a spinoff from the hardware and controllers I’m designing for a range of nixie clocks and watches as a ‘simple’ project that wouldn’t need much software to complete it.
All visible parts are made from materials contemporary with Nixie technology and no modern plastics or resins are used anywhere in its’ consruction (other than the electronic components and PCBs). The board and pieces are machined from phenolic resin laminate and assembled using brass fittings. The brown base pieces have been filled and wiped with gold and silver engravers wax, giving a ‘worn gilding’ appearance.

The displays are ex-Soviet Nixie gas display tubes, manufactured in the early 1980s.

Kinetic Creatures on Kickstarter via Cool Hunting:

Kinetic Creatures are a set of three walking cardboard animal sculptures. The Creatures, Elly the elephant, Rory the rhino, and Geno the giraffe, are each made up of cardboard pieces that you assemble using tabs-and-slots. By turning the wire handle the creatures come alive with a simple mechanical motion.

We recently updated our distributor, reseller and hackerspace pricing! Now, 1 quantity has UP TO a 30% discount off many items, this is allows you to get a great discount by just ordering 1 of something. Great for folks who just want to try 1 item of each of something out in their store, etc. As always, once you order 50+ or more of something the discount goes UP TO 40% off many items as well. Note! *Not ALL items have reseller pricing, reseller pricing is for items we can discount for our resellers. We are adding more all the time! Remember, the minimum order is $250 per order, not including shipping.

We have a very easy reseller program and would love to have more great people & companies as a distributors/resellers/hackerspaces. Our products are high-quality and we think they’re the best engineered & designed in the market. How can you be a distributor? Just fill our form here, keep in mind the following questions!

1. Are you an online store, a physical store or a hackerspace that would like to distribute our products? Please include a link.
2. Can you place orders $250 and over (Not including shipping) each time?
3. Can you pay via paypal or credit card? For international large orders, can you pay via wire transfer?
4. Do you have a UPS account? (This is not required, but helpful).

We’ll be adding more features for resellers in 2012 enjoy! To become a distributor, click here or just visit our distributor section.

Smart startups don’t try to compete with behemoths. Dumb startups sometimes do. Fusion Garage was the company contracted to design and build the CrunchPad tablet in 2009, which, after ages in “development” … came to market as the hideous and overpriced JooJoo. (Like, just in time to compete with the iPad.) The company’s followups, the conceptually interesting but dangerously undercooked Grid 4 smartphone and Grid 10 tablet, got a bit of attention before the company, which had probably shipped no more than a few hundred units of anything, ever, collapsed under $40 million in debt.

Microsoft can afford to do this right. So can Apple, Samsung, LG, HTC and Sony. But some startup? Not a chance. When it comes to hardware, young geniuses need not apply. The line for Code Academy starts over here.

Interesting to watch the tech circles talk about hardware companies not working out. Chumby is now officially over so the question being raised is “can a start up compete in hardware”? RIM isn’t doing that great, so it might not just a world for big companies… Pebble: E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android is up to $5,673,151 with 27 days to go. This might be the new model for hardware start ups to pursue, we’ll all be watching.

The time for real postal reform is now @ The Washington Post.

FOR ANYONE who still does not quite grasp the technologically obsolescent U.S. Postal Service’s calamitous financial situation, here are a few facts from Thursday’s Government Accountability Office report.

First-class mail, the source of half of USPS’s revenue, has declined from 104 billion pieces per year to 74 billion pieces over the last decade. Estimates are that volume will shrink by 34 billion more pieces by 2020. Meanwhile, the postal service calculates that almost half of its 461 mail-processing facilities are redundant. The USPS’s $25 billion in losses over the last five fiscal years have left it within $2 billion of exhausting its $15 billion line of credit with the U.S. Treasury, which is the only thing standing between the postal service and total collapse.

In February, USPS projected that annual losses would rise to $21 billion by 2016 and proposed a plan to cut costs by an offsetting amount. This would involve dramatic reductions in the USPS infrastructure and workforce. But there appears to be no alternative. “The Postmaster General has stated that maintaining a vast national postal infrastructure is no longer realistic,” the GAO notes.

HOW-TO: Single member LLC/Sole proprietor taxes @ Dangerous Prototypes.

Tax day is next Tuesday, so we wrote about how we do our taxes as a sole proprietor/single member LLC. We show our actual supporting documentation for things like travel expenses for the Open Hardware Summit and Maker Faires, and our accounting of tool and equipment deductions. We hope it will help some new kit makers get a jump start on taxes, instead of freaking out at the last minute like we did the first time.

I Heart Robotics: New Packaging.

Over at I Heart Engineering we have upgraded some of our product packaging. Here are some of the design concepts. These stickers are important, because this means we can make packaging for selling quantity one of prototype designs. This in line with our philosophy of lowering the cost of failure. Fail early, fail often, succeed occasionally.

Mixtape Alpha @ Open Music Labs.

Mixtape Alpha is the smallest synthesizer we could make without a prescription. It has a stylophone style input for continuous note generation, and 6 buttons for discrete notes. With 4 voices, 4 effects, and 5 note polyphony there is quite a range of expression. But, the best part is, you can record the songs you make, and trade mixtapes with your friends! Perhaps even better, it’s based on the ATmega328p, and can be hacked to make even crazier sounds than we came up with.

Radio Archeology: Heathkit GR-54 General Coverage Communications Receiver.

Whenever I want to play with a new radio I look around the basement and see what’s down there.  With myrecent acquisition of the Heathkit BR-2 Broadcast Receiver I wondered what else I had in the way of Heathkit receiver kits.  There is was – my Heathkit GR-54 General Coverage Communications Receiver.

The GR-54 was produced between 1966 and 1971.  It is all mode (AM/LSB/USB) single conversion Superheterodyne consisting of 6 tubes (6BH6 RF Amp, 6EA8 Osc Mixer, 6BA6 IF Amp, 6BA6 IF Amp, 12AT7 BFO Product Detector, 6HF8 AF Amp and diodes).  The price when this kit was produced was $85-$135.

I got a real deal on this one.  I paid $25 for it in good working condition.  And that included the manual.

Turns out, at the time of this writing, there is an original unbuilt Heathkit GR-54 on eBay – the bidding is now at $709.  Got that?  That is not a typo.  An unbuilt Heathkit is bid up to $709 with 16 hours remaining in the auction.  Don’t belive me?  Here, look…

The best part about the post besides the photos is a comment under the post…

When I was 15 yrs old, I was offered a Summer job at my local grade school cleaning toilets, mopping/waxing floors, and weeding the gardens around the school and church for $1.50 and hour. Being obsessed with electronics, the first thing that I bought with my very hard earned money was a GR-54… It was one of the most precious items of my life for many years… all the things I learned with it, and because of it. That radio solidified my obsession with electronics, and lead me to the very lucrative profession as a very well employed electronics design engineer today.

Like so many electronic engineers of my age (mid 50′s), I owe my start to hard personal work, and Heathkit. Through the years, I collected manuals and studied the theory sections until I understood how the item worked. I specifically recall sitting in the lunchroom of Denby High school studying the IB-100 frequency counter- amazed that it indicated the measurement in “numbers” and not an analog meter. I sat there trying to understand the description of a “flip-flop” while my classmates were throwing food at each other (wonder what they are doing today?) I studied, studied, and studied until I finally understood how each stage functioned for every manual that I could afford those days (at $2.00 each).

We hope every kid now has a favorite kit they’ll look back on years from now.

U.S. Stores Learn the Ropes of Shipping to Foreign Shoppers @ NYTimes.com.

“Typically the guys we’re talking to start off thinking they can toss it in a box and give it to U.P.S. or FedEx and hope it gets there,” said Michael DeSimone, chief executive of FiftyOne, a technology company that helps retailers add international shipping capabilities.

But there are problems with ordering systems, customs and postal fees, he said.

For example, many retailers do not have software in their warehouse management systems that recognizes foreign postal codes, which — unlike those in the United States — do not always have five digits.
“It sounds like a really stupid reason not to sell internationally,” Mr. DeSimone said, “but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this was the biggest roadblock.”

Arcade button shipping!

NEW PRODUCT: littleBits Starter Kit v0.2!

littleBits is a system of modular electronics that snap together with tiny magnets for prototyping and play. The littleBits starter kit is the first kit by littleBits and contains all you need to get started within seconds. Each bit has a simple, unique function (light, sound, sensors, etc), and modules snap to make larger circuits. With a growing number of available modules, littleBits aims to put the power of engineers in the hands of artists, makers and children. Included in the kit are 10 color coded modules (power, input, output, and wire) that snap together magnetically to create larger circuits, guaranteed to keep kids (or you) occupied for hours. Comes packaged in an attractive case with a magnetic closure and includes an instruction sheet, 9v battery and a custom plastic screwdriver.

littleBits starter kit contents:

• A quick-start instruction set
• A custom-made 9V battery
• A 9V battery connector
• Custom plastic screwdriver

10 littleBits:

• power
• button
• dimmer
• pressure sensor
• pulse
• LED
• RGB LED
• vibration motor
• bargraph
• wire

Features:

• Snap and play, magnets prevent you from putting things the wrong way.
• Play with light, sound, sensing and buttons without wiring, soldering or programming.
• Make your own interactive objects, or combine with other construction toys.
• Explain to your children the complex notions of electricity, electronics and science in a fun way!

In stock and shipping now!

America has been extremely worried about the loss of manufacturing to China. Seduced by subsidies, cheap labor, lax regulations, and a rigged currency, American industry has made a beeline to China. New technologies will likely cause the same hollowing out of China’s manufacturing industry over the next two decades that the U.S experienced over the past twenty years. That’s right. America is destined to once again gain its supremacy in manufacturing, and it will soon be China’s turn to worry.

China’s largest hi-tech product manufacturer Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, made waves last August when it announced plans to install one million robots within three years to do the work that its workers presently do. These robots will perform repetitive, mechanical tasks to produce the circuit boards that go in many of the world’s most popular consumer gadgets. But even these robots and circuit boards will soon be obsolete.

..What happens when you combine AI, robotics, and digital manufacturing? A manufacturing revolution, that will enable U.S. entrepreneurs to “set up shop” locally, and create a wide variety of products. As Kinko’s is for 2D digital printing on paper, we will have shared public manufacturing facilities like TechShop where you can print your 3D products. How is China going to compete with that?

Part Time Minion (several positions) at Evil Mad Science LLC @ Adafruit Jobs Board.

Evil Mad Science LLC is looking for several part time minions to help us with a wide variety of tasks that we perform, including kitting, shipping, sanding, lasering, basic soldering, testing electrical assemblies, bookkeeping, reception, accepting orders, and basic customer service.

My friend and former college professor Yury Gitman posted up this time lapse video of him and his business partner Joel Murphy making and packing up 800 pulse sensor kits. Nice!

The Pulse Sensor Kit is a kit. It does contain an assembled PCB Pulse Sensor, but it also has a collection of other supplies that you need to get the most out of the Pulse Sensor: a Velcro strap (to wrap the sensor around your finger with), an ear clip, and vinyl dots (to make the sensor more comfortable and reliable when contacting direct skin). It doesn’t sound like a lot, but using these helps you get good long-term readings. Unless you are a seamstress or jewelry designer, these parts are not exactly effortless to source. We tested a lot of Velcro straps and ear clips before selecting the ones that finally made it in our kit.

via MAKE

Ian has an interesting on what *not* to do for PCB sales “How (not) to sell PCBs: PCB drawer first year sales breakdown” @ Dangerous Prototypes.

With $66.40 of profit we can’t cover our existing costs like the remaining PCBs ($75), envelopes ($12.60), and warehousing costs ($15). In the end we’re $36 bucks in the hole in this experiment.

The DIY ‘Maker Movement’ Meets the VCs @ Businessweek.

Adafruit is one of hundreds of growing ventures in the U.S. that belong to the so-called maker movement. These companies sell kits and support online communities of DIY types who make everything from toys to robots to 3D printers, and their moment seems to have arrived: Maker Faire, the movement’s Woodstock, attracted perhaps 20,000 hard-core devotees five years ago. At last year’s events in Detroit and New York, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to presentations sponsored by the likes of PepsiCo (PEP), Ford (F), and Microsoft (MSFT). And electronics giants Microchip Technology (MCHP) and Texas Instruments (TXN), hoping to profit from the maker zeitgeist, last year began offering their own kits. The maker movement is “as significant as the shift from agriculture to the early industrial era,” says Jeremy Rifkin, a Wharton economist.

Kitmakers say Make It Yourself @ Forbes.

Make it yourself. Do it yourself. Kitmakers from around the world want to provide the off-the-shelf and made-to-order parts you need to make your own creations, products, and inventions. The Reinventing Edison lightbulb kit (photo to right) is one such example (link below by Harris Educational, if you want to get one).

Kitmaking and do-it-yourself is exploding as a trend and one that the landmark publication, Make magazine, is daily charting the waters. Just about everyone who considers themselves a maker, inventor, artisan has heard of Make. They have grown tremendously since their founding in 2005 not because they talk about makers, but because they ARE makers. You can’t share the passion if you don’t have it yourself. Make exudes passion and the Ultimate Kit Guide that they put out late last year is an example of that caring and in-touch-with-makers spirit that they live and breathe.

Announcing Direct Checkout @ Etsy News.

Beginning today, we are rolling out direct checkout for US-based sellers. This is a new and optional way for shop owners to accept and manage credit card payments from buyers directly on Etsy. Direct checkout is currently enabled for a limited number of shops, including the EtsyStore. Direct checkout, in addition to simplifying payment, lays the groundwork for many more payment and checkout improvements, including Etsy-wide gift cards and enhanced international payment options.

Direct checkout will allow buyers around the world to use a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover card during checkout from individual shops — online, on mobile, or on Etsy for iPhone — without being redirected from Etsy. There will be one single line of communication around a direct checkout order, sent through an Etsy email, with all shop information and contact information easily accessible.

Big news for the maker/crafter biz owners who use ETSY.

The picture above is the entirety of Coobro Labs.  Coobro Labs is run out of my 800 sq. ft. condo in Minneapolis, MN.  This is where we kit and ship the Coobro Geo, and work on future open source hardware kits.  The reason for sharing this with you is to hopefully encourage those of you out there who think you need a lot of room, and a lot of expensive equipment to start your own KitBiz.  Let me break down the things that we find useful, and things we couldn’t live without.

1. An impulse sealer – This is a must have piece of equipment that we picked up brand new off of ebay for about $50.  This tool takes rolls of anti-static tubing (see item #2) and heat seals the ends to create bags on-the-fly.  You can buy impulse sealers with or without a built in cutter.  The cutter isn’t really necessary, as it is just as easy to cut the bags with a scissors.
2. Rolls of anti-static tubing – These are 500 foot rolls of anti-static tubing picked up from uline.com.  The reason for buying the rolls of anti-static tubing versus simply buying pre-made bags is that you can adjust the size of the bag to whatever length you want, and they are cheap at $25-30 per roll.
3. Laser printer – Below our workbench, we have a used Kyocera EP C170N laser printer that we picked up off of Craigslist for less than $50.  While it isn’t mandatory, laser printers are much more cost effective, and the ink won’t be affected by moisture.  We use the laser printer mainly to print out shipping labels.
4. High quality soldering iron – Having a decent soldering iron is what I feel is the most important tool I own.  The difference between a quality soldering iron and a cheap hardware store model is huge.  I used to find soldering frustrating and stressful, now I find it enjoyable and relaxing.  We have an Aoyue model 2900 soldering iron, but Adafruit’s Hakko FX-888 is a great choice.
5. Fume extractor – A fume extractor is one of my most recent additions, and I can’t believe it took me so long to get one.  There are a lot of toxins in solder, and breathing them in is very dangerous.  I used to simply solder in a well ventilated area, and hold my breath until the smoke cleared.  This is about as stupid as closing your eyes to avoid the arc flash while welding without a mask.  I own the Weller WSA350 model and it works really well.
6. Hot air reflow station – Once I started to get into soldering surface mounted components, this is the first tool I bought.  Before I made my own reflow soldering oven, I used this tool to solder surface mounted components.  While you certainly can use a good soldering iron to solder surface mounted components, this tool will save you a lot of headache.  We have the Aoyue 852A++ model, which can be had for around $150.
7. Reflow oven controller – We use the Rocket Scream Electronics Reflow Oven Controller ($40) Arduino shield.  We have done some testing with our reflow oven by simply cranking the oven temperature up until the solder reflows, then shutting the oven off and letting the board cool in the oven with the door closed.  This seems to work just as good as using a reflow oven controller that follows a specific reflow curve.
8. Toaster oven – This is a toaster oven that we bought in a Woot-Off for about $30.  It is really nice because it has a ‘Stay On’ feature, and it’s a convection oven, so there are no hot spots.  If you don’t plan on working with surface mounted components, you don’t need to worry about the last three items.
9. All-in-one printer – I have owned this HP PSC 1510 inkjet printer for a few years now and it has worked really well for me.  The important thing here is that it has a built in scanner.  You will need a scanner to be able to scan your signed purchase orders for component suppliers.  A scanner basically replaces a fax machine.
10. Component storage – I have a nice collection of Sparkfun shipping boxes that I have saved and used for component storage.  Simply slap a label on the top or front of the box to remember what is inside.  These also work great for project boxes.  You can also see other items we have used for component storage such as mint tins.
11. More component storage – When you are just starting out, this is really all you need.  We store all of the components needed to build up Coobro Geo kits in this small parts organizer from our local hardware store.  Through hole components, even in quantities of 1000+, take up very little room.  Eventually, as we release more kits, we will need to upgrade, but this system works well for the time being.
12. Ikea hacked workbench – My workbench is really just a bunch of components I picked up from Ikea.  The shelving is just Ikea CD storage boxes stacked in between some Ikea birch shelves.  The CD storage boxes work great for tool, parts, wire, and other large component storage.

As you can see, there really isn’t a whole lot to Coobro Labs.  There are obviously some items missing from the picture, such as shipping supplies, but this really is the majority of the Coobro Labs kit making business.  If you have a great idea for an open source electronics kit that you think others would also be interested in, there really isn’t anything standing in your way.

For more inspiration, see how we designed and developed the Coobro Geo, read Ladyada’s other kitbiz tips, or join the kitbiz conversation on the Adafruit forums.

How Makers, Hackers, and Entrepreneurs Can Save the U.S. Postal Service @ MAKE by Phil

Over the holidays, when the Adafruit shipping staff was away, I shipped hundreds and hundreds of packages of open source electronics. I put on headphones, and did my rounds through the factory and storage shelves. It was a good chance for me to reflect on how much I like the postal service (and the companies that are built around it like Endicia and Stamps.com). For a reasonable price, they can get almost anything anywhere. Sure, there are problems once in awhile, but for the volume and price, it’s pretty incredible. We have a daily pick up and delivery here in NYC; the postal staff is like part of my team. A few weeks ago, the postal service had a petition trying to get support so Saturday service wouldn’t shut down — things are getting grim.

You’ve probably seen the recent headlines: the postal service has reported massive loses in the billions. As I spent the days and nights shipping, I thought it would be interesting to consider how we could transform and evolve the postal system. I think makers, hackers, and entrepreneurs have unique ways of looking at things, and I’d like to share some of the ideas I had. Most of all, I’d like your input. Together we could start some conversations on how we could utilize this national logistical treasure. Which brings us to this week’s Soapbox: “How Makers, Hackers, and Entrepreneurs Can Save the U.S. Postal Service.”

Let’s go!

Read more…

Adafruit vending machine @GeekdomSA – The World’s Most Powerful Collaborative Workspace.

Geekdom is a “collaborative” space based in San Antonio, Texas. It’s a twist on the traditional co-working or colocation model, in that we have a strong emphasis on organic group collaboration between our members. We intentionally office people in different fields together to encourage them to get different points of view when working on problems. Additionally, we recognize and encourage the inquisitiveness of our members, and are trying to create a space where they can explore varying interests, ranging from robotics and Arduino hacking, to photography and music. We also open our space to students ranging from middle school to college that are interested in learning and exploring in the tech world, which is where you guys come in.

What your stuff is doing in a vending machine: So Dirk Elmendorf, one of our founding partners here at Geekdom, bought a vending machine and bunch of your kits recently. We took your kits, and put them in said vending machine. Now, those kits are for sale at $1 each, instead of their original MSRP. (The real snacks are in the cabinet across from the machine, totally free of charge.)

The theory here is this: any of our professional members can obviously afford to buy a kit from you guys, so that’s not really the point. On the other hand, the middle and high students that come through here often can’t, or at least are discouraged by the price (or the the necessity of having a parent’s credit card). Here, if they have a buck, they’re welcome to give electronics a shot. We have a Maker space here with all the tools required, and members experienced in electronics who can give them free lessons in the skills they need.

We just got this thing set up, but if we get some pictures of our students working on your kits I’ll be sure to send them your way! I’ve also attached the pictures we took today of the vending machine so you can show off.

Thanks for making awesome stuff folks, keep it up!

Remember folks, all hackerspaces can get reseller pricing at Adafruit – just contact us and we’ll set you up!

Adafruit’s inventory, shipping and production systems are moving to touch based interfaces. For many device types we have at least one of each for all the testing we need to for our products like the Mintyboost, because of this we have been testing some new web applications we are developing for touch screen devices to increase our efficiency and make things easier for our staff. Here’s Tom, he’s entering in the specific locations easily with an iPad of some of our products.

When an invoice prints out, it not only has the item, photo and unique ID, it has the specific location in the Adafruit factory. We’ll be experimenting with QR codes and RFID later but some of the recent improvements lets us ship 10 to 15% faster, and we usually ship same day for many orders now. The new improvements helped us grow from 200 items to over 600 items in a matter of months, at the current rate we’ll have over 2,000 items by the end of 2012, but that’s just a projection – we only like to stock things that has the Ladyada seal of approval (she has tested them), that are best quality and have value for our customers.

Ikea moves to cardboard pallets via BB…

For five decades, wood has reigned as the material of choice for the humble shipping pallet, used for moving everything from Wheaties to washing machines. Now, Swedish retailer Ikea is replacing wooden pallets with a paper variant that’s lighter, thinner, and—the company says—cheaper to use. “We don’t know if the paper pallet will be the ultimate solution, but it’s better than wood,” says Jeanette Skjelmose, sustainability chief at Ikea’s supply-chain unit.

Ikea, which uses 10 million pallets to ship goods from suppliers to its 287 stores in 26 countries, will ditch wood worldwide by January, cutting transport costs by 10 percent. The new corrugated cardboard design can support loads of 750 kilograms (1,650 pounds), the same as timber, Skjelmose says. At two inches high, the paper pallets are one-third the height of wooden ones, and they’re 90 percent lighter, at 5.5 pounds. The svelte profile means Ikea can cram more goods into each shipment. The pallets, assembled onsite by most of Ikea’s 1,200 global suppliers, will be used only once before being recycled.

The best invoice terms to get you paid faster.

Recently, we looked at our data to see if we could extract some insights that might really help FreshBooks customers get paid faster. Our question: how does the wording of the “terms” section of an invoice impact the number of days it takes you to get paid and the percent of invoices you actually collect on.

In the graph above we’ve mapped two key things gleaned from the data of our paying FreshBooks users. In the bar graph, we’ve looked at how long it takes to get paid based on various wordings used in the Terms field on an invoice (e.g. “Please pay within 21 days” or “Payment terms: net 30. Interest accrued at 1.5% per month thereafter”). On this chart of days to pay vs. terms used, the shorter the bar, the better.

The second thing we’ve charted is the percentage of invoices actually paid vs. terms used (the data points in the top section of the graph). On this scale, higher is better. Another way of thinking about this is: the wider the gap between the bar and the data point above it, the better the wording (in general, although there are a handful of exceptions).

Interesting for the kit makers/sellers out there to consider!

The Limits of Blindness on Choice – Sheena Iyengar @ Big Think via DF.

About 60% of the people stopped when we had 24 jams on display, and then at the times when we had 6 different flavors of jam out on display only 40% of the people actually stopped, so more people were clearly attracted to the larger varieties of options, but then when it came down to buying, so the second thing we looked at is in what case were people more likely to buy a jar of jam.

What we found was that of the people who stopped when there were 24 different flavors of jam out on display only 3% of them actually bought a jar of jam, whereas of the people who stopped when there were 6 different flavors of jam 30% of them actually bought a jar of jam. So, if you do the math, people were actually 6 times more likely to buy a jar of jam if they had encountered 6 than if they encountered 24, so what we learned from this study was that while people were more attracted to having more options, that’s what sort of got them in the door or got them to think about jam, when it came to choosing time they were actually less likely to make a choice if they had more to choose from than if they had fewer to choose from.

We try really hard to only have the best of a product, or item, or only specific tiers that are not confusing. With electronics you can stock everything, but a lot of it isn’t that useful or good. It’s something we think about a lot for every product at Adafruit. During our weekly LIVE video chats, one of the most popular segments is when we talk about why designed something in certain way or why we selected a specific product to stock.

Postal Service delays closings until May 15 – Dec. 13, 2011.

The U.S. Postal Service has agreed to hold off on closing any more post offices or mail facilities until May 15, 2012, to allow Congress time to work on a plan to save the service.

The U.S. Postal Service agreed to voluntarily enact a moratorium on closures, after a series of talks with senators, lawmakers said. Sen. Richard Durbin said the postal service agreed to the deal, and he called it a challenge to Congress to “put up or shut up.”

Fun label automation from .:oomlout:. – “Annoyed with manual label application, we’ve decided to go semi automatic ( ) #oneStepCloserToWorldDomination”

Gingerbread Geodesic Dome Kit…

Build your own gingerbread geodesic house with our dome template and easy to follow instructions including recipes for gingerbread and icing. Template is laser cut and scored for easy assembly. It’s fun. It’s festive.

The SR Gingerbread Geodesic Dome Kit makes a dome home of approximately 9″ in diameter and 6″ tall.

Kit includes: geodesic dome, templates for gingerbread pieces, base, recipes for gingerbread and icing, and instructions for assembly.

Fun and tasty!

Medik!

José Gomez-Marquez, who heads the Innovations in International Health program at MIT, calls the MEDIK a “medical Erector set.” The kit, designed for doctors trying to treat people in places where electricity and other basic services are unavailable, contains dozens of parts that can be combined into hundreds of devices, including a cauterizing pen powered by a solar cell and a nebulizer (for inhalation therapy) that fits a bike pump.

More!

MAKE’s “Ultimate Guide to Kits” is out and it’s one of the best things they have ever created for tinkerers, makers and hackers. To promote it and their new Kit Reviews site, they’re running a “Kit-A-Day” giveaway that includes thousands of dollars in Maker Shed merchandise between now (last Friday, actually) and Xmas. Included are 5 Makerbots– 1 was already given away, but 4 are left. The guide has the biggest selection of open-source hardware in one place!