via mars.jpl.nasa.gov

Wow, now that's a robot.

via kits.makezine.com

Kits, kits and more kits. Find one you like and build it. There is no better time than now to get started.

from The Cyberiad

One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could create anything starting with n. When it was ready, he tried it out, ordering it to make needles, then nankeens and negligees, which it did, then nail the lot to narghiles filled with nepenthe and numerous other narcotics. The machine carried out his instructions to the letter. Still not completely sure of its ability, he had it produce, one after the other, nimbuses, noodles, nuclei, neutrons, naphtha, noses, nymphs, naiads, and natrium. 'This last it could not do, and Trurl, considerably irritated, demanded an explanation.

"Never heard of it," said the machine.  

"What? But it's only sodium. You know, the metal, the element..."

"Sodium starts with an s, and I work only in n."

"But in Latin it's natrium."

"Look, old boy," said the machine, "if I could do everything starting with n in every possible language, I'd be a Machine That Could Do Everything in the Whole Alphabet, since any item you care to mention undoubtedly starts with n in one foreign language or another. It's not that easy. I can't go beyond what you programmed. So no sodium."

via english.lem.pl

An author worth reading.

via eevblog.com

Great introduction to the tools and techniques required to make a good solder connection.

via instructables.com

Way cool.

via plumenshopus.com

A light we can all love.

via nytimes.com

Our kids can no longer expect to work for a large corporation when they grow up. All of the benefits that used to be there are quickly disappearing. We need to be teaching our kids how to be Entrepreneurs.

via componentsengineering.com

via mightyohm.com

Now that's a comic book I really like.

Arduino \@radioshack – the official post from Radioshack congrats \@arduinoteam

The Shack® Blog – We Listened: Arduino Is Coming via DP.

A few months ago, we reached out to our community and asked what DIY parts and pieces you wished you could find at your local RadioShack store. We were overwhelmed with the response, and promised to bring in a top list of suggestions from you – including Arduino.

Today, we’re pleased to be able to tell you that the first batch of Arduino boards and shields have left the RadioShack distribution centers en route to our thousands of local stores. Now you can easily find a RadioShack store and get the parts you need to finish that awesome project, instead of having to order it online and wait.

We won’t just be carrying a single board, either – no way! Below is the full list of boards and shields that you can expect to find:

Microcontrollers:

• Arduino Uno REV 3 (2760128): This is the latest revision of the basic Arduino USB board. It connects to the computer with a standard USB cable and contains everything else you need to program and use the board. It can be extended with a variety of shields: custom daughter-boards with specific features.
• Arduino Mega 2560 REV3 (2760127): The version of the Mega released with the Uno, this version features the Atmega2560, which has twice the memory.
• Arduino Mega ADK (2760129): Based on the Mega 2560, this version has a USB host interface to connect with Android based phones.

Shields:

• Arduino Ethernet Shield Without PoE Module (2760130): The Arduino Ethernet Shield allows an Arduino board to connect to the internet.
• Arduino Motor Shield (2760131): This shield allows an Arduino board to control DC motors and read encoders.
• Arduino SD Shield (2760132): The SD Card Shield v2.1 for Arduino is a break out board for a standard SD Card. Now you can add mass storage and data logging to your project!
• Arduino Proto Shield (2760140): The Proto Shield Kit allows you to move your projects from a breadboard to an Arduino-compatible PCB. Included are a number of common components.

We also have a large assortment of Parallax boards and shields, as well as an awesome selection of other DIY parts, pieces, and tools. You probably already know where the closest RadioShack store is, but if not, you can use our handy RadioShack Store Locator.

Now that Arduino boards and shields are available at your local RadioShack store, what will YOU build with them? Check out the awesome projects that have been shared at the Great Create or share your own project.

Filed under: announce,arduino,open source hardware — by adafruit, posted November 6, 2011 at 8:31 am

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via adafruit.com

Now this is the Radio Shack I remember from the late 80's. Hope this works for them. Go out and buy something. You owe it to yourself to make something today!

via legoeducation.us

via mysanantonio.com

This is what it is all about. Letting the kids experience learning first hand that does not include sitting at a desk and being lectured.

via makezine.com

Photo: Randi Silberman Klett

The Arduino core team [from left]—David Cuartielles, Gianluca Martino, Tom Igoe, David Mellis, and Massimo Banzi—get together at Maker Faire in New York City.

The picturesque town of Ivrea, which straddles the blue-green Dora Baltea River in northern Italy, is famous for its underdog kings. In 1002, King Arduin became the ruler of the country, only to be dethroned by King Henry II, of Germany, two years later. Today, the Bar di Re Arduino, a pub on a cobblestoned street in town, honors his memory, and that’s where an unlikely new king was born.

The bar is the watering hole of Massimo Banzi, the Italian cofounder of the electronics project that he named Arduino in honor of the place. Arduino is a low-cost microcontroller board that lets even a novice do really amazing things. You can connect an Arduino to all kinds of sensors, lights, motors, and other devices and use easy-to-learn software to program how your creation will behave. You can build an interactive display or a mobile robot and then share your design with the world by posting it on the Net.

Released in 2005 as a modest tool for Banzi’s students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII), Arduino has spawned an international do-it-yourself revolution in electronics. You can buy an Arduino board for just about US \$30 or build your own from scratch: All hardware schematics and source code are available for free under public licenses. As a result, Arduino has become the most influential open-source hardware movement of its time.

The little board is now the go-to gear for artists, hobbyists, students, and anyone with a gadgetry dream. More than 250 000 Arduino boards have been sold around the world—and that doesn’t include the reams of clones. "It made it possible for people do things they wouldn’t have done otherwise," says David A. Mellis, who was a student at IDII before pursuing graduate work at the MIT Media Lab and is the lead software developer of Arduino.

There are Arduino-based breathalyzers, LED cubes, home-automation systems, Twitter displays, and even DNA analysis kits. There are Arduino parties and Arduino clubs. Google has recently released an Arduino-based development kit for its Android smartphone. As Dale Dougherty, the editor and publisher of Make magazine, the bible of DIY builders, puts it, Arduino has become "the brains of maker projects."

But Arduino isn’t just an open-source project that aims to make technology more accessible. It’s also a start-up company run by Banzi and a group of friends, and it’s facing a challenge that even their magic board can’t solve: how to survive success and grow. "We need to make the next jump," Banzi tells me, "and become an established company."

Arduino rose out of another formidable challenge: how to teach students to create electronics, fast. It was 2002, and Banzi, a bearded and avuncular software architect, had been brought on by IDII as an associate professor to promote new ways of doing interactive design—a nascent field sometimes known as physical computing. But with a shrinking budget and limited class time, his options for tools were few.

Like many of his colleagues, Banzi relied on the BASIC Stamp, a microcontroller created by California company Parallax that engineers had been using for about a decade. Coded with the BASIC programming language, the Stamp was like a tidy little circuit board, packing the essentials of a power supply, a microcontroller, memory, and input/output ports for attaching hardware. But the BASIC Stamp had two problems, Banzi discovered: It didn’t have enough computing power for some of the projects his students had in mind, and it was also a bit too expensive—a board plus basic parts could cost about US \$100. He also needed something that could run on Macintosh computers, which were ubiquitous among the IDII designers. What if they could make a board that suited their needs themselves?

Banzi had a colleague from MIT who had developed a designer-friendly programming language called Processing. Processing was rapidly gaining popularity because it allowed even inexperienced programmers to create complex—and beautiful—data visualizations. One of the reasons for its success was an extremely easy-to-use integrated development environment, or IDE. Banzi wondered if they could create similar software tools to code a microcontroller instead of graphics on a screen.

A student in the program, Hernando Barragán, took the first steps in that direction. He developed a prototyping platform called Wiring, which included both a user-friendly IDE and a ready-to-use circuit board. It was a promising project that continues to this day, but Banzi was already thinking bigger: He wanted to make a platform that was even simpler, cheaper, and easier to use.

via spectrum.ieee.org

via vimeo.com

Video archive for Ask An Engineer

via adafruit.com

via singularityhub.com

Wow.

via adafruit.com

Nice calculator. Should keep this around just in case...

via adafruit.com

Now that is cool.

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via youtube.com

Good introduction video on using a breadboard for your electronic experiments.

via adafruit.com

This looks so cool. It is just very pricy. Not sure I could afford this for the kids I'm working with.

via panavise.com

My favorite product of the day. My new PanaVise PV Jr. It is perfect for holding circuit boars while soldering. Just received two from Amazon.

via robotshop.com

Here is the one to get for the Boy Scouts Robotics Merit Badge.

via brookstone.com

I love the idea of controlling robots with cell phones. This just seems very cool. I would like to build a robot with an iPhone or iPod touch as its micro controller.

via boyslife.org

All the details you need to get started on the Boy Scouts Robotics merit badge. I hope to get all the kits and documentation ready and have a scout day at the house.